Welsh Journals

14 THE WELSH WEEKLY. April 15, 1892* "ONE [HUNDRED GUINEAS REWARD." A STORY IN TWO CHAPTERS. By a Congregational Minister. CHAPTER I. It was a cold, squally, showery evening, and the ill-kept streets of London were all puddles and mud. Yet quite a great crowd had gathered around the en¬ trance of a grand old mansion near St. James's Park, animated by the common spirit of rejoicing which just then made all England kin. For a splendid banquet was going on within, in honour of the return of the great Duke of Wellington from his victorious Waterloo campaign. The driving raindrops glistened in the rays of festive light which poured themselves unstintingly out from every opening, and which aided the bold strains of patriotic music in keeping alive the high spirits the weather was doing its worst to drown. Carriage after carriage was depositing its freight of great lords and ladies upon the thickly-carpeted pavement; and cheer after cheer greeted the continual arrivals of bowing generals and statesmen, whose names were veritably household words. The bright and ever-changing picture made up of their rich dresses and brilliant uniforms found a fit setting in the crowd, which represented all classes and conditions of moteley London. The military element, of course, was strong. White-headed Chelsea pen¬ sioners leaned upon the arms of stalwart recruits of the Guards, and there was a lamentably plentiful sprinkling of men in whom, by reason of their crutches and arms in slings, the recruit and the veteran seemed to be strangely blended. Sturdy countrymen were there and moustachioed foreigners. Women, too, widowed in their girlhood, yet with their reddened eyes able to kindle with enthusiasm at the glory their own sad sacrifice had served to win. Even little children were there, some of them, too, in the prevail¬ ing line of mourning, held high above the sea of eager faces and dripping umbrellas. But others were quite untended ; their tattered coverings, mostly all too slight for the inclemency of the evening; and it seemed as if only a constant succession of kindly miracles preserved them from being crushed to death in the frequent surges of the multitude to and fro. There was one sharp-looking little chap in particular, who, by dint of constant clever dodging, managed to keep himself a front place all through, close to one of the massive stone pillars of the portico. As the warm light fell upon him it brought out so many sharp contrasts in his appearance, that he seemed a creature of contradictions, and not conveying any one general impression, except, perhaps, that of complete fearless¬ ness and self-possession. His clothing was tattered, and splashed with mud, but his fair face and long, dark, wavy hair, were drenched quite clean by the falling rain. He looked pale and thin, and there was a set expression upon his clear cut features that was far beyond his years. Yet there was a merry and hopeful twinkle in his large and flashing black eyes that betokened plenty of boyish resource. He wore an old blue cavalry surtout, with dreadfully faded and tarnished remains of gold lace devices here and there left upon it. It almost dragged upon the ground ; but that was all for the best, as his feet were quite shoeless and bare. All at once his busy eyes seemed to detect some¬ thing of unusual interest going on. He noticed persons moving anxiously about the great entrance hall and staircase with their eyes upon the floor, and whispered questionings rapidly exchanged amongst the liveried attendants who guarded the doorway. Then he heard excited orders shouted out to the drivers of one of the largest coaches to stop, and he saw two men run and eagerly overhaul its interior, but return without any apparent result. Just as all this had wrought his own excitement and curiosity up to an unbearable pitch, he heard the hoarse voice of one of the doorkeepers calling out some public notice quite close to his ear. There was at once a noisy ru3h of people made towards the steps, followed by as sudden a hush, and the boy gathered that a foreign queen had just lost three very costly diamonds from her State headdress, and that a reward of a hundred guineas was offered to whoever might recover them. The panic produced by this tempting announce¬ ment was something indescribable. Old and young tried to scramble on the ground to the peril of their limbs and lives. The shrieks of women andchildren, the plunging of horses, the shouts of the drivers, the cracking of whips, and the tugging at reins was appalling to see and hear. The wisest strove to wriggle themselves out of the deadly crush. But this was by no means the first scene of confusion and terror out of which our young friend had come un¬ scathed, so he kept a cool head, and his hopes of some good luck grew stronger and stronger as he saw the stupid and hap-hazard nature of the efforts made by other people. He had already noticed that the gutter immediately beneath where the guests were alighting, was full of half-liquid mud, and into this he now felt sure that the diamonds had fallen, especially as he remem¬ bered that a little while before, one especially tall and grand-looking lady had been in great danger of falling from her carriage, owing to the restive horses having suddenly jerked it to some distance from the pave¬ ment, just as she was stepping out of it. So he took the first opportunity of standing in this puddle, and feeling about in it with his naked toes, but so as not to attract any notice. Just as he thought he had trodden upon something hard and pointed, he was obliged to spring out of the way of a fresh carriage. This was his opportunity. Feigning to be knocked down by it, he crept under it from the outward side, and quickly scooped up a quantity of the mud and slush from the suspected spot, into the ample bosom of his coat. Then rising up very gently, he slipped quietly away. He walked along at a slow, careless, pace for a little distance, and then started off running as fast as it was possible for him to do, seeing that he had to hold his torn old coat carefully round;him with bothhands to keep the mud he had gathered up from dropping out of it. In spite of the bad weather, there were too many people in the streets for him to have any opportunity of looking to see if the diamonds were there. So he had to make the best of his way home, and run the risk of having them snatched from him, even if he had got them ; and of thus spoiling the scheme which he had in his head for the best disposal of the hundred guineas reward. The boy's father was the ne'er-do-well son of an aged Welsh minister who lived in Carmarthenshire, and he had run away from home many years before to follow General Picton to the war against Bonaparte, or " Bonny " as the Welsh people called him. But he himself had a much worse personal enemy than the Corsican, in his own love for conviviality and drinking. He made a smart-looking young soldier, however, and being a general favourite on account of his pluck and good humour, and the capital songs he could sing, he had more than once gained sergeant's stripes, but only to lose them rapidly again. His mother also had received what was considered a good education in those days, having been the daughter of the thriving farmer and inn-keeper combined, at whose house the mail coaches between London and Milford used to change horses. She was buxom and pretty enough when they were married ; and they were reckoned rather a handsome couple; but to her vivacity and warmth of temperament, she coupled an easiness of disposition which en¬ couraged rather than checked her husband's chief fault. All the romance soon faded out of her life, and her buoying sense of pride went along with it, till, at length, she learned to carouse with her hus¬ band and his comrades and their wives, without the least compunction. Still, there was so much respect felt for them both, that when his time had expired in the service, they were given a comfortable joint appointment in the household of the retired Colonel of their regiment. Before long they lost that; then they kept a small beer shop for a while, and, after having to give up that, they had drifted from bad to worse, till he could now only earn a precarious living by assisting about inns and stable yards ; and she had to spend many a weary hour at her washing tub. Their poor lad had never relished the degrading influences which now surrounded him within doors and without. He saw that they shut him out of all chances of such regular and decent employment as could alone afford him an upward road out of it all. The painful lot, too, of his only surviving and younger brother weighed very heavily upon his heart. Though a beautiful boy, and of a lovable disposition, he bade fair to be a hopeless cripple in his legs and feet, owing to a fall from his mother's arms when quite a baby. The prospect of his dear little brother becoming a confirmed street beggar was too much for the pride and affection which deep poverty had been powerless to stifle in his bosom. So he now made up his mind that if he found the diamonds, instead of taking the money offered for them he would ask to have it spent in sending him to school, and that he should be afterwards put into a situation in which he could be of some real help to his family in years to come. The street in which they lived was in one of the worst slums of Westminster. Bad as the weather was that evening, the wretched people seemed to find more enjoyment out of doors than in, judging from the numbers that stood about the dilapidated doorways or leaned out of the open windows of the upper storeys in a listless, mechanical sort of way, apparently not speaking to or heeding one another very much, except where street quarrels were going on. The many poor little children who played about the roadway and gutters looked as if the hard agencies of vice and neglect had been successful in solving the proverbially impossible problem of growing old heads upon young shoulders. Haifa dozen haggard creatures, more like fallen spirits than women, had staggered hand in hand out of the thronged gin-shop at the corner, and were dancing and singing, or rather howling, along the street with the most joyless gestures imaginable and utterly expressionless faces, those unable to keep on their feet being trailed along the ground by the rest. Yet such a sight attracted no notice from anyone there, as though it were the most commonplace thing in the world. The boy made his way rapidly to a tumble-down- looking house at the further end of the street, and up its rickety and broken stairway into the low and almost bare, back attic which he called, by courtesy, his home. His mother was within, having been hard at work from an early hour at the washing-tub, which always stpod by the window. She was now sitting dozing, with her head resting upon her arms on a little round table, on which stood an empty spirit bottle. His younger brother sat on the floor resting his weary little head and shoulders) against her scanty skirts. He was glad to hear by their heavy breathing that they were both sound asleep. But there was no light in the room beyond that of the fast dying fire that had been lit in order to dry a number of articles which were hung on clothes lines stretched across the room overhead. So he thrust into it a dry stick or two that were lying beside it, and quietly puffed up a tiny blaze. Then cautiously laying his coat upon the floor he began raking his fingers through the mud he had scraped into it. There were plenty of little hard lumps among it, but nothing that looked or felt at all like a diamond. Disappointed and vexed he at last gave up the search, and began thinking about how he could clear away the dirty mess he had made. But as he pressed the palm of his hand upon the floor in springing up he felt some¬ thing hard sticking into it, like a hard, rough, little stone. It held on to his hand, and wiping it care¬ lessly against his sleeve he fancied he saw it give out faint sparkles in the firelight as it dropped down and rolled away from him along the bare and chinky floor. He darted after it like a cat, and snatched it up again, and as he turned it rapidly about, found there was no mistake at all about its beautiful sparkling. This made him search again for the others with renewed hope and vigour, and very soon another, and then another, three of them ! and no more ! and all alike ! rewarded the clever way in which he had gone to work. (To be continued.) GETTING AND GIYING. Life is not a getting. In no sense is the gratification of selfishness its end. Could we rest in the mere accumula¬ tion of earthly things there would be no plainer proof that we were brutes. In the unrest and dissatisfaction which we feel amid these pursuits we have got the mark of our superiority. Man is a spirit. He holds of God. He has a free personality, whose function and glory it is to give, and which in giving and service reaches its true perfection. Not possession, then, nor any earthly prize is earth's true good. Whatever can urge and goad, and even sting and wound this personality into more abounding life is the true good. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him. But to him who seeks this, all life, the enjoyment of pleasure, the pursuit of business, the amassing and using of wealth —the very things which selfi-hness constitutes its goal, are part of our discipline, the lower shadowing forth by hint and suggestion the batter and nobler life.—Ret. John Smith, Broughion Place United Presbyterian Church Edinburgh. GEMS FROM THE YERY REY. DEAN YAUGHAN. (Master of the Temple.) A name named in the Bible has an immortaUty of good or evil. This is the only book in the world which has the more than royal prerogative of ennobling and attainting. Gallio wa3 a Eoman of gentler than Boman type. His brother, the great Seneca, speaks of the wonderful charm of his character. Gallio's friends loved him for the sweetness which in God's sight is feebleness; and Gallio, the well-beloved, exposed to the sunlight of Bible photo¬ graphy, becomes to the Church of all time Gallio the in¬ different. It is not necessary that we should be earnest about everything. One age is s?ldom a fair judge of another, whether "age" bs understood as "generation of men" or as " period of life." It is the tendency of this day to precipitate manhood. Amusements which would have lasted us a lifetime are drained, are exhausted, in childhood. Nothing so much impresses the wordly as a true in¬ difference to the world. A man Cannot any more live two lives than he can serve two masters. The word wholesome occurs twice only in the English Bible. Nothing strikes us more in the Bible than its natural¬ ness. While we admire the grandeur of the words of Christ, we admire not les3 their marvellous self-control. Many a life has been drugged into uselessness by the specious resolution to go nowhere save into the society of the good, lest peradventure, instead of doing good, I re¬ ceive evil. Religion is a solid, not a superficies. Everything in religion is an evil, which brings self into prominence. Is there not within thee one proud aspiration to leave a foot-print behind thse for the encouragement of some erring, sinning, yet God-born spirit, in which thy life may kindle a life eternal ? We cannot compare, if we are the prions to be com¬ pared. Days should speak is the Scripture maxim ; precocity grown up is senility, is indifference, is apathy at once. Happiness may be selfish, unhappiness must be. The world is the power of the present. Religious Bits.