and the crowd swarmed forth, but all seemed instinctively directed to a group at a short distance, whose pallid faces reflected the ghastly sight before them. The group soon swelled to a vast crowd. Enquiries were made on every hand by those in the outer circle—"What is it? what is it?" "Frozen to death." Tenderly those rough handed, rough-spoken men raised the death-frozen little ones. Some there were who knew them and had heard of their loss. It was to them an easy task to account for their deaths, and curses low but deep were cast on them, at whose doors the blood of those innocents must lie.
The bodies were taken to the nearest inn to wait an inquest. Those in authority were quickly on the alert; whilst some who were acquainted with the parents prepared to carry them the sorrowful tidings.—Poor Bessy! thy cup of bitterness is nearly full!
Old Becca had come according to promise, and found Bessy laid partially upon the bed in a swoon, her arm around the neck of him who had been her faithful partner for a dozen years. She raised her, bathed her forehead, and used all means in her power to promote her recovery. After a short time she was successful; and having prepared the other bed and placed Bessy upon it, she hastily left to get some assistance.
The poor have but the poor on whom they can depend in an emergency; and it is a blessing that the request for help to each other is rarely if ever made in vain.
She soon returned with plenty of willing hands—one took the babe, and others remained to perform the last sad offices to the remains of him who had gone "a little while before." Soon the men arrived with the mournful account of the discovery of the children, but Bessy knew it not. God had had compassion upon her, and to save her heart from breaking, had thrown a cloud over her reason.
Silently they stood for a moment in that house of death; and as they turned to go, one after another placed what money each had, noiselessly upon the table: the whole perhaps did not amount to much, but who shall say that it was not a welcome loan to the Lord—an investment in heaven that should in after time yield to them an interest outweighing the wealth of the whole world?
As the day advanced, numbers gathered round the inn where the coroner and jury were assembled. The usual form of viewing the bodies was gone through; and, with the exception of the girl's ancle, which was found to be dislocated, there appeared nothing to account for death save exposure to the cold.
The coroner quickly summed up, and addressing the jury said—"he did not see how they could bring in any other verdict than 'died from natural causes.'" With one exception all acquiesced, and this one refused to agree to such a verdict, saying that death had been caused by unnatural causes! At last the verdict was altered to "Found frozen to death." To this a juryman wished to add something about arbitrary laws and inhumanity, but he was overruled.
It needed nothing now but to put them in the earth, and cover them up.
The following morning the whistles shrieked as fiercely, the wheels went round as merrily as ever; two other children were in the places of the lost ones, and it was as if they had never been.
The day for the funeral arrived—the father and children were to be interred together. There was a large gathering of sympathising friends. Poor Bessy! had partially recovered, but seemed like one just waking from a dream; the mournful cortege gained the church yard. The coffins were slowly lowered into the grave. The grey-haired pastor's voice was at times almost inaudible—every heart was touched, for all took the case home to themselves, and asked the question, "How if they were mine?" "Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes," and the ceremony was completed.
Few of them had failed to remark the presence of a strange mourner—one whose dress bespoke him to be a gentleman; and as the widow turned to leave the grave, he stept up to her and offered her his arm for support. She took it mechanically, and wended her way to her desolate home. He was the only one, with the exception of Old Becca, who entered with Bessy.
He looked around the forlorn room, gazing now here, now there, to hide his emotion. He seemed about to speak when a knock at the door interrupted him.
Becca opened it, and returned with a letter stating that the bearer required an answer. The stranger took it with an air of authority and broke the seal; as he did so, a five pound note fluttered to the ground. While he read the letter his eyes flashed with a strange fire, and his quivering nostril showed the strength of the passion raging within.
Turning to the boy, he thrust the letter into his hand, and bade him pick up the note. "Take this answer to your master, boy," he said; "we return the letter and his money with disdain, and tell him that Bessy Green is not so desolate and friendless that she needs accept five pounds as the price of two innocent lives. The debt is one that no man can cancel: but the reckoning day is sure to come! tell him that, boy, from the brother of Bessy Green, from the uncle of Tom and Susy."
The boy hurried away with the message; and Bessy, who had been aroused by the stranger's vehemence, at the word "brother," threw herself upon his neck, crying—"It is George!" What follows is quickly told: Bessy's grief was deep, and it took long long months before she was fitted to engage in the ordinary occupations of life; but change of scene and cheerful company, together with the daily expanding beauties of her only child, partially healed her lacerated heart. Her generous brother, who had returned from a distant land—where fortune had smiled upon his labours—took her to live with him, and adopted her child as his son. Becca and Abe became also installed in the house as helpers; and now, far away from the regions of factory whews, they are all living amicably together.
"That is my story for this; Christmas. How do you like it?"
It is very sorrowful, uncle John, but we are much obliged to you for telling it us, but it is surely wrong for children so young to be compelled to go to work at such an early hour?
"It may not be wrong to require them so to do, but it would at least show a desire on the part of the employers to ameliorate the hardness of their lot if, while endeavouring to enforce strict punctuality, they would provide some shelter for those who, having come from a distance, fail to arrive in time for admission."
"Hark, the village Waits!"
Pill Jim's Progress Wi' Johns Bunion.
It wor a varry wild day when John set off to see Pill Jim, as he wor called, but as it wor varry particklar business, he didn't let th' weather stop him.
Nah, Pill Jim wor a varry nooated chap i' some pairts o' Yorkshire. He wor an old chap, an' lived in a little haase to hissen, an' gate a livin' wi' quack-docterin' a bit; an' whativer anybody ailed, he'd some pills at wor sure to cure 'em; soa, as John had been sufferin' a long' time, he thought he'd goa an' have a bit o' tawk wi' him, an' see if he could get any gooid done.
It chonced, as luck let, at Jim wor at hooam, an' he invited him in, but as he'd nobbut one cheer, John had to sit o'th' edge o'th' long table.
"Well, John," he sed, "an' what's browt thee here this mornin'?"
"Nay, nowt 'at means mich, Jim; but aw've heeard a gooid deal o' tawk abaght thy pills, an' aw thowt they'd happen do me a bit o' gooid; but aw wanted to have a bit o' tawk to thee th' first abaght it, for tha knows one sooart o' physic doesn't do for iverybody."
"Tha'rt just mistakken abaght that, John, for my pills cure owt; they're oppenin' pills, an' although aw'm a chap 'at doesn't like to crack abaght misen, aw con just tell thee a thing or two 'at'll mak thee stare."
"Well,
