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 DAVID AEMSTEONG
 
 DAVID^AEMSTRONG 
 
 OR 
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXX 
 
 .4/; RigJits reserved
 
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 x3 Breakfast-time at Heslop's sliipbuilding- 
 "^ yard. A knot of carpenters gathered round 
 -^' a fire in one of the sheds to warm their 
 ^ cans of coffee, and enjoy the glow of the 
 ^ red cinders. All their talk ran on the pro- 
 longed strike which had just terminated in 
 their favour. 
 
 The victory had elated, almost intoxi- 
 
 ^ Gated, them ; for in those days they were 
 
 ^not, as now, accustomed to triumph over 
 
 ^their employers. Careless and light-hearted, 
 
 ^ they forgot all the distress and privation of 
 
 ^ VOL. I. A
 
 2 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 the three past months ; or remembered, only 
 to boast of the plucky way they had stood 
 out in the face of debt and starvation. 
 
 Glances were now and then thrown to 
 where, apart from them, a young man sat 
 motionless, his head resting on his hands. 
 His face, which he kept bent to the ground, 
 was both unhappy and sullen. 
 " '' You seem awfully down in the mouth 
 this morning, Davie, my lad," said a man 
 known as Dandy Jim, touching the young 
 fellow on the shoulder. '^ It's the old story 
 o' merry nights and sad mornings, Fm 
 thinkin'." 
 
 '^You are not far wrong,"* answered 
 David, shortly. 
 
 " A text for a teatotal lectur', mates ! " 
 cried a small and meagre man, striking an 
 attitude. "Behold, my friends, the sad 
 effects of intemperance on this our brother ! 
 Fresh and unsophisticated and vigorous, he 
 came to this den of iniquity ; look at him
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 3 
 
 now, and weep at the contrast. The shak- 
 ing hand and attenuated frame too fully 
 show the curse of the drink-demon whose 
 victims are numerous as the sands of the 
 sea, whose " 
 
 *' Shut up, Billy. Ye are worse than Paul 
 Watson himself for palaverin'," shouted 
 Dandy Jim, while the others laughed at 
 Billy's fancy sketch ; for David Armstrong, 
 though only nineteen, was not only the 
 biggest but the strongest fellow in the yard. 
 
 Just then an undersized, ill -fed -looking 
 man timidly approached, shivering in the 
 damp November fog.' 
 
 Billy, whose chaff was feeble and impo- 
 tent to rouse David to any show of anger, 
 tried his hand on the new-comer. 
 
 '^ Have they given ye the gaffer's place 
 yet, Watson ? " he asked, ironically. "That's 
 what he kept in with the masters for/' he 
 added with spiteful emphasis, turning to Jim. 
 
 "He's made little out of that move/'
 
 4 BEFORE THE DAWX. 
 
 returned the other half scornfully, and yet 
 with a certain contemptuous pity. 
 
 A good deal of joking more or less ill- 
 natured followed, but Dandy Jim, looking 
 at Watson's pinched face, could not find in 
 his heart to join it. 
 
 Paul Watson seemed painfully conscious 
 of the hostile nature of the atmosphere 
 reund him. He winced visibly as the 
 sneering speeches fell on his ear, but made 
 no sign of anger. 
 
 More effect was produced on the young 
 man Armstrong, than by the chaff which 
 had fallen on himself ; the blood mounted 
 to his dark cheek, and his heavy eyebrows 
 contracted. He did not speak, however, 
 but on Watson coming up, he moved a 
 little, making room on the pile of deals 
 which formed his seat, and taking a paper 
 of tobacco out of his pocket, pushed it 
 towards his friend. Watson shook his 
 head.
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 5 
 
 " I dinna care for it, lad. I hadn't even 
 the heart to eat my breakfast this morning." 
 
 " No more had I," returned David, with 
 a short bitter laugh ; then his tone softened 
 as he added, " but your reason's a better one 
 than mine, I know." 
 
 " Ay, it's just the old, old trouble, — but 
 it must have an end soon, I'm feared, and 
 that's the worst to bide. But, Davie, about 
 yourself. I thought ye'd promised me to 
 give up the drink ? " 
 
 " Now, Watson, don't begin upon that 
 again, specially now when I'm not in a fit 
 state to stand your lecturin'. Don't, or I 
 might say something neither you nor me 
 would be the better on, old man. I've 
 got a splitting head, and am not quite 
 certain of myself, so you mustn't mind 
 me being a bit short wi' you." 
 
 Even under David Armstrong's protec- 
 tion poor Watson was not fated to escape 
 from his tormentors.
 
 b BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 " How does he manage to get on the right 
 side of big Davie ? " was the next query. 
 
 *' What's that to you, damn you ? Just 
 you let him and me alone, or it'll be the 
 worse for you/' growled the young giant. 
 
 His advice did not suit the men, however. 
 Safe in the strength of numbers, they fan- 
 cied it would be fun to provoke David, a 
 thing any one of them would have shunned 
 single-handed. 
 
 They had some show of reason for their 
 persecution of Watson. He was considered 
 a traitor to his class for having harangued 
 them against the strike. If they had been 
 defeated, the case might have been dif- 
 ferent. Besides this, he had committed 
 a worse crime in their eyes, inasmuch as 
 he had accepted work at the old terms 
 before the strike ended. 
 
 Many a coarse brutal joke was made at 
 his expense ; and more than once his friend 
 Davie would have mven them taunt for
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 7 
 
 taunt, had not Watson himself put a re- 
 straining hand upon his arm and begged 
 him to keep quiet. At last, however, the 
 word coward was linked to Paul's name. 
 This was too much for the young fellow's 
 equanimity. 
 
 *^ Who said that ? " he cried, starting to 
 his feet, and glaring fiercely around. No 
 answer came, for the lad looked formidable 
 as he. stood there, his dark eyes flashing 
 with righteous indignation, and his big 
 chest visibly heaving. '* Who called Paul 
 Watson coward 1 " he asked again, even 
 more savagely. '^ Let whoever said it 
 show himself man enough to stand to his 
 word — if he isn't one himself — and we'll 
 settle whether that's true or not." 
 
 Beyond a sullen undistinguishable mur- 
 mur no answer came. 
 
 " Stand up man, and let them see ye can 
 look any on them in the face ;" and David, 
 not too gently, forced his friend to rise and
 
 8 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 stand beside him. " Fling the word back in 
 their teeth, or, by God, you'll force me to 
 fight you as well as them ! " 
 
 The older man looked calmly and sadly 
 into David's eyes, instead of facing the men, 
 then shook his head. 
 
 " AVhen a man comes from such a scene 
 as I left at home this morn', Davie, he cares 
 SO- little what folks say of him, good or bad, 
 that he doesn't think it worth while to 
 come to blows on the head on't. Poverty, 
 hunger, and death are foes worth fighting 
 with indeed, only one has never a chance 
 to win — never a chance ! " 
 
 Without another word Watson walked 
 slowly and dejectedly towards the other 
 side of the yard where his work lay. 
 Perhaps he hoped to hammer out the sor- 
 row which lay heavy at his heart. 
 
 But David Armstrong cared too much 
 for his comrade to let the matter rest so 
 easily. His blood was fairly up, and again
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 9 
 
 he offered to stand his ground to any who 
 would still impugn the absent Watson's 
 manhood. But the others had cooled down 
 by this time, and Dandy Jim, with a tre- 
 mendous blow on the shoulder, said that 
 nobody thought any the worse of Davie 
 for standing up for such a weakly chap, 
 but it was only for fear he should get any 
 
 harm from and here Jim paused, not 
 
 wishing to provoke further wrath. 
 
 '* Harm ! Me get harm from Paul "Wat- 
 son, one of the best men that was ever 
 born into this wicked world ! It would be 
 all the other way, I reckon. Ill tell you 
 why I think so much on him, though 
 it's not to my credit," said the lad, im- 
 petuously. '' Listen all of you, and you'll 
 see what fools ye are to speak of a better 
 man than any of us'll ever be, so slight- 
 ingly. You all mind what a greenhorn 
 I was when I came here first, a couple of 
 years ago ? I w^as fresh from the country.
 
 10 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 and I know that I stood it very badly 
 when some on ye chaffed me about the 
 old home, and my mother, and my country 
 ways, and all that sort of thing." 
 
 "Ye see we didn't know what a good 
 fellow you would turn out then," Jim put 
 in, apologetically." 
 
 " That's to say, how soon I would learn 
 to drink, and swear, and fight?" returned 
 David, bitterly. '' But what odds o' that ? 
 It didn't do me any harm, but just then 
 I couldn't bide it. Well, one da]^ I felt 
 so sick of the smoke, and the din, and 
 the strange faces, that a longing came over 
 me to get away some place by myself, like, 
 and try to fancy I was at home again. So 
 I crept down by the river yonder, and 
 thought how bonnie it must look away 
 west at Thorbridge, running clear and 
 sweet over the pebbles, with the bright 
 little trout leaping in the sun, and the 
 grass and the corn-fields alongside of it.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 11 
 
 while here it was black, and slimy, and 
 loathsome. Somebody came up then 
 and sneered at me for looking doleful — 
 he's at the other side of the world by 
 this time, and I don't bear malice, so 
 I won't mention no names — but I up in 
 a moment and at him. Ye know what 
 a devil I am when roused. My mother 
 used to say that when I flew into a pas- 
 sion God gave me into the hands of the 
 evil one — and I believe she wasn't far 
 wrong. It seemed as though nothing 
 short of murder would satisfy me. He 
 was a big fellow, and though taken com- 
 pletely by surprise, made a good tussle of 
 it ; but, unfortunately, we were near the 
 edge of the quay -wall, and one or other 
 — maybe both — would have been in the 
 water, just where it runs fastest and 
 deepest, if Watson hadn't dashed in be- 
 tween us, getting a blow or two himself, 
 of course, but never minding. We were
 
 12 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 both in a rage then, and threatened to 
 throw him over for interfering; and, by 
 God ! I believe if he'd faltered in the least 
 we would have done it. But he stood 
 his ground like a man, though his face 
 was a bit scared and white, and asked us 
 what we were fighting for ? We looked 
 at each other stupidly, for the question 
 sobered us, and we could not find an 
 answer. Well, the end of it was, we 
 both laughed over the trifle it had taken 
 to make us so savage, and shook hands, 
 and parted good friends enough. But 
 ever since then Paul Watson's stood by 
 me through thick and thin, though many 
 a sober respectable man like him would 
 have turned their backs upon such as me. 
 Whatever good I've learnt since I left 
 home — and that's little enough, I'm shamed 
 to say — I've got from him. And now you 
 want me to throw him over because he dare 
 not be out of work like the most on us."
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 13 
 
 " Well, well, he's maybe not so bad as 
 we take him for," remarked one of the 
 men, apparently making all the concession 
 of which he was capable. 
 
 "Any way, it's not fair to bother him 
 when he has so much trouble at home," 
 Jim added. " They say that wife of his 
 is sinking, poor thing ! " 
 
 '* Ay, so surely that it's a sin to wish her 
 better save in heaven. She's been wastin' 
 away for the last year ; but hunger and 
 misery — along with this cursed strike — 
 have finished the job. The doctor ordered 
 her port wine, and jelly, and strengthening 
 tilings; and how was poor Watson to get 
 them for her when they couldn t even fill 
 the bairns's empty mouths wi' bread ? He 
 would ha' worked night and day for it, — 
 can ye wonder he was glad enough of what 
 we could afford to refuse?" And David, 
 having said his say, went to his work more 
 contented.
 
 14 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 David Armstrong and his friend Watson 
 used generally to walk liome from work 
 together. It was a long way from Heslop's 
 to the part of Oldboro' where they lived, 
 and the road by the river-side was rather 
 lonely, except near to Blackgate. Here 
 the roughest portion of the queer, half-am- 
 phibious tribes — who get their living in 
 various doubtful ways from the craft lying 
 at the quay — were located. 
 
 Taken altogether, it was not exactly a 
 pleasant road for quiet people to travel ; 
 and the two men were glad enough of 
 each other's company in the dark nights, 
 when the Irish, who preponderate there, 
 were more than usually unruly.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 15 
 
 Is there a sadder sight than that of a 
 fine, once aristocratic quarter of an old 
 town, given over in its age to squalor 
 and misery ? At any rate, this part of 
 Oldboro' looked wretched to David, though 
 Watson — equally uncultivated, but more 
 of an artist at heart — could see beauty in 
 the quaint old houses, with their rich car- 
 vinofs, and overhanmnsf windows framed 
 and barred with wood ; though they might 
 be filled with dusty discoloured heaps of 
 second-hand clothes, or clumsy boots and 
 clogs. 
 
 There are bits of interiors to be seen that 
 would have delighted a Flemish painter, 
 in their quiet subdued tones and half-tints 
 of browns and greys ; and archways giving 
 peeps into streets narrow and ill -paved, 
 where two carts could not possibly pass one 
 another, and where the windows on either 
 side almost meet. Once, doubtless, gay 
 ladies and gallants trod those pavements, or
 
 16 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 leaned from tlie low casements now broken 
 and dishonoured by having dirty rags and 
 straw thrust in where the old green glass 
 has been shattered. Year after year, how- 
 ever, seems to obliterate these glimpses of 
 an older world. Commerce, dealing ex- 
 clusively with the present and the future, 
 treads out with iron feet all traces of a 
 kss utilitarian age. Even at the time we 
 speak of — more than twenty years ago — 
 huge blocks of new and ugly masonry, 
 warerooms and offices, cropped up here 
 and there, looking strange and incon- 
 gruous by the side of stately Queen Anne 
 mansions of red brick, and Elizabethan 
 ones of stone. Still more did they seem 
 out of keeping with the massive Border 
 castle which stood amongst them, stern, 
 and grey, and sad — like a veteran warrior 
 who has outlived the time of stormy con- 
 flict, and sighs as he looks down with con- 
 tempt on '*a peace that is full of wrongs
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 17 
 
 and shames — horrible, hateful, monstrous, 
 not to be told." 
 
 Not that either David or his friend 
 noticed these — to them — familiar objects. 
 
 Watson seemed to have grown more 
 hopeful, and now talked cheerily of what 
 he would be able to get for " the missus;" 
 the men — who never do anything by halves 
 — having, after David's outburst, made a 
 subscription for Watson, which, though not 
 amounting to very much, as their funds 
 were low, would still enable him to get the 
 things his wife most needed. 
 
 " Oh, by the by," said David, stopping 
 short, "there's something that puzzles me 
 a bit, and I want your advice." 
 
 " Well, David, lad, what is it ? No more 
 rows with the police, I hope. You'll ha' to 
 mind what ye're about that way." 
 
 David shook his head, and pulled out a 
 crumpled letter from his pocket. 
 
 '* There; read it, and tell me what you 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 18 • BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 think/' said lie, giving it to Watson. " It's 
 from my mother." Watson held the letter 
 under a lamp, and spelled it out as well 
 as the cramped handwriting and flickering 
 light would allow. 
 
 '' Dear Son David, — This leaves me well, 
 hoping to find you the same ; not but what 
 IVe had a bad bout, this back-end, of the 
 roomatics — the weather has been that tryin' 
 for old folks ; but, thank God, I've still been 
 able to go about. This is to tell you that 
 your brother, Thomas John, has made it up 
 to wed with Marget Wilson come May-day. 
 I hope ye are taking care o' yoursel', and 
 getting into no bad ways in the wicked 
 town ; going to the chapel regular on 
 Sundays ; also ye're wearing the thicker 
 woollen stockings I sent you now that 
 winter is coming. We've killed our pig, 
 and it weighed two-and-twenty stone ; and 
 the white puddens and sassages, your
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 19 
 
 brother says, are finer nor usual. I mis- 
 doubt it'll be a while afore Marget Wilson 
 can manage them. Til send you a taste 
 with the carrier this week. I have some- 
 thin' on my mind, but maybe it'll lead you 
 into trouble ; however, I wouldn't have the 
 poor lass die of hunger, tho' she was the 
 first to bring the name of Armstrong into 
 the dirt. It's your half- cousin Phoebe, I 
 mean— she that went off with the play-actor. 
 One o' the neighbours saw her in Oldboro' 
 a while syne, lookin' very white and weakly 
 like. You might try to find her out. Not 
 that I ever wish to hear of her again, but 
 *' blood's thicker than water " after all. 
 Hoping ye'll mind to go for the parcel on 
 Saturday, no more at present from your 
 affectionate mother, 
 
 ''Esther Armstrong." 
 
 '' Well 1 " queried David, holding out his 
 hand for the letter.
 
 20 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 " It's about the poor lass ye're puzzled, I 
 reckon," answered his companion. " Your 
 mother little knows what a task she's set 
 ye. There's many such as her comes to this 
 black town ; and one drop o' pure water is 
 soon lost when it falls into a sea of filth ! " 
 
 " Oh, but she'll not be as bad as that ! " 
 cried David, hotly ; " because she was fool 
 enough to believe in a villain, it's not to 
 say she would ever become like them 
 brazen-faced huzzies," as a knot of painted 
 and gaily-dressed harpies passed, shouting 
 and danciug, a drunken sailor or two with 
 them. And he shuddered as he recalled his 
 bright, innocent little cousin, with her apple- 
 blossom cheeks and sunny curls, " pacing 
 with downward eyelids pure " by his side, 
 as they went to church together, through 
 the sweet lanes at home. 
 
 Watson sighed, and said nothing. He 
 was older than David. 
 
 " I'll make inquiries, and help you all I
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 21 
 
 can, David ; but I doubt we 11 have to 
 apply to the police," said Watson, as they 
 reached the door. 
 
 David lingered a moment, and a little 
 girl of twelve came out to meet her father, 
 and tell him the welcome news that mother 
 was somewhat better. 
 
 '' Yell have to leave the dolls now, 
 Hannah, and take to the live babies,'^ said 
 David, kindly. 
 
 " Poor bairn ! she has to be a little woman 
 before her time," answered her father. 
 
 To the quiet little maiden Watson of- 
 fered no caress, though his tone was stu- 
 diously gentle. 
 
 " Come in, father, the wind blows cold, and 
 we cannot keep the draught from the bed. 
 It's no use talking to Mr Armstrong, he never 
 had no brothers nor sisters to do for," and 
 little Hannah turned back into the room. 
 
 Watson followed, after he had said good 
 night to his friend.
 
 22 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 David would scarcely have mentioned 
 dolls, had he seen the child -woman busy 
 with her housewifely cares. There was 
 first of all the poor sick mother to nurse 
 and care for ; and as Hannah got ready her 
 father's tea, and looked to a red herring 
 roasting before the fire in preparation for 
 him, she made a tray ready for the invalid, 
 covering it with a clean towel, and placed a 
 cup and plate tidily upon it, then carrying 
 it to the bed, gently tried to persuade the 
 sufferer to drink a little. Eeturning to the 
 kitchen, there was one of the youngsters 
 attacking the bowl of brown sugar when 
 his father's back was turned ; and another 
 putting one dirty little finger alternately 
 to the herring then to his mouth ; while 
 the youngest, leaning over the teapot to 
 pull the cat's tail, managed to upset it, and 
 scald himself with the contents. Poor mite 
 of a Hannah, how will she reduce such a 
 chaos as this into order again ?
 
 23 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 David, after many a weary search, found 
 Phoebe at last — found her, however, too 
 late ; and yet it was well perhaps that he 
 came not in time to save the mere life, when 
 the beauty, and the heart, and the innocence 
 had gone from that life for ever. 
 
 In a dirty, squalid garret, where scarcely 
 a ray of light could pierce through the 
 grimed window-panes, she lay dead, with 
 all the youth and prettiness faded out of 
 the pinched face, on which hunger had set 
 its ineffaceable mark. 
 
 A great sob rose in David's throat as he 
 stood by the bedside. Divine compassion 
 softened his rough nature to a tenderness
 
 24 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 almost womanish, and yet deeper in some 
 way than any woman's would have been. 
 
 Even in death the girl's face wore an 
 expression of anxiety, as if care for some- 
 thing left behind had followed her to the 
 land of shadow. 
 
 After all, is it well to fancy that whatever 
 happens here on earth to those we love, be 
 it joy or be it sorrow, will matter nothing 
 to us when we have passed beyond the 
 grave ? We cannot even imagine that we 
 shall cast our affections as our outward pre- 
 sentments. How can we then cease to care 
 for the welfare and happiness of those left 
 behind ? 
 
 The young carpenter lifted one of the 
 dead woman's hands very gently in his 
 own. How thin and white it looked, and 
 oh, how cold ! His were brown and rough 
 and big, widened with labour, thick at the 
 joints — not comely to look at ; but then 
 they were warm and full of life. There was
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 25 
 
 no wedding-ring on PhcBbe's finger : this he 
 noted sadly. 
 
 It was the first time David had been in 
 the presence of death since he grew up. He 
 was too young to remember his father lying 
 cold and still. But it was less the horror 
 of death than its sanctity which impressed 
 him — the utter defencelessness, yet inviol- 
 able security. Why, he had joked with, 
 and teased, and laughed at his merry little 
 cousin in days not so far back; now the 
 very remembrance seemed like sacrilege. 
 
 He turned away half-stupefied with the 
 new thoughts that came crowding into his 
 brain, and for the first time was aware that 
 he was not the only living thing in the 
 room. A tiny baby-girl sat on the floor in 
 a corner, hugging a battered old doll, and 
 staring at him with a pair of very wide-open 
 blue eyes. 
 
 David started. He knit his black brows 
 in perplexity ; but the little thing did not
 
 2G BEFORE THE DAWK 
 
 seem to fear him, for no sooner did he look 
 at her than she threw away the doll, and 
 taking her finger out of her mouth, went 
 down on all-fours and crept across to his 
 feet. Before he had recovered from his 
 surprise, she was making strenuous and 
 persevering efforts to raise herself up by 
 his leg. 
 
 - What could he do^ strange nurse though 
 he was, but take the baby up in his 
 arms ? 
 
 '' Who are you, you queer little thing ? " 
 he asked, not expecting a reply. But the 
 wee girl was ready for him directly. 
 
 " Me Deeta — mammy's Deeta." Then she 
 struggled out of his arms, and crept to the 
 bedside ; for though able to speak so plainly, 
 she was still at an age when creeping comes 
 much more easily than the slow and pain- 
 ful process of walking, when there is no 
 mother's hand to guide the tottering steps, 
 and coax to arms held out. The terrible
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 27 
 
 silence seemed to strike even her baby 
 mind^ and she began to moan, not loudly 
 but most pitifully. 
 
 David lifted her up, and petted and com- 
 forted her in his rough, unskilful way. He 
 would have called the landlady of the house, 
 but remembered what a hard, brutal face 
 she had, and was fain to do the best he 
 could without her. 
 
 He Was a soft-hearted lad, hating the 
 sight of pain or sorrow, and it touched him 
 to see the blue eyes raised to his with such 
 a troubled pleading in them. After a while, 
 however, the child became quieter. He 
 wrapped a shawl which lay on a chair 
 round her, and began to hum an old nursery 
 song. The lids gradually drooped over the 
 sad young eyes, and little Deeta lay asleep, 
 close nestled to David's heart. She could 
 not have had a safer or truer resting-place ! 
 
 The woman of the house came in just then, 
 and gave the youug man all the particulars
 
 28 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 of his cousin's death. How she had told of 
 a long and weary journey, mostly on foot, 
 from York to Oldboro', where she hoped 
 to hear of her friends ; how her strength 
 failed and her courage with it ; and how she 
 had put off writing home from day to day 
 till it was too great an effort. She had 
 begun a letter to some one — an aunt, the 
 ^woman thought — yesterday, and left it 
 imfinished, hoping to be stronger in the 
 morning. That morning never dawned 
 for her. But she, the landlady, had kept 
 the letter, and would bring it, if the young 
 man would pay the week's rent owing, and 
 what expenses were needful to bury his 
 cousin (since she ivas his cousin) decently. 
 '' For her part," the harpy added, in a tone 
 meant to be conciliatory, " she had always 
 said the girl was respectable, and had done 
 what she could for her ; but with such 
 lodgers as she had always coming and going, 
 there was little time left for charity."
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 29 
 
 " Give me the letter," said David, 
 shortly, after paying the woman at an 
 exorbitant rate for her so-called ' charity/ 
 " I suppose you cannot give me any 
 clue to the man who took her from her 
 home 1 " 
 
 The woman shook her head. " It wasn't 
 no business o' mine to ask too many ques- 
 tions, and she was such a decent, quiet- 
 like lass that it would have seemed impu- 
 dent to talk about what she didn't men- 
 tion herself. I never see'd such a shame- 
 faced creature as she were, that I will 
 say ! '^ 
 
 '' Is there nothing left to find him out 
 by ^ " asked the lad, looking curiously 
 round — a man's natural wish for vengeance 
 beginning to awaken within him. But the 
 landlady persisted that everything had been 
 sold long ago. 
 
 With a sigh David pocketed the letter, 
 and wrapping the shawl closer round the
 
 30 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 child, strode off with her in his arms. 
 As soon as he was gone the woman took 
 a little morocco-case out of her pocket, 
 and opening it, disclosed a gold locket and 
 chain. There was a portrait and a piece 
 of hair in the locket, and on the back the 
 monogram " H. M.^' 
 
 " I'd ha' had to give up the thing, chain 
 and all, if I'd told ; and what's the good ? 
 By-gones is best by-gones; and if it had 
 been the cause of mischief, who'd have been 
 more to blame than me *? " After which 
 fine moral sentiment, she threw portrait and 
 hair into the fire, and sold the trinket to 
 an accommodating Jew round the corner, 
 who was not particular about the way arti- 
 cles of the sort were procured, providing 
 he got them sufficiently cheap. 
 
 David did not read the letter until he 
 had confided the little one to the care of 
 the kind woman in whose house he lodged. 
 He waited to see her fed, and safely tucked
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 31 
 
 lip in a crib, where, after two or three fits of 
 sobbing and cries for her '^ mammy," sleep 
 overpowered her, and she forgot, in the 
 happy land where it carried her, the crav- 
 ing for mother -love and mother- kisses so 
 strong in her baby heart. Or was it rather 
 that there she met the one so longed for, 
 and had the craving satisfied, that such a 
 happy smile crept over her face ? 
 
 The letter which the dying girl had be- 
 gun to write was a very unsatisfactory one, 
 David thought ; it was so faintly and hesi- 
 tatingly written as in places to be quite 
 illegible, and it told little that he did not 
 know already. Phcebe had been afraid to 
 write to her only brother, Eichard Arm- 
 strong. He was a righteous but stern 
 man — unforgiving to any sinner whatever, 
 but doubly so when he had trusted and 
 loved that sinner. To him, therefore, she 
 had not dared to appeal on behalf of the 
 child she had left behind, — he would only
 
 32 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 see the mothers degradation when he 
 looked at it, and would hate the siofht. 
 Better leave it to the tender mercies of 
 the cold world than to the just wrath of 
 an ojffended Christian, who prided himself, 
 like the elder son in the parable, on hav- 
 ing kept all the commandments with due 
 care. 
 
 - Her aunt, David's mother, was by no 
 means a tender woman, but then she was 
 a woman, and therefore capable of pity for 
 a motherless bairn. She had had babies 
 of her own too, surely she would care to 
 protect this little one. One thing in the 
 scrawl David wondered at. She said that 
 it was by her own wish she left the 
 man who had seduced her. That she had 
 stayed on with him till after her baby 
 was born, hoping always he would fulfil his 
 promise and marry her, but that at last 
 she had discovered something, after which
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 33 
 
 she had no alternative but to leave him at 
 once, and secretly. What this discovery 
 was, however, she did not say. Then she 
 told how money had failed her, aod she 
 had even begged bread and milk for the 
 child, but had managed to reach Oldboro' 
 in spite of all. '' God knows how it will 
 end," she wrote ; *^and I feel as if I cannot 
 die till my little baby Perdita is safe with 
 some of my own people." Here the writ- 
 ing broke off abruptly. There was no 
 address nor signature. 
 
 David Armstrong crushed the paper up 
 in his hand and threw it into the fire. He 
 felt angry with the thing that it did not 
 tell him more. 
 
 As he sat watching it flame up and die 
 away, a sullen determination was in his 
 eyes, and he vowed that if ever he and 
 that other man should meet, it would go 
 hard with him if he did not make the 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
 ^5
 
 34 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 villain repent the day Phoebe left her 
 home. 
 
 The idea possessed him that sooner or 
 later fate would bring them together, and 
 that they would instinctively know and 
 hate each other.
 
 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 For such a good woman, Mrs Armstrong 
 was in, a very bad temper. 
 
 First, it had been washing-day, and of 
 course with this fog things icoiild not dry. 
 Second, her hens had left off laying — obsti- 
 nate things — just when eggs were getting 
 dear. And then Betty Smith, would insist 
 on saying her rheumatics were worse, after 
 using the herb -tea she (Mrs Armstrong) 
 had given her, and which, as everybody 
 knew, never failed ! And Marget, her elder 
 son's wife that was to be, had been visiting 
 her the night before, and if that wasn't 
 enough to provoke even an angelic temper, 
 it would be difficult to say what was; for the
 
 36 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 bride-elect minced, and simpered, and turned 
 up her nose — higher even than Providence 
 had done for her — at the household arrange- 
 ments, and made believe she was too fine a 
 lady to know the use of half the things in 
 the dairy ; and finally announced that when 
 she was married Thomas John must sell 
 the cows, and keep her a servant, for her 
 ma' had brought her up to be a lady, and 
 never soil her fingers ! 
 
 " A lady, forsooth !" /Soliloquised the irate 
 old woman, '^when her father was only a 
 bit shopkeeper body, who made his fortune 
 by nipping bits off the haeporths o' candy 
 the bairns bought on him, and charged for- 
 bye always an extra haepenny for even a 
 bath-brick." 
 
 Then, too, her favourite son David had 
 forgotten to write, although he knew how 
 anxious she was when she didn't hear from 
 him. 
 
 A tall, large-framed woman was Mrs Arm-
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 37 
 
 strong, without an ounce of superfluous 
 flesh about her — a woman you could see 
 had fought her way through life. Her 
 soft, beautiful, iron-grey hair was almost 
 hidden by the spotlessly - white, closely- 
 bordered cap she always wore ; while from 
 beneath her careworn forehead, the bright 
 black eyes looked out, resolute and uncon- 
 quered as ever. 
 
 She was sitting in an old arm-chair by 
 the fire, knitting, and gradually the purring 
 of the cat, the singing of the kettle on the 
 hob, and the monotonous click of her knit- 
 ting-needles, soothed her ruffled temper, and 
 she dropped off into a kind of doze. 
 
 " Mother ! " said the voice she loved so 
 well, and she started to find her son David 
 close beside her. 
 
 There he stood, tall and stalwart and 
 handsome as any mother could wish for. 
 
 She jumped up to return his greeting, 
 but drew back, horror-stricken ; — for what
 
 oS BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 was this in his arms ? ''A bairn ! What 
 want ye with the bairn, David, my son ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you just now ; but meanwhile 
 the little thing is starving with cold, so 
 I'll set her down here by the fire and warm 
 her bits o' feet. See what a bonnie bairn 
 she is, mother ! " and the young man stooped 
 and tenderly untied the battered little hat, 
 disclosing an innocent, childish face, with 
 two big blue wondering eyes, which grew 
 frightened as they saw the grim face bent 
 on them. The pouting lips quivered, as 
 the child clung to her protector. 
 
 ^* Don't look so coldly on the poor bit 
 thing ; you are frightening her, mother." 
 
 '' Who's is it, David ? Why do you keep 
 me in suspense '? " and Mrs Armstrong's sharp 
 eyes looked searchingly into her son's face. 
 
 "You must love her, mother. She has 
 no one else. It's all that's left of Phoebe." 
 
 Mrs Armstrong stooped and lifted the 
 little one to her knee.
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 39 
 
 '' Poor lass ! poor Phoebe ! " she said, gent- 
 ly, stroking the pretty fair hair of the child. 
 "To die so young, and yet to have none 
 to sorrow for her ; and maybe it will live to 
 wish it had gone too. There's no place in 
 the world for the child of sin." 
 
 Nevertheless, as David told her the story 
 of her niece's miserable end, she busied her- 
 self in dexterously attending to the comfort 
 of the child — chafing the little numbed 
 hands, and feeding her with warm milk and 
 bread ; but the first movement the little 
 thing made, was to wriggle down from her 
 knee and creep across the room to David. 
 
 " Davie," she cried, in her weak, babyish 
 voice, " Deeta wants to come to 'oo ; " and 
 being taken up, she stroked his cheek and 
 nestled in his arms. 
 
 "What does the bairn call itself?" Mrs 
 Armstrong asked. 
 
 " Deeta. Perdita is her name," answered 
 David.
 
 40 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 " What a heathenish, play-acting word ! 
 It's a fair tempting of Providence to call a 
 child such a name." 
 
 "It will do well enough," said David, 
 shortly. The little one was already so dear 
 to him that he could not bear even her 
 name to be slighted. 
 
 " What's to come on her, David '? " asked 
 Mrs Armstrong ; " the father won't turn up 
 to claim her, I reckon." 
 
 ''He had better not," retorted her son, 
 grimly. ''She must stay here with you, 
 mother, till I can make a home for you 
 both." 
 
 " Have you a chance o' that, David 1 But 
 that is too good news to be true." 
 
 " Ay. I've something in my head that 
 will make us comfortable before long ; but 
 don't ask me any more questions just now." 
 
 " Ah, but you'll be wantin' to wed before 
 long, maybe, and then the old mother will 
 have to turn out."
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 41 
 
 " Not much chance o' that. Who would 
 have me ? You may care for me, 'cause 
 Fm your own ; but Td be but a sorry bar- 
 gain to any one else." 
 
 '' ril do my best for the bairn," said 
 Mrs Armstrong, slowly, looking at the 
 child who had fallen asleep on David's 
 knee. " But it's hard, after keeping one's 
 head up with the best for so many years, 
 to have a constant reminder afore one's 
 eyes of the downfall of our name ; and 
 how will I bide it when the neighbours 
 ask me whose bairn it is 1 " 
 
 '* Hang the neighbours ! I thought ye 
 had more sense than to live for other people's 
 opinions ; ye are not tied to tell them any- 
 thing but what ye choose, either," broke in 
 David. 
 
 " Ah, lad ! that's the difference atween 
 us. A man can fend for himself even if 
 he has the bad word of the world ; but a 
 woman is never that sensible she wouldn't
 
 42 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 sooner be out on it altogether than have 
 anything her neighbours can pick a hole 
 in ; but as for a lie, I'd scorn to tell it. 
 The Lord's will be done ; maybe He sees 
 it right to chasten my pride."
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The carpenters at Heslop's were gathered 
 thick as bees round a new machine just 
 introduced to their notice by the junior 
 member of the firm. Young Mr Heslop 
 had even then learnt the lesson that the 
 masters could no longer hope to govern 
 merely by virtue of their position. His 
 views in that respect were in advance of 
 most of the people he had to deal with ; 
 but he held to them tenaciously never- 
 theless. 
 
 So, in the present instance, he took into 
 consideration the illogical prejudices and 
 strong esprit de corps of the men, and used 
 all the diplomacy of which he was capable.
 
 44 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 Delicately, as some experienced trout-fislier, 
 he humoured their weaknesses. He tried 
 for their sympathy rather than their judg- 
 ment. He told them that the invention 
 was not a cool calculating product of one 
 whose interests were opposed to theirs. 
 It was not meant only to lessen the de- 
 mand for labour and save wages, — it was 
 the work of a mechanic like themselves, 
 who had taken to heart the lesson taught 
 by the decrease of trade in the district, 
 and had brains enough to see that this 
 could only be amended by increasing the 
 rate of production, and reducing the cost 
 of it. 
 
 A dead silence followed this speech. 
 
 The men were not yet sure enough what 
 it meant to commit themselves by re- 
 marks upon it. Like intelligent workmen, 
 as they were, they waited for the opinions 
 of their leaders. When the latter told them 
 what it was incumbent on them to believe.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 45 
 
 they would be ready to repeat the creed 
 with all the fervour of enthusiasm. 
 
 As soon as the master's back was turned, 
 however, all show of indifference vanished, 
 and they drew together round the new 
 invention with eager curiosity. Dandy Jim 
 took up some of the grooved work which 
 had been done by it, and examined it 
 critically. His instinctive practical recog- 
 nition of good workmanship forced from 
 him an expression of admiration, — "Fm 
 blest if this work won't make some on ye 
 think shame ! " he exclaimed, loudly. 
 
 His remark was received very coldly 
 by the others, especially by that portion 
 of them upon whose branch of carpentry 
 it more directly infringed. Foremost of 
 those who took Dandy Jim's eulogium 
 amiss was Billy Thompson, surnamed " the 
 Bantam," from his smallness, pugnacity, 
 and impudence. He pointed a scornful 
 finger at his fellow - workman — " Here's a
 
 46 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 judge o' work for us, now ! " he cried, jeer- 
 ingly. " Which on us is to think shame, 
 Jim ? " 
 
 " Not you ! " retorted the other, hotly. 
 " The self-conceit o' little folks helps them 
 over many a stile." 
 
 " What do ye mean by that, ye block- 
 head ? A chap like this as has run the 
 best half of his life in the wrong groove, 
 settin of hisself up to give his opinion of 
 the right one ! " Then looking round to see 
 that he had the attention of his comrades, 
 the Bantam gave what he evidently con- 
 sidered his happiest hit. "But what can 
 one expect ? It won't make any difference 
 to Dandy Jim, mates, since he's got his 
 promotion 1 " 
 
 There was a laugh at this, for Jim's pro- 
 motion had been downwards. Always a 
 careless sort of fellow, his habits had lately 
 become such a nuisance to the foreman of 
 the yard, that he had been degraded from
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 47 
 
 the comparatively high position of a groover 
 to that of a cross-sawyer, where skill is less 
 necessary. 
 
 Poor Jim w^inced under the sarcasm, and 
 throwing down the piece of wood he had 
 been looking at, turned fiercely round upon 
 the Bantam. After a quick glance at the 
 puny form of his tormentor, however, he 
 laughed contemptuously in his turn, and 
 went off to his work. 
 
 The Bantam took in the meaning of 
 Jim's scornful glance, but waited a second 
 till the other was out of hearinor before he 
 said any more. Then he drew himself up 
 and looked defiant. 
 
 "There's a thin-skinned specimen for 
 you, " he said, ill-temperedly ; " I cannot 
 abide them high-minded fellows that won't 
 laugh at a joke against theirselves. It's 
 a comfort to think that he'll have to put 
 his pride in his pocket now his wages is 
 lowered. Not many kid gloves got out of
 
 48 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 eighteen shillings a- week — eh, mates ? Now 
 to business. What say you all to this ? " 
 
 A discussion followed for and against the 
 proposed innovation. The general feeling 
 of the craft was that its introduction would 
 be opposed to their interests. How was it 
 possible that a machine which could do 
 in an hour what it took a skilled work- 
 man a full day to accomplish, would be for 
 their ultimate benefit ? As for increase 
 of trade — it was the masters, not the men, 
 who got the good out of that, as everybody 
 knew. But amongst them, one at least 
 thought differently. Unblinded by class 
 prejudice, Paul Watson took a wider view 
 then the rest. His mind, intensely logical, 
 had turned over the pros and cons of the 
 case, and he felt impelled to speak. 
 
 " Look here, men," he began, in his slow, 
 hesitating way, every word costing him an 
 effort, — " I know well enough none of you 
 think much of my judgment : still, if yell
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 49 
 
 listen, I would like to tell ye what my 
 thoughts are about it. There's some ye 
 listens eagerly to as says only what will 
 further their own ends ; but ye cannot 
 say that o' me, for I'm one of yourselves, 
 and what injures you injures me too. 
 I've been puzzlin' things out for myself, 
 and this is what it all comes to. Since the 
 strike, we're gettin' more money by the 
 hour, and yet, are we any the better off for 
 it? It seems that being on half work is 
 as bad as being on low wages. How is it 
 that we need to be on half work ? Where 
 is there a grander place than this in Eng- 
 land for buildin' ships. Our river, the 
 Wythe, though it is a bit blackened with 
 coal-dust here and there, is a fine broad 
 river ; and many a bonnie ship comes sailin' 
 up to Oldboro' quay in the year. How 
 many of these ships are built here — can ye 
 tell me that ? One would think there was 
 nothing to prevent Wytheside ships from 
 
 VOL. T. B
 
 50 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 being known as far as Oldboro' coals. It's 
 not the cost of wood or iron hinders. Then 
 it stands to reason it's because we cannot 
 turn them out either as fast or as cheap 
 as other places ; and if so, every improve- 
 ment that tends to cheapen the labour in 
 them should be welcomed by us. On the 
 whole, I'm inclined to be strongly in favour 
 of the machine," laying his hand approv- 
 ingly on it as he spoke ; then his old hesi- 
 tation coming back, he stammered out, — 
 *' There, I've said my say ; ye may listen 
 or not as ye like. But any way, I haven't 
 spoken like some that — that wins ye by 
 their flattering tongues." 
 
 The man was too earnest, too downright, 
 to use policy, so he failed to do other than 
 raise a strong feeling against the thing he 
 tried to serve. Although a deep and subtle 
 thinker, he was not ready of tongue; nor 
 had he that confidence in himself which 
 goes so far in giving a demagogue power.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 51 
 
 There were men with less reason, less 
 honesty, less education — nay, even who 
 were less respected, who yet could 
 
 " Drive our burly English mobs 
 Like so much chaff, whichever Avay they blow." 
 
 But then it does take somewhat more power 
 to lead men against rather than with their 
 prejudices ; which last is, generally speaking, 
 all that the popular leader aspires to. For 
 he is wide enough awake to see that the 
 only advice people are tolerant of is that 
 which makes the thing they want to do 
 seem the most expedient — and the best. 
 
 " Nay, nay," spoke up one of the listeners, 
 '' we're none so fond o' soft speeches as ye 
 make out. But neither the master's pala- 
 verin' nor thine will prevent us speakin' 
 oor minds when it's like to be a case o' 
 havin' the bread taken oot of our mouths — 
 eh, mates ? " 
 
 *' Damn the man as made it, say I/' broke 
 
 UNIVEKSITY af ILLINOIS
 
 52 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 out another, "whether he be workman or 
 gentleman. What odds is it to us, so as it 
 stands in our way ? " 
 
 " Well said, lad ! Will they reckon on us 
 singin' the doxology, when they turn out 
 ships by machinery altogether, and improve 
 those as lived by makin them off the face 
 o'-the earth '? A thing that can mould and 
 drill and groove like this is neither honest 
 nor canny — confound it and all such devil's 
 contrivances ! " 
 
 " Confound it, ay, and smash it too, rather 
 than let our bairns go to the workhouse, 
 and our wives shiver in rao^s ! " exclaimed 
 a heavy -browed man vehemently, as the 
 carpenters dispersed to their work. 
 
 David Armstrong came up in time to 
 hear the last part of this discussion, and 
 stood looking after the speaker with a 
 strange expression upon his face. Watson 
 could not make it out at all, but knowing 
 his friend thoroughly, waited patiently till
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 53 
 
 the latter cared to speak. After a while 
 the intense earnestness passed out of David's 
 eyes, and they lighted on the machine ; 
 Watson saw with surprise how tenderly 
 Armstrong touched this, and that he even 
 stooped and adjusted a band that had 
 slipped from its place. What could it mean? 
 How had he become so familiar with the 
 workings of the thing 1 And why did he 
 show no curiosity about it, but rather an 
 affectionate care and protection ? 
 
 Watching his friend closely, Watson be- 
 gan to puzzle out a solution to the enigma. 
 
 David Armstrong in the meantime seemed 
 to have forgotten he was not alone. Straight- 
 ening his tall figure, he took off his cap, and 
 ran his fingers through his tangled curls, 
 with a gesture habitual to him when troubled 
 in mind. 
 
 "Is it a mistake after all '? " he muttered 
 to himself, in a voice that was sad with pain 
 and disappointment. *' Is it naught but a
 
 54 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 curse, after the care and labour and patience 
 needed to work it out? God help me if 
 what they say is true — I had better never 
 been born ! " 
 
 " Davie, lad, is it thine ? " asked Watson, 
 in an awe-struck whisper. 
 
 " What if it is ? " returned David, fiercely. 
 ''-Are you goin' to be one o' them that 
 blames me too, Paul Watson ? Is it so 
 great a crime to use the head and the hands 
 God gave me in the way that suits them 
 best ? But is it God who gave the brain, 
 since they say it's the deviVs work that it's 
 done ? You are a good man, and a chapel- 
 goer, AVatson, then answer that for me." 
 And here, catching his comrade's sympathis- 
 ing glance, the poor fellow completely broke 
 down, and went on with a sob — '' Don t look 
 so sorrowful, Paul ; I cannot stand thy pity; 
 it makes a fool o' me. But it's hard — 
 harder than I care to say after all it's been 
 to me. This is how it is. The idea comes
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 55 
 
 to you some day — imperfectly, of course, 
 but still the idea ; why should you doubt it 
 came for good '? because it did come, and 
 must have been meant to live. Well, it 
 keeps on haunting you, though for a long 
 time you scarcely dare to believe in it. 
 Then you feel that you must try to realise 
 it somehow. You begin to work it out. 
 Of course you fail — many times, perhaps ; 
 still you see clearly that it can be done, 
 and still you try, because by this time you 
 have grown to love it, and feel that giving 
 it up would be giving up part of yourself. 
 And that love is needed — oh, it is needed to 
 cure the sickness of your powerlessness, and 
 the sorrow of your despair ! It is needed for 
 every invention, as for every child that is 
 born into the world ; for a mother has her 
 joy after, while we, poor fools that we are, 
 have little but failure and disappointment ! 
 Watson, you believe me when I say that I 
 meant my work to be a blessing to them ! "
 
 56 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 David Armstrong — who was called next 
 morning to show how the machine worked 
 — was very careful in what he said to his 
 fellow - workmen. On thinking over his 
 course of action, he saw clearly that an 
 imprudent word would endanger the future 
 of the invention there. For its sake, then, 
 he would stoop to conciliate, and try to 
 gain the sympathy of those he felt so angry 
 with for their ignorance and prejudice. As 
 a young enthusiast fails to see why his 
 first love does not seem as fair to all the 
 world as she does to him, so David, iDtoxi- 
 cated with the love he bore his maiden 
 effort at invention, had believed that, when
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 7 
 
 perfected, it Avould need no words to win 
 for it admiration and acceptance. 
 
 It seemed to him a mean thing that 
 he should have to appeal to the personal 
 liking of the men for him, instead of their 
 simple judgment, which ought to have 
 made them recognise the value of the thin 2: 
 he had created ; but he was guided in 
 this by Watson's advice. Watson was one 
 of those people who show tact and discre- 
 tion only when the business of others is 
 concerned, and blunder terribly over their 
 own. Had David been rougher, more over- 
 bearing, the tide of popular feeling would 
 have set so strongly against him as to drown 
 the few quiet studied words in which he 
 told them the unpalatable truth, — that he, 
 their friend and comrade, was the man they 
 had been cursing the day before as the 
 inventor of the machine which caused them 
 so much grief. 
 
 Of course they disapproved ; but his
 
 58 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 patience won him a hearing. That, how- 
 ever, was all it did win him. They re- 
 ceived the news — which must have been 
 surprising enough to the most of them — 
 with a phlegmatic indifference very aggra- 
 vating to David's passionate nature. One 
 or two, indeed, called him traitor and turn- 
 coat, but they did it under their breath. 
 
 Billy Thompson cast a malevolent glance 
 at the young inventor from* under his bushy 
 eyebrows, then stood for some time intently 
 watching the working of the thing he had 
 denounced. Once he stopped and peered 
 curiously at the wheels beneath the bench 
 where the wood rested, and as he rose an 
 evil smile was on his face. 
 
 A few minutes, and David had completely 
 forgotten the crowd of hostile faces around 
 him — forgotten everything in noting how 
 smoothly and swiftly plank after plank was 
 grooved and moulded. Yes, it must triumph 
 — he felt sure of that ! That day repaid
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 59 
 
 him for all his toil. How ecstatically happy- 
 he felt I And what bright, glorious dreams 
 came flocking to him, as he whistled at his 
 work, light-hearted and cheery. The whirr 
 of the wheels moving merrily round buzzed 
 out all kinds of pleasant promises to him. 
 A little time would convince the men of its 
 value, and, recognising this, they would 
 reo^ard him as a benefactor instead of a 
 traitor, — and then for success, and the good 
 success would bring. His mother 1 Little 
 save trouble, had he given her as yet ; but 
 now she should want for nothing ! And 
 Deeta — sweet, coaxing little Deeta 1 — with 
 money at his command what might he not 
 make of her ! Already she had pretty little 
 ways, for all the world like a born lady. 
 
 A short time before leaving work, David 
 was told that young Mr Heslop wanted 
 him in his office. The young master was 
 writing rapidly when Armstrong entered, 
 so the latter waited quietly till he was
 
 60 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 spoken to. At length Mr Heslop pushed 
 aside his papers, and stepping across to 
 where David stood waiting, cap in hand, he 
 laid his hand kindly on the lad's shoulder — 
 
 *' Well, Armstrong, I am glad to see your 
 invention works so smoothly, now it's been 
 thoroughly tested. How do you find the 
 men take it ? " 
 
 *' They are a bit put out, I fear, sir ; but 
 that's only what we might expect at first." 
 
 " At first 1 Ah, yes, I suppose so." 
 
 " But they'll come round in time ; you'll 
 see that," said David, hopefully. " They're 
 safe to come round when they have time to 
 think it over." 
 
 " I hope you are right, Armstrong," 
 answered Mr Heslop in that doubtful tone 
 people use when they mean you to under- 
 stand that tbey are certain you are wrong ; 
 " but it will be a serious business for us all 
 if there's mischief brewing." 
 
 " Mischief brewing ! What sort of mis-
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 61 
 
 chief, George '? " asked old Mr Heslop, in 
 his brusque, imperative way, coming out 
 from his private room — a portly old gentle- 
 man, who made the most of his height, and 
 wore his broadcloth as thouo;h it won dig- 
 nity from being his, — one of the old school 
 of masters, respected but not liked by his 
 workmen. '' Ah, Armstrong, you here ? 
 How is that clever little machine of yours 
 answering ? I have not had time to see it 
 work myself, but — hem ! — hear very fair 
 accounts of it. It is really gratifying to 
 see a young man of your class with the 
 ability to perfect such an idea ; and for my 
 own part " — grandly waving his double 
 eye-glasses as he spoke — "I think it our 
 duty to encourage all such praiseworthy 
 efforts." 
 
 David did not exactly care for this 
 weighed-out encomium on his invention. 
 He reddened, and shifted uneasily as though 
 he would have spoken ; but young Heslop,
 
 62 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 with a quick glance at him, began to en- 
 large on his fears. 
 
 "The machine is what we were talking 
 of, father," he said, anxiously. '' Hunter 
 has just been telling me that there's a dead 
 set against it, and he fears we will have 
 some trouble with the men." 
 - " Nonsense. I can t believe they would be 
 such fools,'' returned his father, contemptu- 
 ously. ** But it seems to me that nowadays 
 it is ahvays the men whose wishes have to be 
 law. "When / commenced business the case 
 was very different, I assure you. We paid 
 a man a fair wage, and expected him to do 
 a fair day's work — without muddling his 
 brains over what his betters were about. But 
 now, what with workmen's clubs, mechan- 
 ics' institutes, and those confounded trades- 
 unions, we are at their mercy completely. 
 Some stand must be made before long, 
 or — or there's no knowing what will hap-
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 63 
 
 pen. Not that I'm against a little reading 
 and writing." 
 
 " Well, father, this is no time to discuss 
 all that," broke in the junior partner im- 
 patiently. "The subject is too great to be 
 settled in a few minutes — especially when 
 weVe got the safety of the machine to see 
 after. What do you think we had beat do 
 to protect it ? That's the question we've 
 got to think of." 
 
 "You don't think they'd hurt it, sirl" 
 asked David, in an alarmed tone. 
 
 "There's no saying what they may do. 
 There's been more than one case during 
 the year, where new machines have been 
 introduced against the will of the men, 
 and spoilt and broken utterly before any 
 steps could be taken to prevent the mis- 
 chief. Only last week an affair of the 
 kind took place not far from here." 
 
 " But not in our line. I never heard of
 
 64 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 one all the time we've been in trade. The}^ 
 would never dare to attempt such a thing/' 
 said Mr Heslop, emphatically. 
 
 " I dont know as it's a matter ofdwingj' 
 spoke up David, rather hotly. "It seems 
 to me, sir, that you don't rightly under- 
 stand us yet. We dare most things when 
 our blood's up ; but we're none of us cow- 
 ards, that I know on, and it was cowards 
 did what Mr George talks of. Oldboro' 
 men are rough enough in their ways, and 
 not over careful when they're put out ; but 
 the outside husk is the worst, and their 
 hearts are true to one another. If I didn't 
 think better of my mates than that, I 
 wouldn't care to work a day longer 
 wi' them ; but I ought to know them by 
 this time, and I can trust them out 
 and out." 
 
 *' You are right to think the best of your 
 comrades, Armstrong. I only hope they
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 65 
 
 will appreciate your fidelity," said young 
 Heslop, kindly ; but he turned away, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders, nevertheless. 
 
 David strode back to his treasure, and 
 stood looking at it thoughtfully. The glow 
 of triumph had a little faded from his face. 
 
 At last he threw back his head resolute- 
 ly, and called to some of the workmen who 
 were near. 
 
 " Listen to me a minute, mates, will you 1 
 I have been told that some of you have 
 taken a spite against this," indicating the 
 machine with his hand, " and I am advised 
 to have a watch set for fear of malice 
 harming it ; but I canna bear to think on't, 
 nor yet to think so meanly of any of you. 
 I'm ane o' yoursel's, and can trust to ye 
 givin' me fair play : surely none on ye 
 would be so unmanly as to spoil what canna 
 protect itsel'. You'll all be the better for 
 it in the end, if you'll only be a bit patient ; 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 66 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 and come what may, I'll trust you to figlit 
 me fairly — or not at all/' 
 
 There was a faint murmur of approbation 
 as David finished speaking ; and the young 
 fellow went home satisfied that his point 
 was gained.
 
 67 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 David had by this time a house of his own, 
 and had brought his mother and little Deeta 
 to live with him. When he reached home 
 he found the table in the little front room 
 neatly spread for tea. 
 
 If Mrs Armstrong had been a town-bred 
 woman, her best room would probably have 
 outraged every principle of taste, with coarse 
 garish colouring, floral carpet and table- 
 cover, flounced flre - paper, and German 
 prints ; but as she made no pretension to 
 fashion, it looked almost pretty, with the 
 evening sunlight streaming in. The quiet 
 brown of the matting that covered the 
 floor did not jar upon the eye ; the old
 
 68 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 oak tables were left uncovered, and in- 
 stead of the usual tawdry ornaments of wax 
 and paper flowers, there was a quaintly 
 carved corner - cupboard, set with a few 
 "real cheeny plates and cups, which my 
 grandmother bought wi' her savin s when 
 she was wed," as Mrs Armstrong would 
 say, with pardonable pride. There are old 
 families amongst the peasantry, as there are 
 in a higher grade ; and this stern, strong- 
 minded old mother of David's belonged to 
 one. This it was made her treasure all the 
 relics which attested to the age and respect- 
 ability of her race. Then, too, the grate 
 was filled with a huge bunch of feathery 
 grasses, and spotless white curtains waved 
 in the light breeze coming in at the open 
 windows. 
 
 David had asked his friend Watson to 
 take tea with him in honour of his success ; 
 and his mother, with good old-fashioned 
 ideas of hospitality, had made a little feast
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 69 
 
 on the occasion. The tea-table looked very 
 tempting with its wholesome home-made 
 delicacies, its crystal honey, and clear 
 bright-coloured jellies, its fresh butter, and 
 plates of dainty cakes. The girdle -cake 
 (a local institution, without which no tea- 
 table in that district would be complete) 
 was keeping warm by the kitchen fire, in 
 company with the teapot. 
 
 Mrs Armstrong, herself in a clean white 
 cap, was putting a fresh pinafore on Deeta, 
 and trying to get the child's waving auburn 
 hair to lie smooth on her head. This, how- 
 ever, was a difficult task, especially when 
 the little thing, catching sight of herself in 
 the glass, began to laugh and shake her 
 head in rebellion, crying — 
 
 *' Oh, granny, how funny you have made 
 me look ! eJust like that little wee kitty 
 after those bad wicked boys in the street 
 had held her under the pump, and pumped 
 .till she was so wet, and I took her away
 
 70 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 and dried her on my pinny. Old Davie'll 
 never know his little girl if you make her 
 look so ugly." 
 
 Who could help laughing at this '? Cer- 
 tainly not David, who came in just then. 
 Even Mrs Armstrong smiled. And little 
 Deeta clapped her hands, and jumped up 
 and down, and shook her head at her own 
 reflection till the wavy tresses lost their 
 trimness, and became pretty once more. 
 Then she must needs put the finishing 
 touch to the tea-table by placing a bunch 
 of flowers upon it. They were common 
 enough, — only wild roses and woodbine, 
 which David and she had gathered in the 
 lanes the night before ; but they were sweet, 
 and Deeta loved things that were sweet and 
 beautiful. 
 
 Just then Watson, who had first been 
 home to change his working clothes, en- 
 tered, bringing Hannah his eldest child 
 with him. The serious-looking girl, who
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 7l 
 
 found herself at sixteen with all the cares 
 of a large family ^ on her shoulders (her 
 mother having died the previous year), was 
 a great favourite with Mrs Armstrong. 
 
 " How are the little uns, Hannah ? " she 
 asked, shaking hands cordially as she spoke. 
 "I thought you'd have brought Johnny 
 with you." 
 
 Hannah shook her head. 
 
 " I couldn't get him to come. Mrs 
 Smith dropped in by chance, and offered 
 to stay and look after them a bit ; and 
 her wee Willie was with her. Somebody 
 had given him a tin trumpet, and Johnny 
 and he w^ere that taken up wi' it, that 
 they wouldn't be parted." 
 
 The talk never flagged round the tea- 
 table ; for in the intervals of her repeated 
 entreaties to those around it to help them- 
 selves, and show they were at home, Mrs 
 Armstrong had to be told the events of 
 the day. Watson, in satisfying the good
 
 72 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 woman's curiosity, did not fail to exalt 
 David into a kind of hero ; and Hannah 
 listened with quiet pleasure. 
 
 ''Mother," said David, excitedly, "can 
 it all be true 1 I feel as though it 
 was a dream, but dare not think of the 
 waking." 
 
 "" Oh, my lad, my Davie, don't be so sair 
 uplifted ! It's not canny, and brings down 
 a judgment on them that glorify themselves 
 and their doin's. I've seen it scores o' 
 times, and it makes me tremble for you.'' 
 " Nay, nay, now," interrupted ' Watson, 
 soothingly. "When David was a light- 
 hearted little chap, you — his mother — did 
 not punish him if he laughed a bit louder 
 than common. But that's the way wi' us. 
 We're all on us apt to speak as if our great 
 Father grudged us any joy we may chance 
 on. Not but what things are bad to read 
 whiles; but maybe that's the fault of our 
 eyes. The lad may well feel proud of his
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. V3 
 
 work, though, — and without a bit o' harm," 
 added the kind-hearted man. 
 
 "And do ye think his mother's heart is 
 made o' stone, then, Paul Watson, that ye 
 need to justify him to me?" asked Mrs 
 Armstrong, warmly. " It's not seemly to 
 praise one's own ; but I will say there's 
 not many would ha' had the patience to 
 work on when it went contrairy so often ; 
 but the boy always took after his father 
 in that." Then, as though ashamed of her 
 emotion, the mother broke off the subject 
 abruptly, and took refuge in her duties as 
 hostess. 
 
 Mrs Armstrong's warning words passed 
 unheeded at the time ; but, strange to say, 
 they were the first things David remem- 
 bered the following morning; and with 
 them came the threatening, ominous looks 
 of the men. 
 
 Only a passing gloom, however, soon 
 dissipated by the fresh morning air which
 
 74 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 blew about him as lie walked down to 
 Heslop's. He was rather late, and the full 
 hum of work was going on around. The 
 boy who was to help him with the machine 
 was standing waiting. All looked as he had 
 left it the night before. His heart swelled 
 with pride as he stood for a moment looking 
 at the invention before he began work. 
 
 " Pass me the oil - can, Jack," he said 
 briskly ; " we'll give her a touch with it 
 before she starts." 
 
 Then he adjusted the connecting band, 
 and the propelling wheel went round. 
 
 '' Be ready ; she's off! " he cried. 
 
 Quickly the wheel moved, then stopped 
 suddenly — moved again, and a horrible, 
 grinding crash took place, which seemed 
 to David to go through his brain. Splin- 
 ters of wood and broken iron flew far and 
 wide before his dilating eyes. 
 
 The judgment had come, then, because 
 he had dared to be too happy !
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 75 
 
 For a moment or two he stood stunned 
 and speechless, until eager, questioning 
 faces clustered around. Then his white 
 lips grew more rigid, and a sudden, fierce 
 light blazed into his eyes. It was man's 
 malice, not God's displeasure ! He recog- 
 nised this, and quietly lifting up his coat 
 and cap, put them on, without a word to 
 any of the rapid questions buzzed into his 
 ears. But turning slowly and steadily 
 away, he caught sight of the pale face of 
 little Jack, who had been felled by a piece 
 of broken iron, and lay there motionless. 
 
 " Poor bairn! poor bairn ! have they killed 
 thee too ? " he muttered, as he stooped and 
 took the little lad up tenderly into his great 
 arms, and examined his hurt. 
 
 Little Jack, however, had swooned more 
 from fright than injury, and was soon re- 
 stored. But not until he was quite sure 
 of this did David leave him. 
 
 " So much the better for them," he said,
 
 76 BEFORE THE DAWN. . 
 
 with bitter energy; ''they've sins enough 
 to answer for without that." 
 
 " They've done it, sir ! " he exclaimed, 
 entering the office where the Heslops — 
 father and son — were seated, with their 
 respective newspapers in hand. " You were 
 right when you doubted, and I was a fool 
 when I stood up for them. It's the machine 
 I'm talkin' of, — they've smashed it, cowards 
 that they are ! " 
 
 " God bless my soul, Armstrong ! is that 
 you ? " ejaculated Mr Heslop, letting fall his 
 newspaper, and putting up his glasses to stare 
 at David. The younger partner started to 
 his feet with an oath. 
 
 " Just as I feared. Had you only allowed 
 me to have my way, we would have saved 
 both time and money. But what with you, 
 father, saying that the men dare not do it, 
 and Armstrong here with his fine talk about 
 their honour " 
 
 '' I was a fool, sir. I know that now,"
 
 . BEFORE THE DAWN. 77 
 
 said David, in a low voice ; " but it's hard 
 upon me, too, for thinkin' the best of 
 them." 
 
 " So it is, Armstrong — so it is," returned 
 the other, in a more kindly voice. " How 
 was the damage done '? " 
 
 " They'd put some bits of broken iron in 
 between the cogs, where it wouldn't show ; 
 and then, of course, when the big wheel 
 moved, the whole thing was shivered at 
 once." 
 
 " I couldn't have believed it. That such 
 a thing should have happened to us after 
 the years we have been in the trade ! 
 Are you sure that you have done nothing 
 personally to provoke them, Armstrong ? " 
 asked old Mr Heslop. 
 
 " Me provoke them '? No, sir ; it's the 
 machine, worse luck ! Before this hap- 
 pened, I could have sworn that not a man 
 in the place was an enemy of mine ; but 
 now that they choose to do such things, I
 
 78 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 dinna care if I never work another day 
 among them." 
 
 '' Well, well, we still have the model, 
 Armstrong. And after this lesson we'll 
 watch night and day till we find out who's 
 to blame, — and then let them look out, 
 that's all!" said the junior partner, reso- 
 lutely. " But they shall not beat me — I'll 
 take care of that. Come along, Arm- 
 strong ; we'll go and have a look at it 
 together, and see what harm is really 
 done."
 
 79 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Heslops spared no pains to find out 
 the perpetrator of tlie outrage, but were 
 unsuccessful. Suspicion fell heavily, it is 
 true, on Billy Thompson ; but as either the 
 men could not or would not give any in- 
 formation against him, inquiry died out. 
 
 The place — now he had lost all trust in 
 his fellow- workmen — grew so distasteful to 
 David, that he was glad to sell out his in- 
 terest in his invention and seek employment 
 elsewhere. This ended in his becoming 
 stage - carpenter at the theatre recently 
 built in the town — the Imperial. 
 
 Mrs Armstrong mourned much over this ; 
 and when she found her influence powerless
 
 80 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 to keep her son steady, attributed his de- 
 terioration to the evil influences of a place 
 she looked on as specially the devil's pro- 
 perty. Had it not been that she still hoped 
 her prayers might prove effectual in turning 
 him from the error of his ways, the good 
 woman would have gone back into the 
 country. As it was, she stayed on, hoping 
 against hope; praying, though her heart 
 failed, as she thought it might be the will 
 of God that her best-loved son should be 
 one of the reprobate — for ever cast out from 
 the kingdom of grace. 
 
 David mourned in secret, too, over his 
 many falls ; felt them most acutely, perhaps, 
 when he lost his temper at his mothers 
 pious exhortations, and rushed out to escape 
 from them. His disappointment had done 
 him harm. His machine lived, it is true, but 
 not for him ; and he had lost faith in his 
 class — lost faith in himself, and interest in the 
 ambitions which had been so much to him.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 81 
 
 Mrs ArmstroDg did not know what she 
 was doing when she spoke of his pride hav- 
 ing been too great, and how he should strive 
 to care less for the things of this perishing 
 world, and seek only the glory which ex- 
 celleth. This son of hers, with his strong 
 physique, and the restless discontent all 
 unused mental power gives, was not ready 
 for such a gospel as that. If but a spark 
 from the dying embers of his old enthu- 
 siasm could have been rekindled, it would 
 have done more than all her homilies to 
 free him from the power of the drink fiend 
 which was gaining possession of him. 
 
 As time went on his feud with Heslop's 
 men was patched up in a sort of way. 
 There were one or two men working there 
 he still liked, even if his belief was shaken; 
 and in his heart he freed them from active 
 participation in the crime. 
 
 David had been used to frequent a public- 
 house called the Blue Bell, a favourite 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 82 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 resort of the operatives employed in the 
 ship yards. For a time this custom was 
 broken through ; but when the first soreness 
 had worn ofi*, old habit proved too strong, 
 and it scarcely needed the pressing entreaties 
 of his old boon companions to induce him 
 to rejoin them whenever he had a holiday. 
 " The Blue Bell was a dilapidated house, 
 looking all the worse in its decay from 
 having once been a stately mansion. Just 
 as that acme of respectability, a tall hat, 
 when in a disreputable old age, seems to have 
 gone to the bad so much more thoroughly 
 than a mere felt or billy-cock can ever do. 
 
 It had doubtless been a pretty place 
 once, when the muddy and polluted stream 
 which now runs past its door (poisoning, 
 with its foul exhalations, the puny, pale- 
 faced children who dabble in it from morn- 
 ing till night) was limpid and sparkling, 
 and rosy little ones played on its grassy 
 banks, and echoed the glad laughter with
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 83 
 
 which it hurried past them to join the river 
 close by. And the ravine, where now so 
 many houses are clustered that no breath 
 of fresh air can stir round them, was then a 
 secluded, sheltered nook at some distance 
 from the dull old Border town, which, rich 
 in natural beauty of situation, had, since 
 the development of the coal and iron trades, 
 grown blurred and disfigured, — coal-dust 
 lying scattered where the many - tinted 
 autumn leaves had lain, while odours of 
 chemical factories displaced the fragrance 
 of spring and summer flowers. 
 
 Many grew up in those close alleys or 
 chares, as they are locally called, never 
 having seen that glint of spring sunshine, 
 the sweet pale primrose, or felt the breath 
 of summer evenings exhaling from the 
 fragile cup of the wild rose, or heard 
 the song of birds, save from a bird-fan- 
 cier's cage, when that song was robbed by 
 captivity of all its gladsomeness.
 
 84 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 Nature might still be beautiful with- 
 in three or four miles of the great black 
 town, but the old love of it had died, 
 starved by the hard unloveliness which 
 commerce entails. The women preferred 
 for recreation to gossip on their unwashed 
 door -steps, while the men forsook their 
 wretched homes, and betook themselves, as 
 soon as the day's work was over, to the 
 Blue Bell, for what poor semblance of com- 
 fort they could get there.
 
 85 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The big public room of the tavern was full, 
 the dull incessant winter rain having driven 
 in more men than usual for the warmth 
 and excitement only to be obtained by them 
 through drink. 
 
 Peter Dobson, the landlord, a wizened, 
 wiry, lean old man, the antipodes of the 
 jolly conventional host, went in and out 
 rubbing his bony hands together, and chuck- 
 ling, as he heard the thud of the glasses on 
 the table when the drinkers called for more, 
 and their hard-earned money clinked in his 
 outstretched palm. He was pretty hard 
 kept at it to supply their demands ; for
 
 80 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 old Peter was too afraid of being cheated to 
 keep a barman, and would not have liked 
 that any one should have seen the way he 
 doctored both beer and whisky. 
 
 It was a dreary scene. The dismal ray 
 of a wretched tallow-candle and the low 
 fire - light flickered on the smoke - grimed 
 ceiling, which was crossed by heavy worm- 
 eaten beams — on the small uncurtained 
 windows, and on the quaint, rich, old carv- 
 ing round the fireplace. The light showed, 
 too, the half-rotted floor, clumsily mended 
 here and there with pieces of new deal, har- 
 monising badly with the original oak. Just 
 out of reach of the light crouched a dark 
 figure on the floor. 
 
 Whenever there came a pause in the noisy 
 talk of the drinkers, the perpetual drip, 
 drip of the rain on the roof, and the sound 
 of the burn, regaining for the time its old 
 dash and freedom, might be heard ; and 
 with this an unintelligible murmur from
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 87 
 
 the strange piece of humanity in the sha- 
 dow, which was eerie to listen to. 
 
 Whether owing to the quality of the 
 drink or the brains of the drinkers, in a 
 tap-room of the lower class there is little 
 of that quickening of the faculties and 
 heightening of the spirits which we are 
 apt to associate with a free supply of 
 drinkables. Though you wouldn't have 
 credited any of those rough men with much 
 imagination, the gloom of their surround- 
 ings seemed to render them duller than 
 usual. The talk, though loud at first, as 
 two of their number bragged over the rela- 
 tive merits of the terriers they had with 
 them, and appealed to their companions, 
 grew fitful and heavy after this topic was 
 exhausted. At length they began to grum- 
 ble at the want of light, and swear that 
 they could hardly see to fill their pipes. 
 
 Old Peter tried to appear as if he did 
 not hear this; but when he began to fear
 
 0« BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 the grumbling might affect his pocket, by 
 the loss of customers, he hastened away, 
 returning with about two inches of addi- 
 tional candle, which he placed with great 
 pride on the table. 
 
 " He has opened his heart at last," said 
 Billy Thompson, glancing significantly at 
 the diminutive candle. '' How many o' 
 them to the pound, now, Peter \ " he added. 
 
 "Ye're always so full o' your jokes, 
 Mister. If ye're wantin to see a blaze 
 o' lights ye'll ha' to gang to some o' them 
 up in the higher town, where they've gotten 
 the gas ; " but, as if suddenly remembering 
 this was not good advice for himself, he 
 changed his tone to a wheedling one — " but 
 I'm thinkin' ye'll repent that when ye taste 
 their liquor, which is so poor it has no grip 
 o' the mouth, and takes a sight on it afore 
 a man forgets his sorrows." 
 
 The dirty, unkempt-looking servant-girl 
 here entered the room and whispered some-
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 89 
 
 thing to the speaker. He looked annoyed ; 
 but after glancing irresolutely round and 
 seeing that the glasses were tolerably full, 
 followed her out of the room. 
 
 " Tut, tut ! it's very provokin that they 
 should ha' sent the fresh whisky just at 
 the busiest time of the day; and if I leave 
 them alone they'll be spilling the half on't, 
 or more than likely helpin' themselves to a 
 drop ; " and then, catching the girl's eye, 
 — " one never knows but what they might 
 hurt themselves taking it neat ; one hears 
 tell o' suchlike things whiles." 
 
 Peter led the way into the bar, where he 
 gave Meg many directions to mind and 
 attend to the men, and, above all, to be 
 paid for everything as she gave it — none 
 of them being to be trusted ; and to add 
 more water when she thought them suffi- 
 ciently maudlin not to observe it. 
 
 As soon as Peter's back was turned, the 
 figure in the shadow advanced timidly to-
 
 90 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 wards the fire, tlie light of which falling 
 on it revealed a dwarfish, ill-formed lad, 
 with a shock-head of red hair, and large, 
 staring, vacant eyes. 
 
 " Is't thee cold. Kit ? That father o' thine 
 doesn't spend much on warming his rooms ; 
 and ril warrant he'll not feed you owre 
 well either. Take a drop o' this to warm 
 ye," said one of the men pityingly, holding 
 his glass of steaming toddy towards the 
 lad, who looked half longingly, half repug- 
 nantly at it, but drew back. 
 
 '' Na, na ; it burns folk's insides." 
 
 " Hout, man ! who telled thee that story? 
 It would do you good." 
 
 " Father says it. He telled me never to 
 touch it." 
 
 At this a roar of laughter burst from the 
 men. The idea of a publican preaching such 
 doctrines seemed irresistibly droll to them. 
 Before the merriment ceased David Arm- 
 strong entered.
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 91 
 
 "What's the joke?" asked he, seating 
 himself, as it happened, near his old enemy, 
 Billy Thompson. 
 
 When he was told he laughed too, but 
 looked kindly at the lad, who on his part 
 seemed attracted, and hung about David's 
 chair, watching him with an intent, rapt 
 gaze. 
 
 " What's turned ye so quiet all of a 
 sudden. Kit ? Ye were chattin' away to 
 yourser owre yonder," asked the previous 
 speaker, Dandy Jim. 
 
 " I maun tell them not to come up when 
 the dogs are about," he answered, reluc- 
 tantly. 
 
 " Who do you mean 1 " said David, with 
 some curiosity. 
 
 '^ Why, the rattans, to be sure ; the 
 bonnie grey rattans, with their round black 
 eyes, and their sharp wee teeth," and he 
 pointed to some holes in the floor. At this 
 a sharp little terrier pricked up his ears as
 
 92 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 if he quite understood what they were talk- 
 ing of, and went sniffing to some of the 
 holes forthwith. 
 
 " Eh, but it's a pity we can't give the 
 dogs a bit sport, and prove which on them 
 is the better," said its owner, proud of his 
 favourite's sagacity ; but Kit's face grew 
 livid as he turned to David — 
 
 " Ye'll not let them hurt my bonnie 
 pets ? " 
 
 " Hout, hout, man, they're only jokin' ! 
 your rattans may bide as long as they 
 have a mind, and nobody will fash them. 
 But come, have a taste ; it's better company 
 a long way than such beasts as them," 
 and David held out his half-emptied glass. 
 The lad at once obeyed, apparently having 
 perfect confidence in David, or forgettiog 
 for the moment his dreaded father. 
 
 *'Ah, but its good!" he said, smacking 
 his lips ; and before David could stop him, 
 he drank off the whole.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 93 
 
 For the metamorphosis it produced none 
 of the men were prepared. The dull, heavy 
 face grew animated, and the helpless, fright- 
 ened lad bold ; the slow, unintelligible ut- 
 terance became rapid and articulate, as he 
 poured out all sorts of weird, grotesque 
 fancies, caught from the wind, the water, 
 and his playmates the rats, which were to 
 him creatures of more than human intel- 
 ligence. A poet would have revelled in his 
 half-formed thoughts, and caught from them 
 many a hint ; but the men met them by 
 loud, noisy laughter, as they muttered that 
 the laddie had gone clean daft.
 
 94 
 
 CHAPTEK X. 
 
 The drinkers were gay for the first time 
 during the evening, but their mirth was 
 short-lived, for old Peter came creeping in. 
 
 " You are merry, gentlemen," he said, but 
 grew pale as he glanced hastily round and 
 saw Kit in their midst, singing and ges- 
 ticulating wildly. " What does it mean ? " 
 asked the father anxiously, advancing with 
 hurried steps towards the group. " Surely 
 no one has been villain enough to take ad- 
 vantage of the poor half-witted lad 1 " 
 
 " What harm is there in giving him a 
 drop of something to warm him ? " said 
 David, defiantly. 
 
 " It was yoity then ? " screamed the old
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 95 
 
 man, fixing malignant eyes on the speaker. 
 " Curse you for it ! But I might have 
 known," he went on in accents of deep- 
 est misery; "why did I leave him alone 
 here 1 " 
 
 " Why did you tell me it was poison 1 " 
 broke in Kit. " I never lived till now. I 
 hear no more the voices that whisper in the 
 water, and moan about the house, and tell 
 me all day long that I'm not like other 
 folks. My blood dances, and I'm warm 
 and happy — oh, so happy ! Give me more 
 — more," and he looked appealingly at 
 David, but the latter hesitated. 
 
 " More, you young scoundrel ! " ex- 
 claimed Peter; ''come away from this, or 
 I'll shake the life out of you," and seizing 
 Kit by the arm he tried to drag him from 
 the room. But the weak, easily-cowed lad 
 was transformed for the time being, and 
 he threw off his father's hand with such 
 force, that the old man staggered, the lad
 
 9G BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 foUowiDg up his advantage with a savage 
 blow across the face. 
 
 Peter stood white and tremblins: for a 
 moment or two, resting against the wall, 
 wiping the blood from a cut on his lip. 
 Then he turned to David. 
 
 " Are you proud of your work now, Mr 
 Armstrong ? " he asked, quietly and bitterly. 
 
 " No, by God ! " said David, starting up ; 
 " I never thous^ht of this. Come, mv lad, 
 with me ; " and laying his hand on Kit's 
 shoulder, he led him from the room. 
 
 The old man followed slowly. The sight 
 of the blood had partly sobered Kit, and he 
 not unwillingly went to bed. 
 
 " Are you much hurt "? " asked David, 
 kindly, but with a touch of humility, feel- 
 ing sorry the old man should have suf- 
 fered through his folly. 
 
 " It's not the hurt," answered Peter, shak- 
 ing his head ; '' but to have the sole crea- 
 ture one cares for lift his hand against one,
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 97 
 
 and all through that cursed drink ! " Then 
 moderating his voice from the passionate 
 pitch it had been at, he added smoothly, 
 '' Not but what it's a very good thing in its 
 way for them as has heads strong enough." 
 
 " One does not expect a publican to 
 preach temperance," said David, looking 
 round the bar significantly. 
 
 "No, and I wouldn't to them in there," 
 said the old man, nodding his head in the 
 direction of the room they had just quitted. 
 " But you are different somehow. It isn't 
 the drink, ye see, but the efiect it has 
 on difi'erent constitutions. Mr Armstrong, 
 you are a man I like and can trust, and a 
 good customer forbye, but ye must never 
 give the drink to Kit more : it's in his 
 blood ; he cannot help it, poor lad ; and 
 it's a judgment on me," he added, lowering 
 his voice mysteriously. 
 
 " How's that 1 " asked David. 
 
 "Well, I don't mind telling you, though 
 
 VOL. I. Gr
 
 98 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 it's a bitter thing for a man to confess. I 
 used to drink heavy at one time, and when 
 it was in me I was mad. She was livin' then 
 — the lad's mother, I mean ; and one night 
 we quarrelled — it was before he was born 
 — and I struck her and turned her out o' 
 doors in the middle o' the night," — here he 
 "broke down and covered his face with his 
 hands for a minute or two. 
 
 '' She was never the same from that 
 time," he continued, after a while ; " and 
 when her little un was born, she grew 
 weaker. She never reproached me for what 
 I had done to her, but I could see her 
 white face turn whiter as she shuddered 
 away from me. Perhaps she had some fore- 
 knowledge of the mischief I had done her 
 bairn. You'll maybe find it hard to believe 
 on me now, but I was fond o' that woman : 
 and when on her deathbed she begged of 
 me never to let the boy taste anything 
 stronger than water, I swore that it should
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 99 
 
 be so; and, by God, I mean to keep my 
 word ! '^ 
 
 "It is a strange story," said David, 
 slowly ; " but would it not have been better 
 for you to change your way of life ? " 
 
 " Maybe it would," answered the old 
 man ; "but what could I do 1 Vd been 
 always brought up to it, and the trade's 
 
 not a bad paying one " here he stopped 
 
 abruptly, as if afraid he had been commit- 
 ting himself, then added hastily, "though 
 to honest folks like me, that scorns to 
 'dulterate, there's little profit to be had." 
 
 This with no regard to the methylated 
 spirits and other horrid compounds he had 
 just been adding to his whisky. 
 
 " I cannot help thinking, Mr Armstrong, 
 ye are born for better things, and my ex- 
 periencell maybe prove a warning to you." 
 
 Had Peter for the moment really risen to 
 a higher level ; or was he trying that style 
 of bargaining with Providence, to which
 
 100 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 some people who believe in judgments 
 are so partial? Strange ideas they must 
 have of the business capacity of the other 
 agent in the transaction, for in dealing with 
 their fellow-men they certainly do not so 
 often expect such a very small sprat to 
 catch a salmon. 
 
 It seemed Peter thought that a word 
 of good advice to David was even more 
 than sufiBcient to purchase the goodwill 
 of Heaven for himself and Kit, and cover 
 all his sins of meanness and cheating, 
 for he proceeded quickly to add to the 
 score. No sooner had David, after a mut- 
 tered good-night, set out on his way home, 
 than Peter returned to the bar -parlour, 
 rubbinsf his hands in his usual brisk and 
 business-like manner, bearing no trace of 
 the emotions he had shown. 
 
 " Now, gentlemen, have you no orders ? 
 If not, I may as well shut up the bar and 
 get out my nightcap. Won't you have
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 101 
 
 glasses round ? for better beer and whisky 
 you'll never find, though I say it as 
 shouldn't." 
 
 Whether he should or not, he knew best, 
 for, as before hinted, he had more to do 
 with the manufacture of his liquors than 
 either brewer or distiller.
 
 102 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Peter's son, the poor half - witted lad of 
 the Blue Bell^ was drawn irresistibly to 
 David Armstrong by one of those instinc- 
 tive attractions for which reason is power- 
 less to account, and which are too often 
 lost where the intellect has more controlling 
 power. 
 
 It annoyed David to have Kit following 
 him about for hours in a dumb, wistful 
 manner, like a loving, patient, unregarded 
 dog ; but the good-natured fellow had not 
 the heart to be angry with him for it. The 
 lad got known at the theatre, where he 
 would come and watch the men who were 
 at work there ; and even the actors comino^
 
 BEFOPvE THE DAWN. 103 
 
 for rehearsal grew to notice him. They 
 laughed at his grotesque appearance, but 
 listened, not unkindly, to his strange, wild 
 talk. 
 
 There came one at length who, not 
 content with laughing, studied his weak- 
 nesses, and laid bare his mind's diseased 
 fibres with the unsparing firmness with 
 which a surgeon uses his scalpel when 
 bent on proving a theory. This was an 
 actor named Montressor, who had recently 
 come to the Imperial. He was a rather 
 handsome, jaded-looking man, who might 
 be any age between thirty and fifty. He 
 had that look of quiet repose about him 
 which marks one who has seen better days. 
 There was something mysterious about the 
 man, and even those who drank habitually 
 in his company were kept at a certain 
 impassable distance. Mr Sparks, the man- 
 ager, when asked any questions about him, 
 only shook his head in a knowing but inde-
 
 104 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 finite manner, and said, "Ah, poor fellow ! 
 
 he might have been famous, but " and 
 
 here he paused, being one of those who do 
 not like to speak evil of any one, but who 
 at the same time do not feel the same ob- 
 jection to hinting at it, if it can be done 
 without words ; so, by putting his hand to 
 His mouth and throwing back his head, 
 making a gurgle in his throat meanwhile 
 indicative of drinking, his meaning was 
 pretty plainly rendered. 
 
 One morning Montressor was standing 
 at the door of Levitt's — the bar most af- 
 fected by those connected with the theatre 
 — when Kit went by in his usual slouch- 
 ing way. A brilliant idea struck the actor 
 as he saw him. He was studying a new 
 character for a play which was to be brought 
 out shortly — that of a simple, half-witted 
 beggar, who was yet something of a genius. 
 The part reawakened within the actor 
 some of the old interest in his art, and
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 105 
 
 he determined to make bis rendering of 
 it a perfect one. He was conscious it 
 lacked yet some individualising traits, and 
 here was a grand opportunity for getting 
 them. 
 
 Kit's dreamy talk, as he had heard it 
 addressed to others, struck him as half 
 poetic ; but the creature always seemed to 
 shrink back when the actor joined the 
 group. This Montressor, however, attrib- 
 uted to a feeling of humility, and thought 
 it would be different if enough encourage- 
 ment were given. 
 
 " Are you thirsty, Kit ? " he said, stepping 
 forward, and patting the lad on the shoulder. 
 Kit dodged away from the hand, and looked 
 up uneasily; whereupon Montressor repeated 
 his question with emphasis. 
 
 " Thirsty ! ay, I'se often that ; and so 
 are ye, they tell me." 
 
 Montressor laughed, a little consciously. 
 
 " Don't believe all they tell you, my lad.
 
 106 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 Come in, and see if we can't both get 
 something to quench the thirst you speak 
 of." 
 
 Kit looked. Could the gentleman be in 
 earnest, or was he only teasing ? The lad 
 hesitated a moment ; his great vacant eyes 
 gazed longingly towards the place where 
 unlimited drink was to be had. Still 
 something held him back. It could not 
 be conscience — David's wish was the high- 
 est law he knew ; and many a time since 
 that memorable night when David had 
 first given him a taste of the wonderful 
 drink which had awakened him to new and 
 fuller life, he had begged it again from the 
 beiug he worshipped, but had always been 
 refused, and warned never again to touch 
 it. Yet the temptation was great — irre- 
 sistible^ it proved ; and soon he was seated 
 in the little room behind the bar. 
 
 Gradually, as Montressor plied him with 
 spirit, the half-torpid brain quickened, and
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 107 
 
 the student of morbid mental action got 
 what he wanted. 
 
 A flood of vague, random talk, in which 
 now and again there was a chord struck 
 that might have awakened response in 
 the heart of a sympathetic listener. This 
 Montressor was not, but he possessed suf- 
 ficient artistic penetration to enable him 
 to grasp intellectually the salient points, 
 which yet had no power to rouse his 
 emotions. 
 
 The actor had caught a splendid illustra- 
 tion of fear, after which to jpose himself, 
 as Kit spoke of his father; and now he 
 wished for a contrast, and tried to kindle 
 enthusiasm, but had little to go upon. 
 At last he happened to mention David 
 Armstrong, and immediately his point was 
 gained. A light came into the dull, 
 glassy eyes, and transfigured the whole 
 face from vacuity into something almost 
 approaching beauty. Montressor could not
 
 108 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 but be surprised at the success of his ex- 
 periment. 
 
 " Yes, he is a good-looking fellow is Arm- 
 strong/' said the actor, half to himself and 
 half to Kit. "Heavy, though — decided- 
 ly heavy; too much of the animal about 
 him. I suppose it takes culture to bring 
 out the higher kinds of beauty." 
 
 " So strong, and yet so gentle — like the 
 wind that seems vexed wi' folks at times, 
 and yet comes creeping round my head 
 when it is full of pain, and kind o' cools 
 it for me ! David is never cross with 
 Kit, though the poor thing plagues him 
 whiles.'' 
 
 " We grow poetic — on my life, quite 
 poetic ! How highly pleased our friend 
 the carpenter must be with such devo- 
 tion ! " 
 
 Kit darted a sharp glance at him, and 
 then relapsed into sullen silence, feeling 
 that he was mocked.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 109 
 
 The Other continued to tease him — partly 
 from malice, partly that the study was not 
 yet complete. Failing for a time to elicit 
 anything more, the actor put on an expres- 
 sion of intense interest — an expression, by 
 the way, which had often won him the 
 plaudits of an admiring house, but which 
 was lost on Kit. 
 
 " Tell me what drew you to Armstrong," 
 he asked. " Was it his face, or his voice, 
 or what ? " 
 
 " What do you want to know for ? Do 
 you want to learn how to make your 
 eyes look true, and tell the same story as 
 your mouth, and your voice ring like a good 
 shilling, instead of chinking like a light 
 one ? " 
 
 At this moment the door opened, and the 
 subject of their discourse entered. 
 
 " I heard he was here," he said, pointing 
 at Kit, " and I came to fetch him." 
 
 "Why?" said Montressor, sharply. "The
 
 110 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 poor brute is happy enougli, and really 
 I find him amusing." 
 
 David resented the actor's tone, but yet 
 answered gently enough, remembering his 
 own similar thoughtlessness. 
 
 ''You don't know all, or you wouldn't 
 give him drink. His brain won't stand it," 
 he added, confidentially. 
 
 " That's all you know about it," returned 
 the other, insolently. " He is much better 
 company drunk than sober," speaking aloud, 
 as if deeming Armstrong's lowering of the 
 voice an unnecessary refinement. He poured 
 some more whisky into Kit's glass as he 
 spoke. 
 
 '' Come away, Kit, my man," said David, 
 touching him kindly. Kit looked longingly, 
 and yet felt the moral suasion of David's 
 eye. He rose lingeringly, showing by his 
 carriage as he crossed the room that he had 
 already taken too much. 
 
 Montressor leaned back in his chair, bit
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. Ill 
 
 the end off a cigar preparatory to lighting 
 it, then, through half-closed eyes, watched 
 the pair depart. 
 
 " All right, Armstrong — you can take 
 him now,'' he said, languidly ; " IVe got 
 all I wanted out of him, and possibly the 
 creature might become a nuisance. As it 
 is, I have sufficient to make the people 
 laugh and cry. Nothing like studies from 
 life for true conceptions of character."
 
 112 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The town of Oldboro' was in a state of 
 ferment. Its inhabitants, Christian and 
 pagan, seemed alike to remember the ex- 
 istence of a God other than Mammon. A 
 stranger had come among them, preaching 
 the same truths they had heard (or might 
 have heard — a somewhat different affair) 
 Sunday after Sunday from good earnest 
 men; but as he put them in a different 
 light, or hit upon a novelty in his way of 
 delivering them, people were inclined to 
 listen. Morning, noon, and night found 
 them hurrying to Scripture-reading, prayer- 
 meeting, or preaching. 
 
 Merchants, tradesmen^ workmen, all alike
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 113 
 
 went, and talked of the one great thing — 
 '' the revival." Of course their respective 
 spouses did the same over their teacups, 
 flavouring gossip for once in a way, with 
 a soup f 071 of religion. There they talked 
 you over at their leisure, as an interesting 
 case ; wondered if you were safe, with many 
 j^ros and cons and head-shakings over your 
 pronunciation of their " shibboleth." What 
 would you have 1 
 
 It might be more unpleasant, but it was 
 certainly more kindly meant than what 
 they say of you at tables less strictly 
 evangelical. 
 
 I fear, however, that these very good 
 people found a pleasure, not wholly free 
 from earthly taint, in censuring those who 
 had ministered to their spiritual wants in 
 the past. Mr White was certainly too high, 
 but, after all, he did make his service attrac- 
 tive. You had the illusion of the drama 
 without its sinfulness — only one doesn't go 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 114 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 to cliurcli to see a theatrical performance ; 
 but as to Mr Green, he was so cold and 
 lifeless as to be beneath contempt ; and no- 
 body could deny that Mr Black was too 
 latitudinarian, though out of the pulpit he 
 might be everything that could be desired ! 
 But the whole of them were "too worldly!" 
 That was the sin the congregations of the 
 Churches were hardest upon in their min- 
 isters. They took care not to encourage 
 it by over-feeding. 
 
 After all, it is pleasant to find fault with 
 the men who have railed at us so often from 
 the vantage-ground of pulpit or platform if 
 we went to church, or prayed for us as care- 
 less or reprobate if we did not ! 
 
 But it is easy enough to cavil; and in 
 spite of faults which lay on the surface, the 
 revival certainly did great good. Was it 
 not something gained that so-called Chris- 
 tians should forget for a while to squabble 
 among themselves, and think, instead, of
 
 BEFOKE THE DAWN. 115 
 
 trying to fight with real evil, and do some 
 good in the world '? And was it not well 
 that in the busy, sordid town, they should 
 be willing to remember they had souls 
 through the week as well as on Sundays, 
 and did not keep them in the crown of their 
 new hats, or shut up in a drawer along with 
 the rest of their church-going clothes ? 
 
 David Armstrong had been growing more 
 and more careless about religion — or so it 
 seemed to his mother, who wept and prayed 
 over it in secret, with pangs such as only a 
 mother's heart can know. He seldom went 
 with her now to the chapel where she wor- 
 shipped, but spent his Sundays working at 
 his models; if the days were fine, taking 
 little Deeta for long walks into the country, 
 or down to Wythemouth, where he would sit 
 on the sandy beach, smoking ; either dream- 
 ing lazily of what he would do when some of 
 his inventions succeeded, — how his mother's 
 old age should be provided with every ease
 
 116 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 and comfort, and liis little Deeta should 
 have all the finery and "pretties'^ of life 
 which her heart was set on, — or thinking 
 out the smooth working of cog and wheel 
 and pinion more readily within hearing of 
 the soft recurring murmur of the waves; 
 just as a musician might so perfect his 
 chords and cadences. 
 
 Now, however, all this was changed. For 
 during one of his deepest penitent fits, fol- 
 lowing on a drunken bout, his friend Wat- 
 son persuaded him to attend a revival 
 meeting, and he felt there, more than 
 ever before, the depth of his sinfulness. 
 Every spare moment now was devoted to 
 reading and prayer. He could scarcely 
 eat or sleep in his agony of contrition. 
 He grew sullen, too, in his pain, and his 
 fellow-workmen did not venture after the 
 first to chaff him about turning "Methody;" 
 while his pet, Deeta, resented the change, 
 and murmured plaintively that " David had
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 117 
 
 turned cross, and good, and tiresome, just 
 like his mother, and wasn't half so nice as 
 her old Davie ! " 
 
 But his mother, who knew something 
 of the heart - experience he was passing 
 through, began to hope that after all her 
 dearly - loved boy might be one of the 
 " elect ;" though, poor soul ! she dreaded his 
 perversion through Methodist Arminianism, 
 and puzzled his already muddled brain by 
 dissertations on free-will, imputed righteous- 
 ness, and saving faith. Alas ! this son of 
 hers never could be brought to understand 
 theology; and when his honest, kindly heart 
 rose in bitter revulsion against a God such 
 as his mother believed in, he would speak 
 angrily, sometimes with a sneer, steeling 
 himself against a Supreme Being whose 
 justice looked like cruelty, and love mere 
 caprice. He never doubted the correctness 
 of her views : happier for him if he had 
 done so I
 
 118 BEFORE THE DAWK 
 
 " The carnal mind is enmity against 
 God ! " his mother said. This must ex- 
 plain the feelings he had. He believed so 
 at any rate, and grew more and more de- 
 spairing in consequence. Even the Metho- 
 dist sermons he heard in Watson's chapel 
 did him no good, for they made a conscious 
 faith a sine qua non of acceptance, and this 
 he had not. So the days wore on, bringing 
 him no nearer the happiness of which he 
 heard so much. 
 
 The evangelist had gone to another town 
 with his message of love, and the work in 
 Oldboro' was carried on by ministers who 
 had been revived themselves. David still 
 continued to attend the services ; but there 
 came a night when, as he entered the 
 door of the hall where they were held, he 
 resolved never to go again if the service 
 now commencing brought him no comfort. 
 If it was all no use, why spend more of his 
 life in such misery? Why not take what
 
 BEFORE THE DAWK 119 
 
 good could be snatched from this life, if the 
 hereafter was to bring endless torture only '? 
 
 Watson was with him, powerless to help 
 him to peace, though yearning to do so, 
 even as his mother did. The two friends 
 were late, and as they entered the speaker 
 was just giving out his text. It was — 
 "Our Father which art in heaven." 
 
 Watson felt a ray of hope. Surely David 
 would hear now something to comfort him 
 — hear of that Father's willingness to take 
 back a prodigal son ! 
 
 No ; the sermon that followed was of the 
 usual style : the text might just as well have 
 been, "Flee from the wrath to come," or 
 anything else of an alarming nature. It 
 was the same tale told so often to both ; 
 but while David's white lips were set close 
 together, and his dark eyes grew defiant, 
 Watson, seeing further, smiled at the in- 
 genuity which could evoke such a merciless 
 sermon from a text so loving.
 
 120 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 It is, after all, not so very difficult. 
 
 "The words of this prayer were spoken 
 by Christ to His immediate disciples. You, 
 the unconverted — you, the unregenerate — 
 though your mothers in their ignorance 
 have taught you to lisp it at their knees, 
 have no more right to use this formula 
 than the pigs and the devils ! God made 
 you? — yes; but He made them just as 
 truly ! He is the Father only of those who, 
 by faith in His Son, have become part of 
 His family — heirs of God, joint heirs with 
 Jesus Christ ! " 
 
 This is the way the thing is done — quite 
 simple, and so unanswerable ! 
 
 The man who preached this doctrine was 
 a poet in his way, and the ' Eecord ' and the 
 ' Kevivalist ' had often in their poets' corner 
 scraps from his pen. There he would weep 
 over a dead rose-leaf or a crushed butterfly, 
 or go into agonies over a snowflake which 
 had lost its pristine purity. The same
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 121 
 
 eloquence now was used to picture the 
 tortures of an endless eternity for those 
 who refused this " adoption ; " and his voice 
 never faltered as he consigned their souls to 
 sin and hell for ever and ever. Not per- 
 haps that he was harder-hearted than the 
 rest of the world ; but only — poor parrot 
 that he was ! — he repeated what he had 
 been taught, without giving himself the 
 trouble of realising what it meant. Per- 
 haps, like Hawthorne's Hilda in 'Trans- 
 formation/ he needed a sin to soften him ; 
 or maybe, when his imagination developed 
 a little more, he might be able to pity a 
 crushed or withered life as much as a dying 
 leaf, or a sin-stained soul as well as a soiled 
 snowflake. 
 
 The latter might have given him a hint 
 of a happier faith, if, instead of writing its 
 elegy, he had watched where it lay hardening 
 under the traffic of life in the town -street, 
 until the sun shone down, warming it through
 
 122 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 and through ; and how at last it began to 
 weep over its fall, not because it hated but 
 loved the sun, and the sun, taking pity upon 
 its tears, gave it a new birth ; then it sprang 
 up from earth, leaving all its pollution be- 
 hind, and lived again as part of some won- 
 derful rose-hued cloud, or bright, glorious 
 rainbow. 
 
 After the dreadful sermon was over, there 
 was an invitation to the **penitent form ;" and 
 to give the people time to respond, a hymn 
 was sung. Perhaps there is no species of 
 composition which contains so many words 
 to such a small amount of meaning as the 
 usual revival hymn. It is worse than a 
 modern drawing-room song in this respect, 
 and that is saying a good deal ! 
 
 This particular one, however, was offen- 
 sive as well as meaningless. It tried to 
 impress you with the Avisdom of becoming 
 a Christian, but only succeeded in impress- 
 ing you with the presumption of the singers.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 123 
 
 Every one who listened was addressed as 
 " you poor sinner," which might be just, but 
 was not pleasant. The horrors of the judg- 
 ment-day were coarsely sketched in ver- 
 milion and indigo ; and the hymn finished 
 off with the abrupt question — " Dear friend, 
 and where will you go on that great day ? " 
 " You " — written large in the hymn-books, 
 and sung with befitting emphasis, and the 
 whole set to a tune of a cheerful, if not 
 rollicking description — meant, we presume, 
 to express the happy confidence of the singers 
 that they at least were safe. 
 
 Then, as any one so minded might now 
 speak, up jumped a little white-faced man 
 with a big forehead and a voice to match. 
 In his case vehemence took the part of 
 eloquence, as he thundered against poor 
 sinners, till any one of a sympathetic tem- 
 perament would have felt inclined to take 
 their part simply out of contradiction to 
 his dogmatic condemnation. No shilly-
 
 124 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 shallying of pity in him. His theme was sug- 
 gested by a fire that had lately taken place 
 in the town, which was, in his opinion, part 
 of the vengeance of God for the sin of the 
 place. " The wickedness of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah was as nothing to the wicked- 
 ness which goes on every day in this vile 
 and polluted place. The evil savour of its 
 sins has gone up to the nostrils of Him who 
 sitteth on high, and He will hide His mercy 
 away as behind a black veil, till such times 
 as the wicked are swept from the place they 
 have corrupted. Why should the Great, 
 the Just, the Pure, stay His hand now any 
 more than when the cities of the Plain 
 were utterly demolished and destroyed ? 
 Ye children of wrath, see how He has 
 shown ye your dwelling-places, your great 
 stores and warehouses, laid low to the ground ! 
 But all this is as nothing to what shall come 
 upon you in the days which are still hidden ! 
 The terror and the dread, the storms and
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 125 
 
 great elemental strifes, the pestilence that 
 walketh in darkness, and all the manifold 
 ways in which he who sitteth upon the 
 white horse will be given dominion over 
 you ! You may cry in vain to the moun- 
 tains to cover you I His emissaries are 
 everywhere — in the flood and the fire, in 
 the wind and the pestilence!" 
 
 If fear were the strongest emotion human 
 nature is capable of, the little man might 
 have been successful in his appeals; but 
 comparing the power of fear with that of 
 love, the former is dwarfed and degraded ; 
 for while the most hardened criminal feels 
 it a point of honour not to soften in the 
 face of danger, he yet has generally some 
 vulnerable point which love can touch and 
 influence. 
 
 '' Yon's a real powerful speaker,'' said one 
 of his listeners when the meeting terminated, 
 and they talked it over on their way home. 
 " He made me creep in all my bones like.
 
 126 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 just as when they say somebody walks over 
 one's grave ! " 
 
 *' I don't know as aw care aboot that 
 sort, Betty," answered the other old woman, 
 slowly. " It seems to me one wants some- 
 thin' comfortin' to think on to help one 
 ower wi' the cowld, and the roomatics, and 
 the hunger, and all the ills owld worn-out 
 bodies like you and me has to go through 
 wi'. I like somethin' about Christ carin' 
 for us, and takin' us where there's to be no 
 more sorrow, nor pain, nor hunger ! " 
 
 " Ye're a poor, cold, lifeless creatur', 
 Nancy ! " retorted Betty, with scorn. " Why, 
 everybody knows that ye can get all that 
 out o' the New Testament, just readin' it 
 at home. But there's somethin' more 
 rousin' - like wanted at a re - vival, aw 
 reckon ! " 
 
 Betty, in fact, looked upon it as a sort of 
 play gone through for the special delecta- 
 tion of those who did not otherwise get any
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 127 
 
 amusement ; but as to it affecting her or her 
 inner life, such a thing never entered her 
 head. 
 
 A few of the audience having gone up to 
 kneel at the form, and be talked to and 
 prayed for, the room soon became a perfect 
 scene of confusion and uproar, while the 
 noise was deafening. All praying at the 
 highest pitch of their voices for something 
 different, or shouting out ^'' Amen ; " " Ay, 
 that's it, brother ! " to confirm these 
 prayers. 
 
 If the prophets of Baal were any more 
 noisy, Elijah was quite pardonable when 
 he taunted them with having a god who, 
 peradventure, slept, or had gone on a 
 journey. 
 
 Then the hysterical cries of women, the 
 hammering of fists on forms, the sepul- 
 chral groans, — no words can do justice to 
 them ! 
 
 All, however, did not affect the nerves of
 
 128 BEFORE THE DAWX. 
 
 David Armstrong. He looked on quietly, 
 and took no part in the noise ; but he en- 
 vied, and not without reason, the joy and 
 emotion which could so excite the people. 
 Once or twice, as he felt keenly the differ- 
 ence between them and himself, a low moan 
 escaped him, but, for the most part, he sat 
 stolidly motionless — a rock amidst a surg- 
 ing sea. 
 
 An older man — a local preacher appar- 
 ently — now rose to direct the storm to 
 some practical end. He was a different 
 type from the sentimentalist who did not 
 shudder to send his fellow - creatures to 
 eternal damnation. A man of powerful 
 johysique, and strong, if uncultured, mind; 
 and his words were telling and to the point, 
 touching all that was best and noblest in 
 the hearts beating round him, though all 
 ungarnished with poetical imagery and 
 beautiful similes. His voice was deep, and 
 kept well under control, and he spoke as
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 129 
 
 one who had studied working men by the 
 power of sympathy. He knew their strength 
 and their weakness — knew how brave and 
 loyal they are at heart, and yet how easily 
 led away — and his pleading had the force 
 of truth. 
 
 He dwelt on the love of God and of 
 Christ for all mankind — the sinful as well 
 as the good. Then on to the giant forces 
 of evil at work against the blessed influ- 
 ence of that love. In a forcible way he 
 particularised evil as shown among them- 
 selves in that big wicked town. He spoke 
 of the little army headed by Christ, fight- 
 ing against the evil one, then he broke out 
 abruptly — 
 
 '^ Which of you here will come and fight 
 on the Lord's side 1 See where He stands 
 waiting, oh so patiently, while the mighty 
 triumph over Him ! His banner hangs all 
 drooping and torn — will you not enlist 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 130 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 under it, and follow it to glory ? Stand up, 
 then, and show yourselves His men in the 
 battle of life ! " 
 
 The audience, motionless a moment be- 
 fore, rose like one man, as though under 
 some magnetic influence. They stood spell- 
 bound, while the preacher thanked God for 
 their decision. 
 
 ' David rose with the rest, forgetting 
 " election," *' predestination," and every- 
 thing else, even himself and his sin ; feel- 
 ing nothing but that the Saviour who died 
 for him wanted men to fight His battles. 
 Here, at any rate, was something that he 
 (David) could do. And he would do it 
 with all his might, though he should be 
 slain in the warfare. 
 
 With this utter forgetfulness of self, there 
 came into his heart a great joy, and he im- 
 agined himself accepted by God. 
 
 Watson and David walked home together
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 131 
 
 as usual when tlie service ended, the lat- 
 ter joyous and excited, fearing nothing — 
 no inward sinfulness, no outward tempta- 
 tion ; feeling sure that now he was con- 
 verted — "born again," as he called it — 
 he was strong enough to resist a hundred 
 devils, if need be, come in what form 
 they might. What were they to him that 
 he should fear them, now that he wore 
 Christ's colours, and had enlisted under 
 His banner 1 
 
 Watson was calm and sad. He had seen 
 so many a young soul buckle on its armour 
 bravely enough, and go forth to find — 
 not the laurel crown of victory worn on 
 unwrinkled brow, when the armour was 
 undinted by a foe who quailed ere the 
 fight began ; but if a victory at last, one 
 won through toil and pain and heartsink- 
 ing unutterable, and wounds which left 
 behind them abiding scars, and a crown —
 
 132 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 if crowned at all — of thorns worn as their 
 Master's was. Even He, in the world's 
 eyes, seemed the victim, not the van- 
 quisher of sin. How much more, then, 
 must those who choose to follow Him, 
 appear on earth the beaten, rather than 
 the victorious ?
 
 133 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The day broke fresh and bright, with that 
 glad beauty early spring breathes even into 
 town life, before the smoke and toil of noon 
 dims it. As David awoke, it seemed to him 
 that never had the sun risen on so joyous a 
 world. The glory of the East — where rose 
 and purple and gold mingled into one har- 
 monious whole — was to him as the opening 
 of Paradise. For was not he now one of 
 the elect ? 
 
 At last the prayer to Our Father in 
 heaven sounded no mockery to one speci- 
 ally singled out and favoured. The spir- 
 itual ecstasy of the previous night had not 
 departed, and in the intoxication of triumph
 
 134 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 David walked forth as one under the smile 
 of God. There in the bright young morn- 
 ing light *he stood, feeling strong enough to 
 battle with all outward and inward foes, 
 invincible in his untried armour of the 
 Spirit. 
 
 His mother noticed his exalted looks, 
 though with her usual reticence she made 
 no remark. Only in her heart she under- 
 stood, and thanked the kind God who had 
 at last listened to her prayer that David — 
 her youngest and best -loved son — might 
 be given to her, to bear her company in 
 the New Jerusalem, where she could not 
 help fancying the long ages of eternity 
 would seem "lonesome" without him. 
 
 " Heaven is home," she murmured ; '' but 
 what is home without those we love 1 " and 
 she stood at the door for a few moments, 
 gazing after the manly-looking fellow, who 
 walked away quickly, with an elasticity in 
 his step which had not been there for many
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 135 
 
 a long day. And as she looked, her stern, 
 rugged, old face softened and grew beauti- 
 ful through intensity of affection. 
 
 David wished now more than ever that 
 he had respected his mother's scruples about 
 his engagement at the Imperial ; for in his 
 present mood the place and its surroundings 
 were distasteful in the extreme. 
 
 It seemed as though his newly -found 
 righteousness would be put to the test, for 
 during the morning Montressor sauntered 
 up, humming the air of a little French song 
 he was to sing in the afterpiece. The very 
 approach of this man had always the effect 
 of irritating the carpenter ; and the strokes 
 of his hammer grew quicker and heavier 
 while Montressor stood watching him. For 
 once the actor seemed nervous and ill at 
 ease. He stood without speaking for a 
 moment or two, playing with his watch- 
 chain. At last he shifted his position, and 
 sighed, then began to speak.
 
 136 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 " Look here, Armstrong, my man ! I want 
 to have a quiet talk with you about some- 
 thing. Are you too busy at present '? " 
 
 '' We ha' little in common," said David, 
 slowly and distinctly, without turning round. 
 " I don't understand what ye can want wi' 
 mer^ 
 
 " Perhaps we have more in common than 
 you know of," replied the actor, signifi- 
 cantly. " But it's too long a story to tell 
 now, and this isn't the place to talk con- 
 fidentially in. I suppose you can't leave 
 
 yetl" 
 
 " No," answered the other, shortly. 
 "There's a lot of things to see after afore 
 night ! And if you wouldn't mind movin' 
 from there — we want to alter that scene. 
 Gentlemen are terribly in the way here, 
 ye see." 
 
 '^ Well, I'll not bother you more just now. 
 Only if you'll come round to Levitt's after 
 you are done, I'll wait there for you. It's
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 137 
 
 something you will be interested in, Arm- 
 strong ; and mind, if you don't come, you'll 
 regret it." 
 
 David nodded an assent, and Montressor 
 went off with a gait slightly unsteady, even 
 at that early hour in the day. 
 
 Previously David would have avoided 
 this interview with a man who stirred the 
 darker passions of his nature, but now there 
 was a sort of spiritual pride — or prowess, if 
 you will — which braced him for the encoun- 
 ter, and made him long to test his self-con- 
 trol. Was not the " old man " dead within 
 him, and he himself a " new creature " 1 
 What had he to fear ? 
 
 When David went round to Levitt's after 
 his work was done, he found Montressor 
 there waiting for him in the bar, according 
 to promise. The actor looked flushed and 
 uneasy, as he asked David what he would 
 have to drink. The latter refused to be 
 treated, wishing to keep both brain and tem-
 
 138 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 per cool. Whereupon Montressor, who was 
 not altogether sober, after a slight sneer at 
 David's newly acquired self-restraint, called 
 for a glass of brandy, which he drank un- 
 diluted. Then asking David to follow him, 
 he led the way into a small dark room 
 behind the bar. 
 
 A strange feeling came over David as he 
 stood there quietly waiting for the other 
 to speak. A feeling of oppression, a diffi- 
 culty in getting breath, as though some- 
 thing was about to happen, came over him ; 
 but he did not stir, only stood waiting, 
 with his steady dark eyes fixed on the 
 man who had brought him there. 
 
 " I have just discovered the truth of 
 something which has long haunted me as 
 a suspicion," began Montressor, slowly. "It 
 concerns you as much as myself, so it is 
 only right to let you know of it." He 
 paused here, as for some word of encour- 
 agement or interest, but none coming, went
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 139 
 
 on : " There are few men who like to con- 
 fess to another, as I must needs do to you ; 
 but — in short, I don't think you are enough 
 of a saint yourself, Armstrong, to judge 
 one's past follies too severely." 
 
 "Go on," said David, shortly. "It 
 matters little what I am, since Tm not 
 finding fault wi' ye." 
 
 "But who knows what you may do when 
 you hear it all ? Not that it matters much 
 now either, since what's done is past mend- 
 ing. Well, to go to the point at once ; it's 
 about the child you've been so kind to." 
 
 David started. " Perdita ? My little 
 Deeta? "What is she to you?" 
 
 " A good deal, as you will see if you will 
 only listen long enough," replied the other, 
 with a light laugh that grated on the lis- 
 tener's ear. Then he produced a cigar-case. 
 " Any objection to a whiff or two 1 Ah, 
 you won't ; perhaps you'll excuse me hav- 
 ing one, then." While lighting the cigar he
 
 140 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 watched David furtively, as if trying his 
 ground. 
 
 David returned the look. 
 
 " Did you ever see the man that your 
 cousin, Phoebe Armstrong, left her home 
 with ? " at last Montressor queried abruptly. 
 The young carpenter clenched his fist in- 
 stinctively. 
 
 - "Never! The d d scoundrel!'' he 
 
 muttered. '' It would be an ill day that 
 brought us two together." 
 
 " Why ? " asked the other coolly, flicking 
 the ash off the end of his cigar with his 
 little finger. 
 
 " Why ? Because it would go hard with 
 me but rd send his black soul to hell — 
 that's to say, I'm feared I would ha' done 
 it yesterday," cried David, as the thought 
 of his good resolutions came back to him all 
 at once. 
 
 " And why not to-day, my friend ? " re- 
 marked Montressor, drawing up his slight
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 141 
 
 figure, and looking at the speaker calmly. 
 "Yesterday belongs to the past, to-morrow 
 nobody can answer for, but to-day is our 
 own to do with what we will I Therefore 
 I ask again, why not to-day, David Arm- 
 strong ? '' 
 
 *' What do you mean ? " cried David, 
 wildly, drawing a long breath. A host of 
 new ideas were crowding into his brain, 
 almost too quickly for him to take in the 
 meaning of them. A mist rose before his 
 eyes — he could scarcely see, and put out his 
 hand to grope for some substantial support. 
 Montressor, on the other hand, had com- 
 pletely regained his self-control, and seemed 
 rather amused by this display of emotion. 
 " Poor, uncultivated animal ! How slow he 
 is to understand what any man of the world 
 would see with half an eye ! '' was the pity- 
 ing, contemptuous thought that crossed his 
 mind, as the carpenter partly recovered 
 himself.
 
 142 BEFOEE THE DAWX. 
 
 "Do you mean that you — you are " 
 
 '•' The man you are kind enough to 
 threaten. Exactly ! '' 
 
 " You heartless villain!" came from David, 
 in a hoarse whisper, as he made a stride for- 
 ward. The men stood face to face, the 
 young carpenter towering above the other, 
 the very incarnation of passion and strength. 
 But Montressor did not flinch. He believed 
 in himself, which is the first principle of 
 courage ; and furthermore, he knew that in 
 one thing he had a hold upon David. This 
 was, of course, the latter's love to Phoebe's 
 child ! 
 
 ''Hear me out, Armstrong," he said, 
 quietly ; "we can settle old scores after. 
 Perhaps you are a little hasty in condemn- 
 ing me altogether, when you don't know all 
 the circumstances. But, apart from this, 
 have you remembered one thing 1 That if 
 I am right in what I say — and, of course, as
 
 BEFOEZ rZZ DAWN. 143 
 
 DO one likes to make himself out blacker 
 than he i.?, there's a reasonable chance of 
 mr speaking trnth — I am also the hxher of 
 vour lirtle Perdita ! There are lierefore her 
 interests to consider before yon cany out 
 Tonr pacific intentions." 
 
 At the reference to Deeta, David stag- 
 gered back to a chair, and with a groan, hid 
 his fsLce in his arms. 
 
 He had overlooked the stnbbom fact that 
 his cousin's seducer — ^the man for whom a 
 hatred intense and terrible had burned in 
 his heart from the hour when he looked on 
 Phoebe's cold, white face — this man was 
 also the father of his little Deeta ! Ah 
 Grod I was it possible ihsit this wicked, har- 
 dened wretch, who could speak lightly and 
 carelessly of the woman he had betrayed 
 to sin and death, could he the father of 
 the innocent, sunny, sweet - souled child 
 at home ? He loved that child so, that he
 
 144 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 liad tried to shield her from even a know- 
 ledge of evil. He could not believe this 
 horrid thing true. 
 
 '^ Are you deceiving me ? If you were 
 such a brute as you say, I don't believe you 
 dare stand there and confess it ! " 
 
 "Doesn't that prove it?" replied the 
 actor, flushing a little under David's words. 
 "Now, as a man of sense, I ask you what 
 motive could I have for slandering my past 
 self? Let me tell you how it was. Ten 
 years ago I was rather a difl'erent sort of 
 fellow than now : life seems more hopeful 
 at six -and -twenty; and it was not alto- 
 gether vanity that made me fancy I had 
 the ball at my feet." 
 
 Even now, when confessing his wretched 
 past, Montressor could not forget his stage 
 art ; he made the best of himself, stood 
 in a graceful position leaning against the 
 mantelpiece, rounded his sentences, and 
 softened away the blackness, till it was dif-
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 145 
 
 ficult to believe that he was not the wronged 
 instead of the wronger. He went on. 
 
 " One of our leading comedians took a 
 liking to me, and gave me the advantage 
 of many little hints in style, and helps on 
 in other ways. In short, if it hadn't been 
 for one clog on me, which need not be dwelt 
 on now, I might, with my personal appear- 
 ance and abilities, have had a first-rate posi- 
 tion on the London stage. I was, at the 
 time I mention, of sufiicient importance to 
 be a ' star ' in the provinces ; and it was 
 while here on a tour that I first saw your 
 cousin Phoebe. I shall never forget the im- 
 pression which her sweet innocent freshness 
 made upon me the day I met her in a shady 
 lane, when I was having a long walk into 
 the country, and asked her to tell me my 
 nearest way back to town. She was such a 
 contrast to the womanhood I was most inti- 
 mate with. She was like the primroses of 
 her own country lanes, after the heated, 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 146 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 dusty air and glaring scenes of theatre 
 life." 
 
 *' And could you not let the primrose 
 grow fresh and sweet in its shelter under 
 the hedo-e amono; its own kind ? No. You 
 must needs tear it up by the roots, and take 
 it where it would be trampled under foot for 
 a common weed. How had ye the heart, 
 man ? " 
 
 Montressor walked hastily to the window, 
 and kept silence for a few moments. 
 
 " I ivas fond of her, Armstrong, though you 
 may find it difficult to believe me," he said, 
 not without emotion. '^ But there — I never 
 thought of it ending seriously. It was only 
 part of a holiday pastime, the making love 
 to a pretty lass in the meaningless way that 
 goes for nothing. How could I know that, 
 in her ignorance of the world, poor girl, she 
 would take it differently? And what young 
 fellow of my age but would have felt flat- 
 tered when the tears came into her eyes at
 
 BEFORE THE DAWX. 147 
 
 parting "? Of course I kissed them away. 
 There's no need to say much more : ^ye met 
 again, and . . . you know the rest 1 But 
 the little goose had no need to leave me, 
 only " 
 
 " Only what ? " asked David, sharply. 
 
 '' Only women have such uncomfortable 
 sort of consciences, — that sleep when they 
 ought not, and awaken when too late.'' 
 
 " Why do you tell me all this ? I sup- 
 pose you have some motive, though it isn't 
 very clear to me ? " 
 
 *' Why 1 Don't you think that you have 
 been burthened with another man's child 
 long enough '? " 
 
 David Armstrong rose to his feet. " You 
 don't mean that you intend to try and take 
 her from me ? " 
 
 " I mean to claim my little girl, without 
 doubt," replied Montressor, doggedly. 
 
 '' Never ! I will never give her up ! " 
 exclaimed David, vehemently. "You took
 
 148 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 her mother from a happy and innocent 
 home, and after dragging her into the dirt, 
 tired of her, and cast her from you to die 
 of starvation ! If you could do this to the 
 mother, whom you profess to have loved, 
 the child you know nothing of would fare 
 worse, maybe ! While I live, I swear by 
 God that you shall never have her!" 
 ^ " How senselessly you talk, Armstrong ! " 
 said the actor, impatiently. " Why should 
 you fear I would be unkind to Deeta? 
 Who so fit to look after a child as her 
 own father ? " 
 
 " You her father ? '' retorted the young 
 carpenter, with contempt and hatred in his 
 voice. A moment, and he went on more 
 softly. '' And I — am I, then, nothing to her ? 
 My hands, rough as they are, were the first 
 her baby fingers clung to when she began to 
 toddle ; ' Davie ' the first name she lisped. 
 She has been everything to me since I
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 149 
 
 found her crying by her dead mother's 
 side, and took her in my arms — a tiny 
 little creature, that sobbed herself to sleep, 
 nestled close to my heart." David fairly 
 broke down at the recollection. 
 
 The actor was growing weary of the 
 scene, and this stupid sentimentality. Be- 
 sides, he felt strangely faint and weak. It 
 must be the closeness of the room which 
 affected him ; and the only remedy he 
 believed in was one he had been trying 
 that day very frequently. However, after 
 drinking the brandy-and-water which the 
 waiting -maid brought at his request, he 
 felt better, and more able to overcome any 
 scruples David Armstrong might have as 
 to giving up the custody of Perdita. He 
 would try what a sneer would do. 
 
 ''And the money which I hear she has 
 been lucky enough to have bequeathed to 
 her 1 That, I suppose, is nothing to such a
 
 150 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 high-minded man as David Armstrong, car- 
 penter ; though it would come very useful 
 to a poor actor like myself ? " 
 
 Money ? Ah ! Now David began to see 
 what it meant. What more natural than 
 that Montressor's mean nature should be 
 covetous of the couple of hundreds which 
 had been safely deposited in the Wythedale 
 Bank in Perdita's name'? That snug little 
 sum left to the child lately by her maternal 
 uncle, was to be the nucleus of a fund David 
 meant to save for his darling. But a ques- 
 tion glanced across his mind. What bet- 
 ter use could it be put to than to save 
 her from the knowledge of such a father ? 
 No ; the money was a trust — all the more 
 sacred because entirely at his disposal. It 
 would be hard to let it go tamely ; and 
 yet 
 
 ^' If it's only the money," he began, 
 eagerly, " and the little maid was to be 
 left to mother and me, maybe we could
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 151 
 
 manage ! It would go hard with me, but 
 rd make it up to her in the end." 
 
 " It's not altogether the money," answered 
 the actor, slowly. " The child is very pretty, 
 and has a voice. I heard her singing one 
 day as she was watching you at work. But, 
 after all, she might not do well on the stage, 
 and might be a nuisance to me into the bar- 
 gain. You must give me time to think it 
 over — ^and would you mind opening the 
 window, as you are near it ? This room is 
 confoundedly close and stuffy." 
 
 David complied, and stood for a short time 
 looking out, while he mentally compared 
 the story Montressor had just told him with 
 the letter which his cousin had left unfin- 
 ished. His brain felt rather stunned ; but 
 at last he did remember that there was 
 something written there about a discovery 
 the girl had made. 
 
 '' Tell me one thing ? " he asked, abruptly. 
 " What was it made Phoebe leave you 1 "
 
 152 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 " It was all that wretch to whom I was 
 tied," said Montressor, angrily : " she thought 
 I was happy at last, and that didn t suit 
 her at all. When I was away one day, she 
 forced herself into Phoebe's presence, and 
 
 told her that I — was — '' hesitating 
 
 " What '? " thundered David. 
 " Her husband," said Montressor, slowly, 
 i' I thought you knew ? " 
 
 " How was I to know '? Married all the 
 while that the poor thing kept on hoping 
 you would make an honest woman of her ? 
 
 You d d scoundrel ! Now that I see 
 
 you truly, I tell you to your face that 
 neither Deeta nor Deeta's money shall be 
 yours." 
 
 A sudden fury flamed up into the actor's 
 face. Was this dolt turning too strong for 
 him ? Had all his talk been for nothing '? 
 Almost before the words were out of David's 
 mouth, Montressor struck him over it with 
 all his force.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWX. 153 
 
 David forgot everything in the hatred 
 which now filled his heart. A moment 
 more, and the blow was savagely returned. 
 The actor staggered back, clutching wildly 
 at vacancy, and then, with one last gasp for 
 breath, fell to the ground, and lay motionless 
 at David's feet.
 
 154 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 For a moment or two David Armstrong 
 ■stood quite still, his eyes fixed and dilated, 
 looking down at the awful form which so 
 shortly before had confronted him full of 
 life and action. During that time he felt 
 nothing — simply stunned — as though he 
 had received, instead of given, that terrible 
 blow. 
 
 Then a sort of convulsive shiver ran 
 through him, and he slowly raised his head 
 and gazed around stupidly. 
 
 His mind was not yet active, but in a 
 condition intensely receptive, — so much so, 
 indeed, that even the little stuffy room, 
 with its dingy paper, its flaring advertise-
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 155 
 
 ments of beer, and spirits, and old playbills, 
 was photographed on his brain, — for ever- 
 more to haunt him in those impressionable 
 moments between sleeping and waking, 
 when the memory of one who has either 
 done, imagined, or witnessed some deed of 
 horror, is unwillingly forced back to the 
 scene of it, and held there in the foul 
 embrace of the Nemesis of crime ! 
 
 In no time the room was full of awed, 
 inquisitive people, who rushed in one after 
 another, till every breath of air seemed 
 shut out. Bat for all their crowding, there 
 was still a space left round the one figure 
 standing so immovable, with fist still clenched 
 and brow knitted, though all anger and 
 passion was dead within, and nothing re- 
 mained but shuddering agony ; — and that 
 other lying there, intensely still, with a still- 
 ness that was dread. 
 
 At last they brought a doctor, who pushed 
 his way through the crowd, and stooping
 
 156 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 down, proceeded in a cool business-like 
 manner to examine the fallen man — feeling 
 for his pulse, then with increased gravity 
 opening the vest and under-linen. As he 
 did so, a curl of golden hair fell on the 
 floor unnoticed by David, — the surgeon 
 listening, with his ear against the heart, 
 for some faint flutter of life, while those 
 gathered in the room held their breath 
 from anxiety. 
 
 After this examination, the surgeon rose 
 and shook his head ominously. 
 
 " No ; it's just as I thought. He's done 
 for ! The heart has ceased to beat ! " 
 
 David gave a great sigh, and appeared to 
 rouse himself, stretching his arms and stir- 
 ring uneasily. 
 
 " Be quite sure afore you say such a thing 
 as that," he said hoarsely, his voice sound- 
 ing strange even to himself. " It cannot 
 be ! I can scarce believe it ! Only a
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 157 
 
 minute ao^o and he was as mucli alive as 
 you or me, and now ye say he's " 
 
 The man could not pronounce the word 
 '•' dead " yet, and broke off short. 
 
 ^' Such a blow as that," answered the 
 surgeon, pointing at the ugly mark on the 
 temple, " would have seriously hurt a strong 
 man, much more a fellow of his physique ! " 
 and he looked curiously at the one who, to 
 all appearance, had dealt the blow. He could 
 not help professionally admiring David, as 
 a specimen of perfect strength and muscle, 
 at the same time wishing to show his dis- 
 gust at the use the wretch had made of his 
 advantage over his opponent. 
 
 David covered his eyes with his hand, as 
 though to shut out the sight of the deed he 
 had done. 
 
 The surgeon's remark stung him even 
 through the greater mental pain he was 
 enduring. He was branded as a coward
 
 158 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 and a bully — a creature who did not care 
 to fight one with any chance to conquer, but 
 had brutally attacked weakness instead. 
 
 This was what passion had led him — the 
 self-confident — into 1 Cursed be the day 
 on which he trusted that he was one of 
 God's elect ! 
 
 No one had yet made any effort to touch 
 -David, but many murmurs were passed from 
 mouth to mouth to the effect that he ought 
 to be taken into custody. 
 
 The police had not yet made their ap- 
 pearance on the scene. Until they came 
 no one seemed disposed to undertake the 
 office. But when the man under suspi- 
 cion, after a last instinctive glance down- 
 ward, turned and began to go slowly out, 
 some angry movement was perceptible 
 among the bystanders, and the landlord 
 — a burly fellow — stood directly in front 
 of him. 
 
 " What do you mean by stopping me ? "
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 159 
 
 asked David, quietly enough, but in a de- 
 termined tone nevertheless. 
 
 " Come, let me pass, men ! I won't be 
 interfered with, I tell you.'' 
 
 The landlord laid his hand on the speak- 
 er's arm, as though to detain him. 
 
 "Well, but you know you can't go till 
 some inquiry is made. Be reasonable now, 
 and don't get me into more trouble." 
 
 " Let me alone. I must go 1 " persisted 
 David. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " To give myself up to the law, of course ! 
 If any of you hinder me, by God ! I cannot 
 answer for myself. You can follow if you 
 like, and see whether I am trying to deceive 
 you. What can man's justice matter to 
 me when it is God's law I have broken ? 
 It is only Him I dread I " 
 
 The people fell back, letting him pass 
 from their midst without one attempt to 
 detain him.
 
 160 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 A few followed wonderingly to the nearest 
 police station, where David soon was lodged 
 in one of the cells on a confession of mur- 
 der, to await as best he might the inquest 
 on the morrow.
 
 161 
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 Nature is nearly always merciful in the 
 first hours after a great shock or grief. 
 She gives for the time a bewildering an- 
 aesthetic to deaden the pain, or render us 
 oblivious of it. It is afterwards — when 
 strength has come back, and we are able to 
 take up our burden of life on quivering, 
 weary shoulders — that we fully realise our 
 misery. Then it is we comprehend that 
 never more can we be the careless, happy 
 souls to whom the pilgrimage here is a 
 thing of flowers and sunshine, of hope and 
 its glad fulfilment, but that we must carry 
 with us the memory and the scars of conflict 
 or of defeat, even when, to all outward 
 seeming, it is well with us. 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 162 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 When first left in the solitude of his cell, 
 David Armstrong sat down, and, leaning 
 his head on his hands, was for a time con- 
 scious of nothing but a dull weight on brain, 
 and heart. A couple of hours passed in this 
 heavy oblivion, which yet was not sleep. 
 
 When he roused himself and looked 
 around, night was already falling, and the 
 white walls seemed to his awakening ima- 
 gination to be closing in upon him, shutting 
 him off from all humanity. He felt cold 
 and cramped, and his limbs ached when he 
 tried to straighten them. His head was 
 throbbing violently, so that every movement 
 became painful. But his brain once roused, 
 went on working in spite of the pain, or 
 rather, the more incessantly because of it. 
 
 Was it only this very morning that he 
 had risen buoyant and joyful, feeling him- 
 self one of God's chosen ones on earth? 
 And now all was darkness and misery 
 unutterable !
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 163 
 
 It was not that men now called him a mur- 
 derer, and shivered as they heard his name ; 
 it was not that before him was sorrow and 
 pain, perhaps a shameful death ; it was not 
 even the thought of his mother or of little 
 Deeta that, in the first moments of recol- 
 lection, gave him the keenest anguish. It 
 was the bitter agony of sorrow, which came 
 through his having fallen, after being, as he 
 had hoped, welcomed to the heart of God. 
 Nothing seemed too bad for him to (5all him- 
 self as he looked back on the previous night. 
 Its pure aspiratioDs and its strong spirit- 
 ual ecstasy seemed all a dream now, but 
 a dream without which the present reality 
 would have been robbed of half its pain. 
 
 He called himself fool and madman for 
 presuming to think God's work could be 
 carried on by such a one as he was — that 
 God would deign to make use of him for 
 His purposes on earth. The mental tor- 
 ture he endured did not seem to him at
 
 164 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 all too great a punishment for such gross 
 presumption. 
 
 Then the scene with Montressor kept 
 acting itself out, till last of all that dead 
 face lay before him, its glassy eyes up- 
 turned with the dull expressionless stare of 
 death, which, asking nothing either of pity, 
 of love, or of revenge, has yet an eloquence 
 of its own. 
 
 In vain he tried to call up Deeta's laugh- 
 ing blue eyes to banish this ghastly spectre 
 that haunted him — for deeper anguish only 
 came with the thought of her. How could 
 he meet her again '? Had not the dead 
 man claimed her? Ever between them 
 now would stand that awful shadow ! 
 
 His very mother, whose love for him had 
 been so devoted, so enduring, had forsaken 
 him — left him to perish in his sin, per- 
 haps feeling it right to renounce one who 
 had fallen so deeply. Then at the thought 
 of her prayers, and her love, and the agony
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 165 
 
 she would endure before the tender moth- 
 er's heart in her could bow submissive to 
 the inexorable decree which separated her 
 youngest best-loved son from her for ever 
 — for the first time in his life he heard a 
 voice — 
 
 " believe no more ; 
 
 And heard an ever-breaking shore 
 That tumbled in the Godless deep." 
 
 The saddest result of a great sin or 
 sorrow is that same voice of doubt. The 
 chaos within, seems but the reflection of a 
 world where no order reigns ; and the 
 triumph of evil in the soul, a mere epitome 
 of that in the universe. With the horror of 
 unbelief came, of course, the wish to escape 
 through the dark way of suicide — so great 
 was the longing to fly from his sin -stained 
 conscience. But David's mind was too 
 strong for this idea to readily find accept- 
 ance there. He could and would sufier to 
 the end ! 
 
 Strange sights flitted before his eyes
 
 166 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 through the long watches of that night. 
 Visions of which in years to come he never 
 spoke, and dared not think. When at last, 
 worn out by fatigue and anguish, his head 
 sank upon the pillow, it was but to be 
 awakened by a horrible mocking laugh, 
 ringing in the air around him, as though 
 the foul fiend was there in person, exulting 
 over his defeat. Once again his nerves 
 grew quieter, and sleep overpowered him. 
 Better the waking anguish, — for in his 
 dream he found himself amongst the lost 
 in hell, sinking, as all hope left him, deeper 
 and deeper into sin, even though sin had 
 grown unbearable to him, and he loathed it 
 in his heart. Oh for one chance of doing 
 a good action, or even imagining a pure 
 thought ! And as he fell, myriads of fear- 
 ful misshaped creatures whirled madly round 
 and pointed at him as they laughed and 
 jeered, " See the Lord's elect ! " ''The chosen 
 of God ! "
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 167 
 
 He awoke with the impression that he 
 was in hell still strong upon him — and 
 there, shining down from the dark-blue sky, 
 was a star, clear and pure and bright. In 
 his excitement it seemed to him as an eye 
 looking out from heaven. He feared the 
 holy thing. For a moment he covered his 
 eyes in dread, but back came the terror 
 of his dream. Then the thought crossed 
 him that the star might, after all, be sent 
 to comfort and save him from the madness 
 of despair. So as long as the darkness 
 lasted he watched it, and calmer and better 
 grew his mind under its blessed influence. 
 Even a feeling of pity came over him for 
 the man he had hated so bitterly, remem- 
 bering the tone of Montressor's voice when 
 he spoke of Phoebe. It was a relief to David 
 even then to think that the dead man was 
 not so utterly base as he had seemed. 
 
 The star faded slowly from the sky, and 
 in the grey cold light of morning, David
 
 168 BEFOKE THE DAWN. 
 
 missed it sadly. That silent companion- 
 ship gone, he felt more utterly alone. Then 
 soft rosy tints began to appear, and the 
 grey grew first to opal, then to gold, and 
 day was born — ^just as it might have been 
 in Paradise before the Fall. 
 
 But then there was no sin, and conse- 
 quently no sorrow ! This later dawn came 
 to a different world. It looked in at the 
 window of a prison cell, where a wearied 
 sinner waited miserably for whatever might 
 befall him ; and a few streets off, the bright 
 morning rays fell full upon a still quieter 
 figure, which had no true heart to mourn, 
 no loving eyes to weep for it !
 
 169 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 It never occurred to David Armstrong to 
 doubt his own guilt, even for a moment. 
 He knew that he had struck Montressor, 
 and that the latter had fallen under the 
 blow. So he told his tale at the inquest, in 
 words plain and short and to the point, and 
 that done, scarcely listened to what came 
 after. 
 
 It all seemed to him such needless trouble, 
 such waste of time — the jpost mortem — the 
 inquest — everything ; and he wondered that 
 they did not all see it. Strange to say, his 
 mind would revert to the time w^hen he 
 stood by his dead cousin Phoebe, and the 
 bu^z of talk and evidence fell on his ear un-
 
 170 BEFOUE THE DAWN. 
 
 heard. He was just come in memory to 
 where he felt the touch of Deeta's little 
 finger on his hand, when something roused 
 his attention. Montressor's medical man 
 was giving evidence. Although many tech- 
 nical terms were not understood by David, 
 he still made out enouo;h to interest him 
 keenly. 
 
 It appeared that the actor had long suf- 
 fered from some form of heart disease which 
 produced syncope ; and in one or two in- 
 stances the doctor had been called in just 
 in time to administer some restorative, and 
 had warned the sufferer that any great ex- 
 citement might prove fatal. Besides this, 
 another warning had been given — namely, 
 that excessive use of alcohol would greatly 
 accelerate such a result. This caution ap- 
 peared to have been unheeded. The 'post 
 mortem, together with the evidence which 
 had been given, had decidedly proved to 
 the witness that death had resulted from
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. l7l 
 
 heart disease. In his opinion, the blow on 
 the forehead, though severe, was not suffi- 
 cient to cause death ; although the excite- 
 ment of the quarrel had probably hastened 
 an end which could not, in any case, have 
 been far distant. 
 
 This view being supported by the sur- 
 geon called in at the time of Montressor's 
 death, of course there was no case left 
 against the prisoner, save his own confes- 
 sion ; and the j ary having returned a ver- 
 dict of death from natural causes, David 
 was at liberty. 
 
 He was too much crushed to feel the 
 relief at once, and went out into the street 
 mechanically. Poor fellow ! even then 
 no sense of pleasure came to him, and 
 the bright sunlight, though it hurt his 
 wearied eyes, had no warmth in it. He 
 shivered with cold and nervous exhaustion 
 as he wandered on, he neither knew nor 
 cared where.
 
 172 BEFOKE THE DAWN. 
 
 His mother had forsaken him, and he 
 dared not face her. He could not go home 
 — for home it was no longer to him. So 
 he kept away, walking as far from his 
 accustomed roads as possible, though even 
 this he did less by calculation than instinct. 
 He never could remember afterwards where 
 he went, nor what were his thoughts on that 
 miserable day. 
 
 It seemed a small thing to him then to 
 have escaped the law. To have suffered 
 physically for his sin would have been a 
 relief, compared to the bitter torture of 
 mind which he endured. He knew, if no 
 one else did, that he had been at heart a 
 murderer. 
 
 And yet through all that day, when the 
 wish to escape from himself tempted him 
 with thoughts of suicide, he never once 
 felt inclined to drown memory in drink, 
 though that had been too often in the past 
 his refuge in any trouble.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 173 
 
 As night drew on, having tasted no food 
 since the day before, he felt his strength 
 going ; and never having known weakness, 
 he mistook faintness for death. He fancied 
 that God must think him too vile to live 
 longer; and though escaped from human 
 law, he must expect to be grasped by the 
 justice of the divine. Faint and weak as 
 he then felt, death had lost its terror. His 
 brain, completely worn out, could now ima- 
 gine nothing of the beyond ; he thought of 
 it but as a sleep — a sleep in which no dreams 
 could come. 
 
 Still human love was strong in his heart, 
 though the pulse of life beat low. His mother 
 and his darling — could he give them up for 
 ever ? — die without seeing them again 1 
 No ; this yearning pain was too great to be 
 borne through the ages of eternity : he must 
 see them at least — then welcome death. 
 
 Turning his face homewards, he struggled 
 on, growing fainter and weaker, but yet
 
 174 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 carried forward by his great love. The first 
 prayer he had uttered since his fall broke 
 from his lips as he felt strength going : *' 
 God, let me look on them once more before 
 I die ! " 
 
 He reached the house, and through the 
 unclosed shutters looked in on all he loved. 
 There was the mother he had longed for. 
 But how changed, how old and worn she 
 looked ! She was leaning despondently 
 over the fire, her face tearless and fixed. 
 Little Deeta was kneeling at Hannah 
 Watsons knee, in her long white night- 
 dress, saying her prayers. Was it only 
 fancy, or did he indeed hear the words, 
 " God bless Davie, poor Davie, and send 
 him home again soon " ? 
 
 Mrs Armstrong shuddered visibly at the 
 prayer, and covered her face with her hands; 
 and the tears rolled down quiet Hannah^s 
 cheeks, as she clasped Deeta in her arms, 
 and led her ofi" to bed.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 175 
 
 What misery he had brought upon them 
 all ! God forgive him ! The sight of it was 
 more than he could bear. With a groan he 
 turned away to hide himself and his despair ; 
 but his long-tried strength gave way at last, 
 and he fell heavily to the ground.
 
 176 
 
 CHAPTEK XVII. 
 
 Like a good many people, David's poor 
 heart-stricken mother was kinder and softer 
 than her creed. The hard husk of manner 
 hid a nut sound and sweet to the core. 
 What though she could not lavish caresses 
 even on the one she loved best on earth, 
 though her kisses fell seldom as snow in 
 summer, and though she was outwardly 
 calm ; not the less would she willingly have 
 died for him — her David — would have died 
 gladly could she so have insured his eter- 
 nal happiness. She had been summoned 
 to Thorbridge the day before to the sick- 
 bed of her elder son, and so had missed 
 hearing anything of David's imprisonment.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 177 
 
 Paul Watson, who had been called upon 
 to break the unwelcome news to her, found 
 no one in the house but little Deeta ; who 
 told him that "granny" had said Hannah was 
 coming to keep house till the next day, and 
 would he please send her at once, as it was 
 so quiet, and she was tired of looking out 
 of the window, and the kitten had scratched 
 her when she tried to dress it in her doll's 
 clothes. 
 
 Watson looked at her with pity. The 
 little thing was so merry and unconscious, 
 playing as it were on the edge of a preci- 
 pice. Perhaps he was not sorry to escape 
 his unpleasant task. Hannah was such a 
 favourite of Mrs Armstrong's, and then 
 women did these things better than men. 
 Yes ; she would be the one to tell the 
 mother ! 
 
 So it fell to the lot of Hannah, not only 
 to tell of David's trouble, but, worse, of his 
 disappearance. The girl was astonished at 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1 i 8 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 the outward composure of her old friend, 
 who listened quietly, scarcely moving a 
 muscle of her face during the recital ; and 
 though she shaded her eyes, it was not 
 because there were any tears upon the 
 weather-beaten cheeks. 
 
 " The Lord s hand is heavy upon me and 
 mine. I fear James will never see another 
 summer ; but that is not so bad to bide as 
 this," was all she said, when Hannah fin- 
 ished as well as she could for sobs. " But 
 His will be done. Doubtless He knows 
 best." And rising, she took off her shawl 
 and bonnet, and put them tidily away, 
 then began to get out the tea things, and 
 arrange the table for their afternoon meal. 
 Hannah would fain have assisted her, but 
 was waved aside. 
 
 " Sit thee still, lass ; it does me good to 
 be movin' about ! It's a quiet sorrow that's 
 worst to bear." She drank some tea, and 
 even made a pretence of eating ; but after
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 179 
 
 this sat looking into the fire perfectly still. 
 Once or twice, when the child laughed or 
 talked loudly to Hannah, a restless uneasi- 
 ness was perceptible in Mrs Armstrong; 
 but though she looked round, she said 
 nothing. Hannah had an idea she was 
 listening intently for something. 
 
 "Shall I pull down the blind and light 
 the lamp ? " at last the girl asked. Mrs 
 Armstrong shook her head. 
 
 ''Let be," she said, impatiently; "there's 
 light enough to think by, isn't there?'' Then 
 after a while, " Don't look at me so anxious 
 like. It might be worse ! David's safe. I 
 tell you, Hannah, it's borne in upon me 
 that the Lord will send him home before 
 long. So it wouldn't do to shut the very 
 firelight away from him, my poor, wander- 
 ing, unhappy lad ! " 
 
 She stirred the fire into a cheery blaze, 
 and heaped on more coal, before relapsing 
 into her listening mood. So it was that
 
 180 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 when David, longing, yet fearing, to see them 
 again, came near; his eyes could search out 
 every nook in the comfortable interior. 
 
 When he fell, worn out in mind and body, 
 his mother, hearing the noise, knew exactly 
 what had happened. She laid her hand on 
 the arm of Hannah (who had just come from 
 seeing Deeta into bed), and drew her out at 
 the door. 
 
 ''Hush! Don't make a noise, and bring 
 a crowd round ! It's David, as I looked for. 
 We must try and get him in atween us." 
 
 How the two women managed to bear 
 him into the house is a mystery ! But 
 women do seem to have unnatural strength 
 at times. Before long they were tending 
 him lovingly and well. 
 
 At the first symptom of his return to 
 consciousness Hannah slipped quietly away, 
 with that delicate intuition which is surely 
 the highest good-breeding, rightly thinking 
 mother and son would be best alone.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 181 
 
 David's face looked whiter than ever when 
 his black eyes opened, and he glared wildly 
 around. His mind was wandering. No 
 wonder, after such a night and day. At 
 first he did not know his mother, or where 
 he was. 
 
 " Is it all coming over again?" he groaned. 
 " I thought I'd done wi' the pain and the 
 torture, and might sleep in peace till the 
 judgment -day; and now somebody has 
 wakened me back to it all ! " 
 
 *' David, my son," said Mrs Armstrong, 
 calmly, " be comforted. There's no one 
 here but your mother, and she loves you 
 too well to torture you ! " 
 
 " My mother ! Nay, she will not come 
 near me^ for she hates sin and sinners ! " 
 answered the poor fellow excitedly, not yet 
 taking in the fact of her presence. 
 
 The mother, before speaking further, 
 laid her cool hand on his forehead. This 
 seemed to soothe him, for in a few min-
 
 182 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 utes he looked up with more reason in 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Mother, mother, is it you 1 Then you 
 don't turn away from me as I thought ! 
 Oh, mother, tell me that you do care for 
 me still ! " 
 
 " David, how dare you doubt the love of 
 the mother who bore you ? God out of His 
 compassion put that love into my heart, and 
 it has grown with your growth. He did 
 not mean to take it away because you 
 were tempted and fell, but rather that it 
 might lead you back to Him. David, my 
 son — my youngest — whatever you doubt, 
 dinna let it be your mother's love." 
 
 David laid his head on her faithful breast, 
 and the tears which rolled down his cheek 
 relieved the pressure upon his brain, and 
 probably saved his reason. 
 
 For months afterwards Mrs Armstrong 
 could scarcely bear him to be out of her 
 sight. When she returned to Thorbridge,
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 183 
 
 she persuaded him to take a holiday and go 
 with her. There, amidst the scenes of his 
 boyhood, and tending his sick brother (who, 
 to the wonder of his nurses, steadily though 
 slowly recovered), David tried to forget what 
 had passed. But he was never quite the 
 same man again, though his mother, when 
 his fits of depression came on, constantly 
 reminded him that the law had found him 
 innocent, — and innocent he was, save of 
 passion. His own was the most severe 
 judgment he had to bear, and the one 
 which told most heavily upon all his future 
 life!
 
 184 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Yes ; David was strangely altered from the 
 .energetic, passionate young man of a few- 
 months back ! 
 
 He wondered at himself when a listless 
 apathy of body and mind made him willing 
 to sit for hours in the spring sunshine, 
 watching the quiet country life around, — 
 wondered at the passivity which made him 
 content that every arrangement and deci- 
 sion should take place without reference to 
 him, who was wont to be the ruler in their 
 little household. 
 
 He had not yet learnt the necessity in 
 our nature which renders such reaction after 
 strong emotion a matter of course.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 185 
 
 As time went on, too, tie wondered above 
 all why he felt so calm and tranquil. He 
 thought that utter misery should have been 
 always with him, because he had sinned so 
 grievously ; and because it was not, held 
 himself the more completely God-forgotten. 
 Here, at all events, abiding agony is an 
 impossibility, for either the pain spends 
 itself, or life or reason gives way. Well 
 for us- that Adam did not eat of the tree 
 of life too, and that we are human still — 
 neither gods nor devils in our powers of 
 endurance ! 
 
 So, in spite of David's sin, he found the 
 earth still fair, and nature's inarticulate 
 gospel had still a message to him, as he 
 watched the lights and shadows chasing 
 each other over the fields till they were lost 
 in the blue distance. The bright sunshine, 
 too, would speak of hope and joy, and the 
 gleesomeness of pure and innocent life ! 
 
 The primroses and dog-violets little Deeta
 
 lo6 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 ran and gathered for him were as fair and 
 sweet as ever ; the ruddy buds on the ash 
 and beech trees were pleasant to watch day 
 by day as they broke into tiny, fluttering 
 leaflets of vivid green. Pleasant, too, to 
 watch the grim, heavy firs that grew at the 
 back of the cottage, which, having long 
 frowned and looked sulky — wondering, like 
 staid, middle-aged folk, what all the mirth 
 and frolic of young life about them meant — 
 were now at last moved to some sympathy 
 with the general rejoicing ; and as the sap 
 flowed more quickly from their dull hearts, 
 they too seemed younger, as their dark 
 boughs shot out tips of livelier green here 
 and there. 
 
 As for the birds, they never tired of sing- 
 ing in the intervals of their busy time ; and 
 their songs all told of love and happiness. 
 
 That talk of the therapeutic value of 
 music which we have heard of late, is 
 surely true of all art ! Who has not felt
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 187 
 
 the weak heart grow stronger, and the tired 
 brain revived, in looking at a noble statue 
 or a grandly conceived and executed pic- 
 ture ? 
 
 Then what is true of art must surely be 
 more so of nature. 
 
 Her symphonies lull us to repose, and 
 quiet as by magic our overstrung nerves ; 
 her soft, true colouring cools our fevered 
 eyes ; her majestic outlines and harmonious 
 curves awe and subdue or calm and fran- 
 quillise us : and the best of it is that she, 
 the great and wise, has no reproaches for us 
 if we recognise not the power which has 
 done so much for our good! 
 
 Hay-time in the country, — and David's 
 brother, weak from severe illness, was glad 
 of help, both of head and hands, on the 
 farm where he was bailiff. Hard work in 
 the healthy, clear air of his native village 
 was the very best thing to brace David 
 mentally. He dreaded the time when he
 
 188 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 would have to go back to his life in town, 
 where he would be reminded at every turn 
 of what he would fain forget for ever. Time 
 enough for that when the sweet-scented hay 
 was all stacked and safe. 
 
 But some of these days spent in the hay- 
 fields were dark and miserable enough — 
 days when he felt the curse of Cain upon 
 him — and the broad jest, the song, or the 
 hearty laugh sounded strangely distant, 
 like faint echoes from a far-off world. The 
 rustics wondered at the gloomy being who 
 was with, but not of them ; but as he could 
 beat them all at their work, they respected 
 him too much to ask many questions. 
 
 The women, as is their way, were no less 
 interested because their rosy cheeks and 
 bright eyes won no compliments, and their 
 coquetries were lost on him. Perhaps it 
 was compassion they felt ; for how very un- 
 happy a man must be when he is quite insen- 
 sible to feminine attractions ! And such a
 
 BEFOKE THE DAWN. 189 
 
 good-looking young man too ! There was 
 the pity of it. So many a wistful look was 
 cast at the young giant, whose well-knit 
 figure told out amongst the clumsy, heavy- 
 footed country men. But it was all of no 
 use ; lie worked on steadily, and never even 
 seemed to notice any one. 
 
 There was one of the sex, however, who 
 could still win a smile, and whose pretty 
 little cajoleries could banish the cloud from 
 his brow, even in his gloomiest mood. It is 
 needless to say this was Deeta. 
 
 Deeta, who had set her mind upon some- 
 thing which she knew her ^' granny," as she 
 called Mrs Armstrong, would disapprove and 
 use all her influence against; and who, child 
 as she was, had all a woman's persistence in 
 getting ber own way. She knew that if 
 sbe could once coax a promise out of David, 
 he would stand firm to it ; and she played 
 her cards accordingly. 
 
 At four in the afternoon, the tired la-
 
 190 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 bourers, glad of a brief rest^ formed them- 
 selves into groups, wherever a pike of hay 
 or a hawthorn hedge gave shelter from the 
 sun. Here their wives or daughters brought 
 them cans of tea and thick hunches of bread 
 and cheese, and stayed to talk over the 
 innocent pleasures and wonders of the day, 
 while the men partook of their refreshment. 
 How mother had got '' such a bargain from 
 old Jimmie the pedlar body : a real lively 
 good washing bit o' print, that would make 
 frocks for a' the bairns ; " or how granny 
 thought her second sight was coming ; 
 or what a bonnie little new tooth baby 
 had cut : and the said tooth would be ex- 
 amined with wonder and delight, as though 
 babies didn't cut new teeth all over the 
 world every day : or perhaps the baby itself 
 would be hoisted on to its father's shoulder, 
 to ride in proud triumph round the field. 
 
 Sweetened by such homely incidents, 
 labour itself ceases to be a curse. Tired
 
 BEFORE THE DAWX. 191 
 
 arms forget their tiredness, and heavy eyes 
 brighten into gladness. 
 
 Here and there, too, a lad and lass would 
 saunter away together for a quiet word or 
 two of love - making ; while, amid much 
 giggling from the girls, some rural wit 
 would make himself merry at their expense. 
 
 From such a scene of simple happiness 
 and humour David had wandered one day; 
 for one of his dark moods had seized upon 
 his mind, and everything seemed to jar 
 upon him. He sat moodily gazing upon 
 the ground, till Deeta, bringing his tea, 
 found him out. Seeinsr that he did not 
 notice her, she began pelting him laughingly 
 with handfuls of fragrant hay, then, coming 
 nearer, coaxed him to eat and drink. 
 
 It was pretty to see the little creature 
 smooth his rough cheeks with her tiny 
 hand, or pretend to snatch all the nicest 
 morsels on their way to his mouth, while 
 really watching him anxiously for fear he
 
 192 BEFOKE THE DAWN. 
 
 should not do justice to the food she 
 brought. 
 
 By dint of alternate teasings and coax- 
 ings she made him forget his gloom, and he 
 played and romped with her to her heart's 
 content. 
 
 But not yet was the wee maiden satisfied ! 
 She had a promise to win from him, and 
 well she guessed the right moment to do it. 
 David knew enough of her ways to suspect 
 something of the kind ; it was evidently a 
 more momentous thing than usual, the child 
 took so long to bring it out. At last, just 
 as the sio-nal for work came and David was 
 rising, she threw her soft arms round his 
 neck and held him back. 
 
 " Davie wouldn't refuse his little girl any- 
 thing she wanted very bad," she whispered. 
 
 "You little witch — I knew there was 
 something," said David, with a laugh. 
 " You're but like the rest o' the women, I 
 doubt — kindest when ye mean to betray.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 193 
 
 Well, what is this wonderful thing yeVe set 
 your heart on — a new doll, a new frock, or 
 what I '' 
 
 "Nothing of that sort," answered the 
 child, impatiently. Then w^ith a stolen 
 glance from her blue eyes to mark the effect 
 produced by her request, " Only to learn to 
 dance, Davie, that's all ; it is, indeed ! " 
 
 David gave a low whistle, but said noth- 
 ing, and then it all came out. Some of the 
 girls at the school she went to in town 
 were learning dancing, and gave glowing 
 accounts of the balls they would attend 
 when they grew up. And already Deeta 
 could do some of the steps, and they all 
 said she would dance beautifully wdth a few 
 lessons. Look, this was the sort of thing ! 
 And humming an air she had caught from 
 the hay-makers, the little creature began 
 twirling round, and going through some 
 graceful steps, not perhaps quite correctly, 
 but so lightly and prettily, that David's 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 194 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 eyes followed every movement with plea- 
 sure. 
 
 Still his face clouded as her childish 
 vanity brought back the thought of her 
 dead mother, and where love of gaiety 
 had led her ; and though he worked at a 
 theatre, some remnants of his Puritan up- 
 bringing still hung round him ; and he had 
 always thought of dancing as of the earth 
 earthly — if not something worse ! 
 
 But after all, this was very different from 
 the sensuous, meretricious charms of the 
 dancing he had witnessed on the stage, wdth 
 more disgust than admiration ; and the rapid 
 changes and harmonious attitudes seemed 
 to his fascinated eyes like music in motion. 
 It was surely as pure an impulse that made 
 the young and happy creature long to ex- 
 press herself thus, as the one which made 
 the birds sing or the lambs frolic. The 
 rounded childish limbs, instinct with life 
 and grace ; the laughter, fippling freshly,
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 195 
 
 like water purling over the pebbles of a 
 mountain stream ; the sweet young voice 
 singing so joyously, — all were so charming, 
 and, above all, so natural, that David could 
 not find in his heart to fetter them, by a 
 prejudice in which he only half shared. 
 
 Yes ; Deeta should dance if she liked ! No 
 restriction of his should lead her to see evil 
 where her own innocence did not warn. 
 " To the pure all things are pure," he argued, 
 forgetting that his creed forbade him to call 
 the " unregenerate " by such a name. David 
 had not the advantao^e of a loofical mind. 
 
 His mother had, though ! She was per- 
 fectly horrified when he spoke of his pro- 
 mise, and shook her head solemnly as she 
 reminded her son that " a woman it was 
 who danced John the Baptist's head off." 
 
 Fortunately for Deeta's hopes, however, 
 • she had got a promise, and after that she 
 cared little for all Mrs Armstrong's fears 
 and prayers.
 
 196 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Notwithstanding her very strict ideas of 
 Sabbath-keeping, Hannah Watson lingered 
 longer than usual one Sunday afternoon, as 
 she prepared to go with her father to that 
 peculiarly Methodistic institution — a love- 
 feast. 
 
 Poor Hannah — old before her time with 
 the cares of poverty, and the repressing 
 influences of constant work — was yet not 
 without touches of womanly vanity, and 
 womanly yearnings to seem fair in some 
 one's eyes ! And that this was not impos- 
 sible was proved by the fact that — to every 
 one's surprise, and her own most of all — 
 Hannah had lately received an offer of
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 197 
 
 marriage. Yes, she had got a lover at 
 last — a young man who had the sense to 
 look deeper than the mere surface, and saw 
 what a beautiful, unselfish, gentle nature 
 was hidden under that prim, puritanical 
 manner of hers. 
 
 Hannah did not love him — did not 
 mean to accept him ; but she was cer- 
 tainly happier for finding that she could be 
 loved ; and, with a woman's inconsequence, 
 felt hopeful for the first time in her life of 
 winning a heart she really cared for. This 
 it was made her so anxious about whether 
 her new bonnet was becoming or not ! Her 
 sorrow for the lover she could not accept, 
 was mingled with so many sweet hopes for 
 the future, that a soft tinge of colour came 
 into the usually pale cheeks, and the meek 
 face lost a little of the saint and gained a 
 little of the girl. With such a face, there- 
 fore, the peach ribbons could not fail to 
 harmonise ; and the result was that, for
 
 198 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 once, Hannah was satisfied with her own 
 appearance. 
 
 The house where the Armstrongs lived 
 was on the way to chapel ; and as they 
 passed, David was sitting at the window, 
 bending over a table littered with tools and 
 pieces of a model he was fitting together. 
 
 Hannah sighed as she looked. It seemed 
 to her a very, very sad thing that her hero 
 could find no better employment on that 
 sacred day. 
 
 "Let us ask him to go with us," said 
 Watson, answering her unspoken thought, 
 — and in they went. 
 
 David seemed too busy to notice them 
 for a second or two, then Hannah saw his 
 face, as she thought, transformed. His eyes 
 were bright, and his rough cheeks glowing ; 
 the sorrow and pain which stamped his face 
 in repose, and made him appear old and 
 stern, had given place to something of 
 almost boyish enthusiasm.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 199 
 
 The truth was, that just as they entered, 
 he had caught the one idea which his con- 
 trivance lacked; and already, with that 
 artistic power of realisation every inventor 
 has, he saw it as an accomplished fact. 
 The joy of the discovery was in his eyes 
 as he lifted them to greet Hannah. What 
 wonder if in her present mood she mis- 
 took that joy for something in which she 
 had part ? 
 
 Watson explained where they were going, 
 and asked his friend to join them. David 
 assented carelessly. He had found what he 
 wanted, and could afford to wait before he 
 worked it out. 
 
 Mrs Armstrong came in at this moment 
 ready dressed for her own place of worship, 
 whither Deeta had been despatched already 
 — that little maiden being supposed to profit 
 by large doses of Catechism, duly adminis- 
 tered at Sunday-school ! The good woman 
 smiled (a well-regulated Sunday smile) on
 
 200 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 seeing Hannab, and looked still more grati- 
 fied when she heard where David had pro- 
 mised to go ; and then, with a woman s 
 natural incapacity for letting well alone, 
 she must needs have her word and her 
 joke about it. 
 
 " Ay, ay, Hannah ! He wouldn't go 
 with his old mother, not be ! even though 
 we have that godly man, Mr Holdfast, to- 
 day; and a blessed treat it is to hear him — 
 leastways to the elect ; for the thoughtless 
 and the sinners say there's more doctrine 
 than grace in his sermons ! " 
 
 " The very reason I won't go to hear 
 them," said David, shortly. " I'm sick o' 
 doctrine ; and if ever any one needed 
 grace, I do ! " 
 
 '' Well, David, if prayersll do anything 
 for you, it'll not be long before ye have it ! 
 But maybe ye'll get good where ye're goin', 
 though I don't hold wi' the Methodists in 
 all things. Anyway, I thank you, Hannah,
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 201 
 
 even if it does show that a young woman 
 may win where an old one fails." 
 
 " I don't think that has anything to do 
 with it/' replied Hannah, with a blush. 
 
 "Maybe yes and maybe no," persisted 
 Mrs Armstrong, oracularly. " To change 
 the talk, you look better than ever you did, 
 lass; and if some saw wi' my eyes, ye 
 wouldn't want a sweetheart long ! I don't 
 mean him that I've heard tell of lately," 
 dropping her voice to a confidential whisper 
 that could be distinctly heard all over the 
 room, — '' that schoolmaster chap, ye know ! 
 He's not one o' your sort. Don't be in a 
 hurry, Hannah ; there's luck in leisure, my 
 woman." And Mrs Armstrong departed, 
 highly pleased with the adroit manner in 
 which she had, as she hoped, helped on a 
 courtship she devoutly longed for. 
 
 David was provoked. He washed that he 
 had not promised to go now; but seeing 
 that Hannah was sadly abashed at Mrs
 
 202 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 Armstrong's broad hints, he threw off his 
 own vexation, and, with instinctive good- 
 breeding, did his best to remove any awk- 
 w^ardness. 
 
 What a happy Sunday afternoon that was 
 to Hannah ! 
 
 With all the ridiculous suggestions its 
 name has to the profane, there is a quaint 
 old-world beauty about a love -feast diffi- 
 cult to find elsewhere. Something in 
 the very bareness of the surroundings, the 
 plain unornamented speech of most of the 
 members, unmingled as it usually is with 
 any touch of modern thought or even 
 knowledge; the strange realism of the bread 
 and water handed round — all conspire to 
 take you back eighteen hundred years ; and 
 for the moment you could almost fancy you 
 are at some meeting of the new-born Church 
 in an upper room at Jerusalem. In the light 
 of a larger knowledge you could perhaps 
 afford to smile at a faith which, to use in
 
 BEFOEE THE DAW^'. 203 
 
 a different sense the current expression, 
 ''laughed at impossibilities," and verged 
 on credulity : but the smile might well 
 have something of envy in it — envy of 
 the fervour of the aspirations and devo- 
 tion ; above all, of the faith which — through 
 much ignorance, much narrowness, much 
 self- righteousness — still has laid hold of 
 one sublime truth, and held it tenaciously, 
 — the truth, that is, of God's personal care 
 and love for man. 
 
 Neither doubts nor fears flitted across 
 Hannah's mind. If she had spoken her 
 experience, wdth what quiet rapture it 
 would have been filled. 
 
 With a pure nature like hers, love and 
 religion were scarcely separable. Almost 
 every thought of David formed itself into 
 a prayer. And now as she sat by his side, 
 glancing up occasionally to see if he was 
 enjoying and profiting, and watching his 
 face, which was calm and thoughtful — some-
 
 204 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 times almost happy — all fears for his ulti- 
 mate salvation died away into thankfulness. 
 
 Ah, but it is easy to believe God's will is 
 right when it coincides with our own — easy 
 to trust He hears our prayers, when we 
 think we see the answers to them on the 
 way to us — easy to believe He cares for our 
 dear ones, when He seems willing to take 
 our advice in their management I 
 
 For once in her hard, joyless existence, 
 Hannah dreamt of a life on earth where faith 
 should be lost in sight. David would be " con- 
 verted." Then^ of course, he would find 
 the drink and all other sins easy to conquer ; 
 and he would get on in the world (for with 
 all her goodness she had seen too much of 
 poverty to believe much in its chastening 
 influences) ; he would invent something 
 great some day — something that would 
 really do good to his fellow - creatures — 
 something to save life or to make it less 
 hard to many ; and she would see him
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 205 
 
 happy at last. Perhaps he would not be 
 alone in that happiness — perhaps he might 
 have wife and children round him — and 
 perhaps, — but no, that was what she scarcely 
 dared to imagine ; — and yet he had been 
 so kind, almost tender, — and surely his 
 mother would not have spoken as she did 
 if nothing was meant by it ? 
 
 And all this time the man sat thinking 
 only of. earth and earth's labours — working 
 out his last mechanical puzzle in his busy 
 brain — never casting a thought at the 
 sweet woman who cared so much for him, 
 unless it was when a passing feeling of 
 irritation crossed his mind at his mother's 
 wilful mistake. 
 
 He heeded little that was said, except 
 once or twice when something struck on 
 his ear with a sense of comedy — as when 
 a little tailor, who had no other fame, 
 nor possibility of acquiring any (than that 
 of making the worst fit in the town), fin-
 
 206 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 ished up his lengthy speech with an earnest 
 aspiration — 
 
 " Make me little and unknown, 
 Loved and prized by God alone ! " 
 
 — as thouo^h the foes he had to contend with 
 on earth were fame and ambition. Or, again, 
 when a certain Dame Marjory Brown, cele- 
 brated as the dirtiest and most unw^ashed 
 ^of the community, stated as a fact that for 
 the last few months she had " lived the life 
 of a spotless and sinless angel ! " The idea 
 of a "spotless and sinless angel," with the 
 usual white robe matching in impurity the 
 borders of a cap which appeared under the 
 old woman's battered head-gear, was too 
 much for David's gravity. 
 
 Directly Dame Marjory sat down, up rose 
 Ben Jamieson — once the greatest scamp to 
 be found in the neighbourhood ; a hanger- 
 on at public-house meetings and merry- 
 makings, where his fiddle found him a 
 ready w^elcome. He was now a shining
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 207 
 
 light among the brethren, for he had, as he 
 phrased it, been " made a new man " at the 
 last revival. His account of this trans- 
 formation, told with evident feeling and 
 earnestness, was not without an amusing 
 side ; especially when he related his con- 
 flicting sentiments about the fiddle, — 
 " How he had wondered and wondered 
 whether he ought to give it up or no, and 
 thought of it as a devil tempting him back 
 into the public-house ; and how, at last, the 
 happy thought came to him of making it a 
 new creature too, and he varnished it thickly 
 till it ivasfine and shiny ! And now, thank 
 the Lord, there could be no harm in it, 
 because it stands to reason that the natur' 
 of the thing was completely changed ; and 
 instead of the wicked dancing tunes he used 
 to play on it, it was never heard now, save 
 in the songs of Zion." 
 
 Fortunately none of the assembly were 
 violinists, or the idea of the varnish might
 
 208 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 have upset their solemnity. David knew 
 enough of the art to shudder for the result 
 of such a change. He was tempted to 
 think, too, that perhaps some of the pro- 
 fessors were just about as much renewed as 
 the poor fiddle — only made a little shinier 
 outside ! 
 
 Or, again, he would smile, but this time 
 ^bitterly, as a man, noted for the hardness of 
 his judgment of others and softness towards 
 himself, would wax eloquent on the time 
 when he, with others of the saints, should 
 sit upon thrones judging the twelve tribes 
 of Israel. 
 
 But when his friend Watson rose to 
 speak, he did listen in earnest; for here at 
 last was a man who knew somethino; of 
 the difficulties which lie in the path of a 
 searcher for truth — a man who had not 
 only carefully studied some of the darkest 
 enigmas of life, but who had dared to look 
 also into his own heart, — a man who, if he
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 209 
 
 did believe in God and His love, believed 
 desperately, and in spite of the voices crying 
 on him to doubt. In such a one the in- 
 tolerance of religious belief, which places so 
 powerful a weapon in the hands of sceptics, 
 could have no place. 
 
 His speech was very brief, but in it spake 
 the true, earnest, brave human heart of one 
 who had dared to face doubt, dared for 
 himself to think, and had — plain, common 
 working-man as he was — ^' laid his doubts 
 and gathered strength " truly as any poet's 
 hero. 
 
 And how was such simple truth re- 
 ceived? Whether it was that in speak- 
 ing he had thrown aside conventionality 
 and set phrases, or whether they thought 
 doubt a thing to be smothered silently 
 without letting the light of reason in upon 
 it, is doubtful ; — at any rate, instead of 
 the " Amens ! " and " Thank God's ! " which 
 had resounded before, there was a low mur- 
 
 VOL. I. o
 
 210 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 mur of disapprobation ; and here and there 
 a groan that might be sympathy, but which 
 certainly did not sound like it. 
 
 Watson sat down by David's side, humil- 
 iated and depressed, and the latter could 
 not fail to feel bitter and unbelieviDg. If 
 the trials and temptations of such a good 
 man as this were looked on as so many 
 sins, what hope remained for him ? 
 
 As though sent straight from heaven in 
 answer to his thoughts^ came a beautiful 
 hope-bringing message, that found its way 
 to his troubled heart and comforted it. 
 This message might be lost on most of 
 the people met together there, because they 
 were not in the mood to be impressed by it, 
 or because they could not have understood 
 had it been ever so ; but to the two friends, 
 David and Paul, it came with a meaning 
 deep in wisdom and love. They went out 
 together as from the presence of God. 
 
 Whenever David thought of that day, this
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 211 
 
 was the sight that came up before his miners 
 eye. The four bare grey walls of the chapel, 
 the hard wooden forms — the equally hard, 
 unsympathetic faces of the people, standing 
 out dull and passionless against the cold 
 daylight. And how all suddenly changed 
 and glorified, as the sun broke out from the 
 clouds, and in a moment a perfect rainbow 
 formed across the eastern windows ! The 
 beautiful prismatic colours of the arch told 
 out against the dark background of cloud ; 
 and the cold passionless faces, and the dull 
 lustreless eyes were warmed and brightened 
 into a semblance of feeling, by this revela- 
 tion of God's majesty and love. Surely 
 David was not wrong when he fancied it 
 told of hope, — hope, born certainly of a 
 union of light and darkness, but promising 
 the triumph of light in the end '?
 
 212 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Spring is gladness pure and unalloyed to 
 youth, with no bitter past to sadden it — no 
 hard present to burden it with cares — no- 
 thing but the bright, golden future to think 
 of, when the hopes just budding are to 
 blossom and bear glorious fruit ! 
 
 Even to age it is not an unhappy time. 
 Age, which has almost forgotten to grieve 
 over its long-past spring-time here, and cares 
 only to look forward to the eternal spring 
 which is near at hand, and of which the 
 chill frosts of age and death are but har- 
 bingers. But to those whose youth is just 
 passing from them, its joyousness gone, its 
 capacity for suffering still remaining — there
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 213 
 
 is a pang felt even in that reawakening of 
 energies and feelings which spring brings. 
 How many times have they been forced to 
 hope again, believe again in their unfulfilled 
 lives, by the thrills and arousing influences 
 Nature sends out at this time to things sen- 
 tient as to things inanimate ! 
 
 To what purpose, they ask, are they thus 
 ever made to begin again that weary 
 '* climbing up a climbing wave '^ ? 
 
 It was some touch of this discontent that 
 looked so darkly out of David Armstrong's 
 eyes one fresh May-day, when little Deeta 
 had grown into a sunny, winsome creature, 
 still full of the graces of childhood, and yet 
 with a happy consciousness recently acquired 
 of being quite grown up. 
 
 Surely he might be excused for feeling 
 proud of her, as she stood there under a big 
 hawthorn; twisting creamy, fragrant little 
 bunches of May into the lace that went 
 round her straw hat ; holdino^ it out to see
 
 214 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 how it looked, putting it on her head, and 
 stealing coquettish glances first at David's 
 face," then at another and younger one, 
 which was very close to her own, as though 
 she wished to read in their eyes whether it 
 was becoming or not. 
 
 She was the sort of girl of whom other 
 women delight to make amiable little 
 speeches like this, " AVhy, whatever do the 
 men see in her to call her lovely '? There 
 really isn't one good feature in her face." 
 
 Perhaps not. But what, after all, is more 
 attractive than a piquant little face, chang- 
 ing its expression twenty times an hour ? 
 Eosy lips where the smile and the pout 
 chase each other quick as thought, and at 
 whose corners cunning dimples lie in wait 
 to show themselves, and blue eyes from 
 which your own will reflect a smile if you 
 look at them long enough ? 
 
 Perdita, born of sin and sorrow as you 
 are, no cloud has yet shadowed your bright
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 215 
 
 young life. You have lived in the sunshine, 
 child, and it has touched your rippling, 
 chestnut hair with gleams of gold, and softly 
 coloured your rounded cheeks, and sparkled 
 into your eyes, until you can well afford to 
 do without a faultless profile, or a Juno-like 
 figure ! 
 
 Gloomy and stern as David had become 
 of late years, he had taken care that his 
 darling's lot should be bright. 
 
 He was very tender, though not demon- 
 strative in his affection, and watched and 
 guarded her feet from every rough bit of 
 the road of life, removing each stumbling- 
 block, and carrying her over any difficult 
 part. 
 
 And yet he often felt as if he had no right 
 to the love she gave him in return for all 
 his care. She did not know that it was her 
 father's life he had taken ! Indeed, she had 
 all but forgotten a time of trouble, the cause 
 of which she had never understood. It
 
 '216 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 seemed to David that always between him 
 and his little Deeta a shadowy figure stood, 
 warning him that she was not his, that he 
 had no claim upon her, body or soul — that 
 all he could do for her was done by a right 
 taken from the dead. 
 
 But this, while it made him stern and 
 sad, and unresponsive to the child's caresses, 
 only deepened his love. It was often more 
 than he could bear to be near her, to watch 
 her pretty ways, to have her touch and 
 even kiss his cheek, and to know that nei- 
 ther now nor to all eternity dare he take 
 her to his heart, or call her his ! Ah, God ! 
 was this agony not sufficient penance for 
 his crime ? 
 
 Once when he dreamed of heaven, he 
 dreamed of Deeta too. Now heaven was 
 far from him, and he was almost glad of it, 
 for Deeta would be there, and he — what 
 could he be to her when she knew all ? 
 How would he bear her pure and sinless
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN". 217 
 
 gaze, when it could search into the dark 
 places of his soul, where his crime lay 
 hidden ? 
 
 All this may seem the very exaggeration 
 of conscience in such a man as David Arm- 
 strong — a man of strong passions and no 
 great amount of self-restraint ; but the very 
 vehemence of nature which ran him into 
 excesses, caused his remorse and shame and 
 humiliation to be the greater. And though 
 seven or eight years had passed since the 
 day when Montressor fell beneath the bloAv 
 dealt so impulsively, David, spite of the 
 verdict in his favour, still believed himself 
 a homicide. His outward life was more 
 decent and orderly apparently, yet the 
 man's mind was more at enmity with 
 good than before the never-to-be-forgotten 
 revival, when he fancied that he had fought 
 the devil and conquered in the fight ! There 
 was a bitterness now, when he thought that 
 he had been predestined ere his birth to sin,
 
 218 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 that was at times unbearable; and it says 
 something for the tremendous strength of 
 the man, mental as well as physical, that he 
 did not oftener seek to lose all conscious- 
 ness of his misery in drink. 
 
 And yet, during these years of pain, there 
 had been temporary gleams of happier, holier 
 feelings, when he had almost dared again 
 . to hope and to believe ; and who can say 
 whether he was not even now — though he 
 recognised it not— being purified and en- 
 nobled by his suffering ? Was it no sign of 
 growth that his temptations had ceased for 
 the most part to be the gross and palpable 
 ones of old, and had shifted to the higher 
 arena of mental and spiritual conflict ? 
 Was it nothing that he, with his gigantic 
 sorrows, felt his eyes grow moist, and his 
 heart tender, over the pigmy woes of his 
 fellow-creatures, and had ever a kindly, 
 helping hand to stretch out to those who 
 needed it?
 
 BEFORE THE DAWX. 219 
 
 A few months before Perclita's seven- 
 teenth birthday, chance brought David a 
 good deal in contact with one of the mem- 
 bers of the orchestra at the Imperial, and 
 they became very good friends. This new 
 acquaintance was a lad of twenty-one or 
 so, of German extraction, like a good many 
 violin-players ; but had lived all his life in 
 England. 
 
 Hermann Sergei had a plain -featured, 
 pale face, relieved from commonplaceness 
 by a pair of deep-set, dreamy, grey eyes, 
 which seemed sleepy or abstracted, save 
 when the owner of them was excited by 
 glimpses of beauty in any form. Or still 
 more, when he held his loved fiddle on his 
 shoulder, and unfettered by the severity of 
 orchestral counting, could wander where he 
 listed in music's magic land. 
 
 This was the young fellow who stood 
 beside Deeta under the old hawthorn ; 
 showing in the above-mentioned handsome
 
 220 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 eyes the admiration which her prettiness 
 and grace excited in his artist mind. 
 
 They were having a day at Thorbridge. 
 David, as of old, must needs have breathing- 
 times for his country-bred lungs to expand 
 healthily, and take in a fresh stock of oxy- 
 gen, to counteract the bad effects of Old- 
 boro' smoke. 
 
 Hannah Watson was with them too, but 
 she was such a quiet, staid youug woman, 
 that her personality was not wont to in- 
 trude upon notice. 
 
 She was sitting very still, looking on at 
 the pretty picture the two young things 
 made, and smiling a little to herself now 
 and again. Yet David's sadness seemed to 
 infect her, as she noticed how preoccupied 
 and gloomy he was. At last he rose, stretched 
 his great arms, and by an effort apparently 
 threw off all unpleasant thoughts. 
 
 *' How long are you going to keep us 
 here by your vanity, Deeta ? '' he asked.
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 221 
 
 jestingly. *' I declare, very little longer, 
 and I should be fast asleep ! Let us go 
 down to the river and see if any fish are 
 jumping ; " and laying his hand on Hannah's 
 arm to rouse her, and shouldering the bas- 
 ket of provisions, he strode off, without a 
 backward glance. 
 
 Hannah followed sedately, but the other 
 two lingered a little. The fresh vernal air, 
 the green grass under their feet, the sweet 
 scent of the spring flowers, were unwonted 
 things, and threw a charm over them both ; 
 but more than this, the shy, trembling young 
 love that was creeping into their hearts 
 tuned their spirits into accord with the 
 scene around them. 
 
 Thorbridge is not a very striking place. 
 It is only a little cluster of houses upon 
 the Wythe, with a quaint old bridge over 
 the winding river ; a few apple orchards 
 almost as old ; the whole overtopped by a 
 square church-tower. But it has a peace-
 
 222 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 ful prettiness of its own ; especially when 
 the pink blossom is on the trees, when the 
 primroses and violets peep out on every 
 green bank, and delicate white wood-anem- 
 ones raise their fairy bells where trees are 
 thickest. 
 
 '' Listen," said Hermann, holding Perdita 
 back. " That is a missel- thrush, I'm cer- 
 Jfcain ! How clear and mellow those high 
 notes are ! Ah ! we poor music -makers, 
 who have to labour and hammer out our 
 melodies, may well envy him his easy vic- 
 tory over the technicalities of our art." 
 
 They stood still for a minute or two to 
 listen. The bird, as if conscious of an ap- 
 preciative audience, poured down from its 
 swelling heart a rain of sweetest melody. 
 Maybe it told them the secret of its glad- 
 ness, but this they could not understand. 
 They only knew of their own ; that they 
 were happy ; that if Time could stay for 
 them his course they would ask no more
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 223 
 
 of heaven. Even to give words to their 
 happiness would spoil the freshness of it. 
 A spell was on them keeping them silent, 
 though they knew for the first time that 
 they loved. 
 
 " If young love grew not cold, 
 And young hearts grew not old, 
 And it was always spring ! — 
 AVlien Fate we did implore, 
 Could we of it seek more 
 Than youth, and love, and spring ? "
 
 224 
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 Hannah Watson, following slowly in 
 ^David's footsteps, found liim standing on 
 the flat beside the river, throwing pebbles 
 into the water. It seemed a ridiculous 
 pastime for such a big fellow ; but for the 
 moment, all his thoughts and energies w^ere 
 occupied in seeing how far he could make 
 one pebble go beyond the other. He soon 
 tired, however, and threw himself down 
 upon the grass full length ; then noticing 
 the quiet figure near him — 
 
 " Ah, Hannah, lass ! hast thou come 
 to see me make a fool o' myseF in this 
 fashion ? " he asked, with a laugh. " I'll
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 225 
 
 warrant you never made ducks and drakes 
 in the water like other bairns, now '? " 
 
 "No," said Hannah, gravely. "I'd al- 
 ways some of the little ones to mind, and 
 father was terrible feared lest any of them 
 got to be fond of going near the river.'' 
 
 " Poor thing ! life hasn't been a bright 
 path for thee any more than for the rest of 
 us; only most o' folks have a happy bit just 
 at the first to look back on, and you were 
 done out of yours ! " And David gave a 
 pitying glance at the pale face, so little 
 past its first youth, but so worn and scored 
 with cares and anxieties. 
 
 And yet as a life, lived forgetful of self, 
 lived for others solely, must needs leave its 
 holy impress upon features ever so plain ; 
 no one could look long upon that face with- 
 out acknowledging its sweetness. 
 
 " It didn't matter much," said Hannah, 
 with a smile. " What one never knows, one 
 never misses ; and I don't know what father 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 226 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 and the others would have done if I'd 
 always been wanting to be off and play ! 
 Still it does seem queer never to have had 
 a doll, while little Deeta there " 
 
 " Deeta ! " broke in the carpenter ; " bless 
 her little heart, she was never out of mis- 
 chief ! Why, there wasn't a day but I had 
 to take her part, when my mother fairly 
 lost patience — for, as she'd brought up a 
 family, and thought she had done with it 
 for once and all, it wasn't to be expected 
 she'd take kindly to beginning the trouble 
 all over again, especially with such a kitten 
 as Deeta. But the little thing always came 
 coaxing to me when she had been naughty; 
 she knew that she would get off easy if she 
 made in wi' me, and that a kiss would al- 
 ways win the day ! " 
 
 David's pity for Hannah's dreary child- 
 hood seemed to the girl to be forced ; while 
 his triumphant recital of Deeta's mischief 
 was so loving that it sounded like a glori-
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 227 
 
 fication of it. Hannah said nothing ; she 
 could not force an enthusiasm about Deeta's 
 childish tricks, while the implied contrast 
 was bitter to her. David was Hannah's hero. 
 She had worshipped him as long as she could 
 remember, with a worship — if less vehement 
 in character — not far behind his own for 
 the child he had protected. In her eyes he 
 was a model of all that was manly, noble, 
 generous. His very faults but made him 
 the dearer, because they gave her an excuse 
 to pray for him. 
 
 Therefore, though she was too good a 
 woman to acknowledge to herself that she 
 was jealous of the love David lavished 
 on little Deeta, and the latter accepted so 
 much as a matter of course, there was cer- 
 tainly a soreness which made itself felt at 
 times. 
 
 '' I have often heard of Thorbridge from 
 your mother," she remarked at length, '' but 
 this is my first visit to it. I think one might
 
 228 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 be very happy here." And pulling out a long 
 blue worsted stocking from her pocket, and 
 carefully spreading a shawl on the grass for 
 fear of damp, she sat down, and began to 
 knit composedly, enjoying the pretty scene 
 in her own quiet way. 
 
 ''That depends," replied her companion, 
 musingly, his eyes fixed on the smoothly 
 running water. "A man's happiness lies 
 so much in himself, that it doesn't greatly 
 matter where he lives ! I was just thinking 
 how little it takes to make one happy when 
 one's a boy : paddling about there in the 
 river, getting one's feet cut wi' the stones, 
 maybe, but never mindin' ; fishin' for min- 
 nows with a crooked pin, or catching them 
 in our wee fingers. And the delight of 
 showing our spoils to one another ; that was 
 bliss greater than anything one has had 
 since, even if there ivas the fear of a licking 
 at home for getting our clothes wet and 
 torn ! What can we do now in place of all
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 2^9 
 
 that ? Nothing, as I take it, but lie here 
 by the river and smoke ; " and suiting the 
 action to the word, David began to fill his 
 pipe. 
 
 '' But you can invent — you have more to 
 think of than the most of us, and must be 
 happier.'' 
 
 " I don't know that. The first dawning 
 of the idea may be pleasant enough — it is 
 that, surely ; but when it comes to the 
 working out, and something won't go right, 
 and yet keeps bothering you, and your 
 brain works away against your will at 
 nights when you want to sleep — in fact, 
 the thing you have imagined becomes the 
 master, while you are but the slave to it, — 
 is that perfect happiness, think you ? Will 
 that compare with the delight it once was 
 to seek the kye in the gloamin', or to ride 
 home one of the horses from the plough ? 
 No ; I fancy the capacity for happiness dies 
 out of us as we grow older, at least wi' us
 
 230 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 working men. Our very pleasures all mean 
 work — that's to say, if one has a mind 
 above the beasts, — and we cannot mend it ! 
 It is because life carries us into greater 
 aims and ambitions, just as the river there 
 grows from a wee bit brook, whether it will 
 or no.'' 
 
 Hannah dropped her knitting in aston- 
 ishment at hearing such a long, queer 
 speech from one generally of few words. 
 David had forgotten her presence, in truth, 
 or he would have respected the views of his 
 mother's model young woman. 
 
 '^And work is not happiness," he con- 
 tinued, " say what folks like. It makes us 
 forget the want of it sometimes, and there- 
 fore is a blessing. I saw in a book I was 
 reading the other night, that all who worship 
 the beautiful in art or life, are by nature 
 inactive. If this is true, we must lose some- 
 thing who are forced to labour incessantly." 
 
 "The Bible teaches us that work is
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 231 
 
 ordained for our good/' put in Hannah, 
 properly. 
 
 " And so it is. And miserable we would 
 be without it now ; only the pity is Adam 
 ever forfeited bis right to be lazy." 
 
 *^ Wonders will never cease ! " laughed a 
 young voice, as Hermann Sergei and Per- 
 dita came along the river-side pathway, and 
 overheard the last speech. "Why, David, 
 you can never blame me more for spending 
 time in dreaming, when you yourself preach 
 the beauty of idleness ! " And the musician 
 laid his hand on David's shoulder, and 
 looked down on him admiringly. 
 
 The other did not respond, but kept his 
 eyes averted, till little Deeta came near, and 
 fluttering daintily round him like some 
 bright-winged butterfly, settled at last by 
 his side, and tried to put some primroses 
 she had gathered into the button-hole of his 
 coat. Then, as he caught sight of the arch, 
 laughing face beside him, he smiled, and
 
 232 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 Deeta clapped her hands with delight, like 
 a very child as she was. 
 
 " A posy for me, Deeta ? Fm over old 
 and grim for flowers, lassie. Ye should 
 keep them for brighter faces than mine.'' 
 
 '^ But I don't know where to find them, 
 sir ! There now, when you smile and look 
 . at me with your old kind look, there isn't 
 _ one to compare with my Davie." 
 
 " Bairn, don't flatter me like that ! See, 
 Hermann is laughing at you." 
 
 '' What do I care for Hermann ? " said the 
 little maid, with a saucy toss of the head. 
 *' Let him laugh as he likes. Now, Hannah, 
 isn't it true ? Why, even you confessed 
 once that there wasn't a handsomer man in 
 Oldboro' than David Armstrong ! " 
 
 Hannah laughed, but looked vexed, never- 
 theless. 
 
 Deeta rattled away, happy and saucy as 
 a half-tamed bird that comes to your call, 
 yet pecks your hand when you ofler to
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 233 
 
 caress it. Bright, light-liearted, coquettish, 
 she seemed one of those creatures born to 
 dance through life, unheeding all the troubles 
 and dangers of it. There was as yet little 
 soul in her ; or rather it had not been 
 awakened by any very strong emotion. 
 Even her love had not given her any 
 pain ; it was all young, and fresh, and 
 sweet, like her own nature. If ever she 
 was to pass from the sunshine into the 
 shadow for development, that time had not 
 yet come. 
 
 She seemed so complete a creation as she 
 was, with the completeness that belongs to 
 all beauty — whether that of perfect flower, 
 or harmonious music, or exquisite perfume 
 — that you could not help dreading any 
 change that might come to her. 
 
 Can anything in nature be entirely glad 
 save the song of a lark in the clear blue sky 
 of a summer's morning ? If such gladness is 
 ever found, surely it was in Deeta that day.
 
 234 BEFORE THE DAWK 
 
 The country was a fairy region to tlie town- 
 bred girl ; every bird, every flower, every 
 green blade of grass, was a revelation to her. 
 She ran, or rather danced along as though 
 she scarcely needed to touch the ground, so 
 buoyant were her spirits ; she sang merry 
 snatches of old ballads in her clear jubilant 
 voice, till the feathered songsters in the 
 budding trees round her rang out an an- 
 swering chorus, accepting her solos as part 
 of the great hymn of praise they are always 
 choiring. 
 
 From the first peep of morning sun, which 
 had awakened her to the thought that 
 some unwonted pleasure was in store, and 
 caused her — remembering — to jump out of 
 her white bed, and take a look at the pretty 
 new print dress, decked with blue ribbons, 
 she had made ready against her holiday; to 
 the time when the sun sank down behind a 
 long line of firs, and left a pale saffron sky 
 overhead, and the slender crescent of a
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 235 
 
 moon grew silvered against the waning 
 light ; it had been a perfect day to the little 
 maiden. And David's rugged brows and 
 dark eyes grew almost as poetic as those of 
 Hermann, while he watched the happiness of 
 the girl he loved so well.
 
 236 
 
 CHAPTEE XXII. 
 
 " What think ye o' yon lad, Hannah ? " 
 David Armstrong asked abruptly, some few 
 days after this. Hermann had just gone 
 out with Deeta on an errand for Mrs Arm- 
 strong, who herself was not in the room. 
 It was wonderful with what dexterity the 
 good woman managed to find some occu- 
 pation which obliged her to leave her son 
 alone with the woman she admired so 
 much. 
 
 Hannah saw and resented this with bitter 
 pain, all the more that she could not speak 
 against it; but poor, unconscious David 
 never noticed. With his all-absorbing in- 
 terest in Deeta, many things went past him
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 237 
 
 which, he must needs have seen had his mind 
 been less preoccupied. At present, he had 
 formed an opinion, after much trouble of 
 brain and heart, and wished to hear it 
 confirmed. 
 
 " You are a woman, and therefore quicker, 
 and maybe truer too, in judging of char- 
 acter than I can be. But I think Hermann 
 there is as good a lad as could be found, 
 even though he has been brought up in a 
 bad school. AVhat say you, Hannah ? " 
 
 " That he is," responded she, warmly ; 
 "so kind and considerate for every one's 
 comfort afore his own ! I don't know a 
 more steady young man of his age. And 
 see how fond your mother has got of him, 
 for all she was dead against havin' one o' 
 the fiddlers to lodge wi' her at the first. 
 But he has such a pleasant way wi' him it 
 would be hard to help liking him." 
 
 *' He'll do," said David, with an em- 
 phatic nod ; as he went on measuring with
 
 238 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 his compasses some plan of machinery he 
 was busy with. It would not come right 
 apparently, for after a minute or two he 
 threw down pencil and compasses both, and 
 taking his hat from a peg, went off for a 
 solitary walk. This was his usual way of 
 getting rid of a fit of ill-temper. Very 
 rarely now did passion get the better of 
 him. He was a changed man, outwardly, 
 from the rash, excitable, passionate young 
 carpenter of the old days. Less lovable, 
 perhaps, less impulsively generous ; and yet, 
 perhaps, under the crust of superficial calm- 
 ness, the old emotions, good and bad, were 
 ready to leap up unconquered as ever ! 
 
 Not till he had got clear of the town, 
 and gone across a mile or two of common 
 or moorland which lay outside of Oldboro', 
 did his speed slacken. Past the lads and 
 men playing cricket ; past the groups of 
 shop-girls snatching the fresh air, which 
 was to last them over next day ; past
 
 BEFORE THE DAWK 239 
 
 the loitering pairs of lovers, he pushed his 
 way. It must have been more than an 
 ordinary fit of ill-temper that needed so 
 much hard walking to allay it ! At last the 
 high road became lonely, save for one or 
 two labourers tramping homeward. 
 
 David paused at the gate of a field to 
 look at two foals ; pets evidently, for they 
 came galloping across the grass towards 
 him, but stopped on seeing a stranger, 
 standing still to stare at him, with soft, 
 startled eyes, ready to take fiight if he 
 offered to move. He climbed to an uneasy 
 perch upon the gate, and sat there smoking 
 and watching them for a time. 
 
 There was a strange, lonely feeling in his 
 heart he could not account for. Was it at 
 the acceptance of the thought that some day 
 he would not be first with the little Deeta ? 
 
 Some day 1 Why, he knew it was so 
 already ! And as he acknowledged it to 
 himself, a bitter oath came to his lips. But
 
 240 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 this mood soon passed. Was not the boy 
 young, and pure, and worthy of her, or at 
 least as much so as any could be ? And he 
 loved her ; David had no doubt of that — 
 he had read it in Hermann s eyes before 
 even the lad knew it himself. And if she 
 returned that love, God forbid she should 
 ever want anything, and not have it ! 
 
 His business was to make her happy at 
 any price — not to stand between her and 
 her love. God helping him, he would do 
 what he could ; and having risen to the 
 sacrifice, a calmer, better mood came over 
 him. He sat on a while till the quiet stars 
 came out, and the cool night wind blew 
 round him. The battle with self was 
 fought, and the victor had a right to rest. 
 
 "When David got back, tea was long 
 over, but Hannah (in the absence of 
 his mother, who had gone to visit a sick 
 neighbour) had seen to some being kept 
 warm for him. She was kneeling by the
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN". 241 
 
 fire making toast, while Deeta and Her- 
 mann were sitting by the window pre- 
 tending to look out — in reality looking no 
 further than each other's eyes. 
 
 Hermann's beloved fiddle lay on the 
 table near him ; and now and again he 
 touched it lovingly, almost caressingly, 
 Deeta thought, feeling angry that such 
 affection should be wasted on a stupid thing 
 like that. 
 
 David came in cheery and bright, bring- 
 ing a whiff of country air with him. But 
 he would not have the lamp lighted, saying 
 that his eyes were tired, and that the two 
 youngsters must give him some music while 
 he was at tea. 
 
 " What shall I sing, Davie '? '' said Deeta, 
 who loved singing for singing's sake. 
 
 ''Not you just yet, Deeta. I want the 
 thrush before the lark ! Come, Hermann, 
 you very seldom give us a song, and no- 
 body can sing a sweeter one." 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 242 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 Hermann had a pretty, light, tenor voice, 
 not very strong but exceedingly pleasing, 
 and he sang with perfect taste. But he 
 had heard so much really first-rate singing, 
 that it gave him a very poor opinion of his 
 own performances in that line. Still he 
 was not sorry to air a little song which he 
 had written himself and set to a pretty 
 melody. 
 
 Besides, as Deeta said " sing,'' in her 
 sweet, coaxing way, what could he do but 
 obey, especially as she was in his mind 
 when he wrote it ? This was the song — 
 
 " My love can find no voice 
 
 To tell how dear thou art — 
 To woo thee to my choice, 
 And win thee to my heart. 
 
 And yet within thy breast 
 
 My happy secret lies ; 
 And in its wild unrest 
 
 Thy heart to mine replies. 
 
 From eyes of purest blue, 
 
 And from a soft low tone, 
 I take thy answer true, 
 
 And know thee all mine own ! "
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 243 
 
 Why should the only blue eyes in the 
 room be kept sedulously hidden under their 
 long lashes, as the last cadence of the song 
 died away ? Because there were tears of 
 happiness in them, to be sure ! 
 
 Perdita took care the bold young lover 
 should read no answer there, for she never 
 lifted them to meet the anxious, entreating 
 ones which he bent upon her. 
 
 After a moment's silence, she got up and 
 glided out of the room ; but David, with- 
 out looking, felt sure that she went close 
 enough to touch the singer as she passed. 
 
 Hermann was quite content, though no 
 one so much as thanked him for his song. 
 
 David and he were left alone, Hannah 
 having gone to relieve Mrs Armstrong ; and 
 Hermann wearying, as it seemed, of the 
 silence which fell on them, took up his fiddle 
 and began to play over the air he had just 
 finished — very softly at first, almost plead- 
 ingly, till it died away in a wail of thrill-
 
 244 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 ing sadness. Then it began again, and this 
 time the strain lost its melancholy, increas- 
 ing in strength and happiness as it went 
 on ; until it ended, soaring upward like a 
 lark, and almost rivalling one in its joyous 
 melody. 
 
 The player had forgotten that he was 
 not alone, and throwing off the reticence 
 -of young love, he was telling his heart's 
 story in a way not to be misunderstood. 
 
 If David had any lingering doubt before, 
 it vanished now, and his heart melted to- 
 wards the lad. He would have liked to 
 tell him of his changed feelings; but as 
 Hermann had never known how near David 
 had been at one time to regarding him with 
 dislike, it would be absurd to do this now. 
 
 Still he must do something to relieve his 
 own feelings — some little friendly touch or 
 other. 
 
 What he did, was to go across to Her- 
 mann, and laying his hand on his shoul-
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 245 
 
 der, ask him clumsily what made him so 
 quiet. 
 
 How much is lost through our vaunted 
 cultivation ! Had David been what is 
 usually considered a gentleman, he would 
 have studied so long ere he spoke — from 
 fear of making a mistake — that the op- 
 portunity would have passed. And yet 
 such untrammelled emotion, even of sym- 
 pathy, is apt to be embarrassing to the 
 recipient. It cost Hermann an eflfort to 
 respond, though he was glad the ice was 
 broken. 
 
 " David, old fellow," said he, tremulous- 
 ly, "I feel I must tell somebody, or I will 
 go wild with joy ! You must see how I 
 loA^e her. I don't know what you may 
 say, but how could I help it ? She is so 
 sweet, so tender ! Don't be angry with 
 me because I love her. Oh, how I do 
 love her 1 " 
 
 '' Angry — no ! Why should / be angry ?
 
 246 BEFOKE THE DAWN. 
 
 Have you told her all tliis V asked David, 
 in a manner that seemed to the excited lad 
 strangely calm and quiet. 
 
 Had old David guessed it before, then, 
 that he took it so coolly 1 
 
 '' Not a word/' he answered, eagerly. 
 '' I swear Fve never said a word to her ; 
 but I fancy she knows for all that," he 
 went on more softly. 
 
 " And you seem pretty certain of the 
 answer, at least judging from your song '? " 
 
 '' I think I could make her care for me a 
 little," he modestly replied. " Oh, David, 
 you can't understand it, of course ! It isn't 
 natural you should, never having been in 
 love ; but I feel as if I could do anything 
 for her." 
 
 '' Boy, what could you do '? " said the 
 older man, in a low, deep voice. ''But 
 after all it's natural, as you say, that I 
 
 should not understand, and well if you 
 
 find she cares for you, and you keep
 
 BEFOKE THE DAWN. 247 
 
 worthy of her, mind, you can tell me then, 
 and I won't be your worst friend ! But be 
 patient, and be sure of yourself before you 
 dare to speak to her. There, don't bother 
 me any more just now ! I know all you 
 would say. I want to finish those plans,'' 
 and he turned towards them. 
 
 But the plans were not finished that 
 night, at any rate !
 
 248 
 
 CHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 In her little bedroom stood Deeta, studi- 
 ously regarding herself in the looking-glass. 
 Not at all an unusual proceeding on her 
 part, it must be confessed. Indeed, Mrs 
 Armstrong was much concerned in mind 
 when she discovered signs of wear in the 
 bit of bright drugget which lay before the 
 dressing-table, and took much care to im- 
 press on the little maid the perishableness 
 of all earthly beauty, that passed like a 
 shadow, and faded like a flower. But, sad 
 to say, Deeta lent a careless ear to those 
 well-worn truisms, which, somehow, youth 
 will not believe, be they ever so frequently 
 preached. Besides, she was quite sharp
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 249 
 
 enough to see that, though David's mother 
 scrupulously did her duty to his adopted 
 child, it was not a task of love. 
 
 Mrs Armstrong was a good woman, a very 
 good woman ; but she was also a woman of 
 strong prejudices, and in spite of Christi- 
 anity, those will show now and then. She 
 found it hard to forgive Deeta the fact of her 
 ever having been born. For years, when- 
 ever she saw the little thing playing about, 
 her brow would knit and her eyes darken 
 at the thought of the shame which had 
 fallen on her family through Phoebe's sin. 
 She could not help hoping that the child 
 would die when it caught a fever once ; but 
 she prayed against the hope, and nursed the 
 sufferer night and day with more devoted 
 care than ever her own children had had 
 from her. As time went on, however, and 
 Deeta grew in strength and prettiness, Mrs 
 Armstrong accepted the fact that she was 
 meant to live. The child's life was a cross
 
 250 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 sent from above, and must be borne ; never- 
 theless it is too much to ask of humanity 
 that it should love the cross, however 
 patiently it bears with it ! 
 
 Deeta would fain have loved and caressed 
 her granny, as she called her ; for the child 
 was full of coaxing, winning ways towards 
 every one ; but something about the old 
 woman forbade it. There seemed some im- 
 passable barrier between the two natures, 
 more than the difference in years accounted 
 for, and it increased instead of lessened with 
 the course of time. So it was that all the 
 good woman's preaching rather did the girl 
 harm than good — rousing, from its lack of 
 sympathy, what opposition there was in 
 her nature ; while a look of vexation or 
 disappointment on David's face would in- 
 fluence her directly. But David was very 
 lenient to her vanity — innocent enough, 
 poor child, as it was — delight akin to what 
 the flowers may have in their beauty and
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 251 
 
 sweetness. None of God's creatures have 
 the detestable weakness of aflfectation save 
 only man — or shall we say woman 1 They 
 know He made them, and that they are 
 good, — that is sufl&cient for them. 
 
 Deeta ordinarily got much satisfaction out 
 of the contemplation of herself ; she did 
 not know enough of the world to under- 
 stand that conventional hypocrisy which 
 would make it no sin to know the value 
 of her beauty, provided she disguised the 
 knowledge carefully enough. 
 
 But now, though the afternoon sun 
 touched up her hair to gold, a cloud rested 
 on her face, as she sat leaning her head 
 on her hands, gazing earnestly at her own 
 reflection. 
 
 It was not, however, that Mrs Arm- 
 strong's words were at last beginning to 
 have due weight, and that she was think- 
 ing of the time when the face Nature had 
 formed in one of her sunniest moods, should
 
 252 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 be old and worn, and the bright hair sil- 
 vered ; but was to be accounted for by the 
 fact that a few evenings before she had met 
 Hermann escorting a young actress engaged 
 at the Imperial, and for the first time a 
 touch of jealousy infused both bitterness 
 and strength into her growing love. It 
 was not vanity made her compare her own 
 appearance with that of the tall, slim 
 figure that had passed her so rapidly, but 
 which those clear blue eyes of hers had 
 noted in its every detail. She knew well 
 enough she was pretty, and remembered 
 perfectly the happiness which the recog- 
 nition of her own attractions gave her on 
 the day she first found them out. 
 
 Never since that time had a doubt of 
 their power troubled her, till now that the 
 dark steadfast face of Maud Trevor came 
 like a haunting dread between her and such 
 happy confidence. 
 
 So the poor child looked with increasing
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 253 
 
 discontent at the fair vision which greeted 
 her in the glass. What was the use of 
 having eyes like violets if he preferred 
 black ones ? But perhaps if she was an 
 actress like the girl he was walking with, 
 he would admire her more? After all, 
 the song he sang so sweetly only the other 
 evening had blue, not black, eyes for its 
 theme. 
 
 Welly why should she not go on the 
 stage ? She could dance, and sing too, for 
 that matter ; and surely she was pretty 
 enough to pass muster, even if she hadn't 
 a tall, slim figure 1 At this thought she 
 laughed, and her dimples came out, and she 
 shook down a perfect cascade of rippling 
 chestnut hair over her plump white shoul- 
 ders, until it almost hid her bright little 
 face. Yes, she would pass muster, she 
 thought; and touched her soft round cheek, 
 with a babyish wonder at its softness. 
 
 Deeta's ideas of the stage were very
 
 254 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 vao[ue. She had never been within the 
 door of a theatre ; and invested it with that 
 romance which only belongs to things un- 
 attainable. 
 
 David had a lurking fear that she would 
 care about that sort of life, and, with mis- 
 taken prudence, had kept her as far as he 
 could from all knowledge of it. In defer- 
 ence to his wishes, Hermann never brought 
 any of his comrades to the house; and David 
 himself never even talked of the theatre. 
 But this ultra care had the very opposite 
 effect to that intended — it excited the girl's 
 imagination, made her long after the for- 
 bidden, and set a fictitious value on it. Far 
 better would it have been to have shown 
 her the real thing, stripped of all its glare 
 and tinsel, and then dared her to think it 
 so fine after all ! 
 
 Little she knew of the cares, and troubles, 
 and disappointments of an actress's life, 
 still less of the long and weary work
 
 BEFOKE THE DAWN. 255 
 
 needed before any stage success could be 
 won. 
 
 The only plays which she had read 
 were two or three of Shakespeare's, left 
 in a torn volume that David had been 
 fond of in days now long gone by. This 
 treasure the girl found, and instinctively 
 hid from Mrs Armstrong ; knowing that it, 
 in common with everything approaching 
 poetry (save only the Psalms), would be 
 denounced as "sinful." 
 
 There was left in this book " Hamlet," 
 "As you Like It," "Komeo and Juliet," 
 and a great part of " A Midsummer Night's 
 Dream." Over these the child pored in 
 secret, or rather — for she was not capable 
 of steady reading — the parts of them 
 that touched her fancy ; and the wealth of 
 imagination, set forth in noble language, 
 which she found there, caused her to form 
 a high and utterly untrue ideal of dramatic 
 art. Not untrue, perhaps, as it existed in
 
 256 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 the days when the great man wrote ; but 
 certainly untrue as it is now. 
 
 That afternoon when Hermann was en- 
 deavouring to interest her in some of his 
 projects for the future, all at once she 
 looked up at him, and he saw she had not 
 been listening a bit. So he waited quietly, 
 — to hear what her little head was full of, 
 to the exclusion of his affairs. 
 
 *' Hermann," she said at last, abruptly, with 
 her blue eyes all earnestness, " do you think 
 I could ever be an actress ? Not to do great 
 parts like Eosalind, or Juliet, or Ophelia, — at 
 least not at first — but to begin low down ? " 
 
 " Bless your sweet innocence ! Nobody 
 ever does do great parts now, except now 
 and then when some moneyed amateur wants 
 to come out in the legitimate drama, and 
 loses a fortune over it," answered Hermann, 
 laughing. " But what put such a notion 
 into your head? I only wish Mrs Arm- 
 strong heard you ! "
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 257 
 
 " I only wish you wouldn't laugh when- 
 ever I ask you a question in earnest," said 
 the little thing, half in tears. Hermann 
 was tempted to kiss the said tears away, 
 but refrained, because, in the first place, he 
 did not exactly know how she would take 
 it ; and in the second, they made the pretty 
 eyes look brighter. 
 
 " Of course I know that you think me 
 stupid,'.' she went on, with a pout. " Good 
 for nothing but to cook your dinner, and 
 sew buttons on your shirts, — but never 
 mind " 
 
 " You know I think nothing of the kind, 
 you wicked little story-teller ; and I have a 
 good mind to punish you for saying so." 
 And the young fellow bent over her, be- 
 witched by her coquettish looks. 
 
 " Punish me, indeed ! " cried Deeta, her 
 cheeks flushing, and her tiny figure bridling. 
 
 '' Yes — but only with kisses," whispered 
 Hermann, softly. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 258 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 "Keep your kisses till they are wanted, 
 sir," said the girl, haughtily. '' Do you talk 
 that way to Miss Trevor, too ? No wonder 
 you start. You see I know her name ! Ah, 
 yes," she went on, working herself into a 
 passion over the remembrance, while vainly 
 imagining that she was keeping up a calm 
 indifference. " You were too busily engaged 
 to notice poor Deeta when you were talk- 
 ing and walkino; with her the other nip^ht, 
 though you know you promised to come 
 home early, and take me for a walk," — this 
 with a badly concealed sob, — '^ not that it 
 mattered a bit, only " 
 
 " Deeta, you know as well as I do that I 
 only care for you in the whole world," broke 
 out Hermann, impetuously ; forgetting every- 
 thing in the intoxication of finding that his 
 shy, changeable darling was actually jeal- 
 ous ; and he took both her hands in his, 
 and drawing her nearer, looked down upon 
 her with such love shining in his grey eyes,
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 259 
 
 that her own dropped before them, their 
 jealous passion melting into tenderness. 
 
 David had warned Hermann to take time 
 and make sure that his love for Deeta was 
 the deep abiding love of a man, not a mere 
 passing boyish fancy. But where was pru- 
 dence now his sweetheart had so inno- 
 cently shown how much she prized his 
 attentions ? 
 
 In fact, Hermann thought that his 
 patience and carefulness over any betrayal 
 of his feelings had exceeded the generality 
 of lovers ; in that it was almost a week 
 since he had told David how matters were 
 with him, and yet he had never till now 
 breathed a word, nor even once kissed her 
 rosy mouth. 
 
 Now, however, it was all up with him 
 and his superhuman self-restraint. Away 
 went prudence to the wands ; and with his 
 arm round Deeta's w^aist, and his mouth bent 
 close to her pretty little ear, he was telling
 
 260 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 lier, in a low and tender voice, the only old 
 story wliicli is never worn threadbare — per- 
 haps because so much of its beauty depends 
 on the way it is told. Never since the 
 world began was it told in the self-same 
 way. What chance has a simple little 
 creature like Deeta when the eloquence, 
 which she has only met before in books, 
 is brought to bear upon her from the lips 
 and the eyes of a young fellow who is half 
 a poet himself, especially when it is accom- 
 panied by another sort of eloquence of the 
 lips — mute, but none the less forcible '?
 
 261 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 '' But you haven't told me yet liow you 
 come to be so familiar with Maud Trevor," 
 said Deeta, after an interval of Elysium, 
 which seemed only a few seconds to the 
 lovers, but was in reality something over 
 an hour. 
 
 Hermann laughed. Having found that 
 Deeta really cared for him, he did not 
 object to tease her a little. It was so 
 delightful to be coaxed, to be questioned, 
 even to be pouted at, when you knew that 
 the pout wouldn't last — and the darling- 
 looked so pretty when she aflfected jealousy! 
 But when the jealousy seemed inclined to 
 become real, it was time to explain.
 
 262 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 " Who is she '? And are you very fond 
 of her ? Tell me at once/' commanded the 
 voice of his beloved, severely. 
 
 " She is Maud Trevor, a very hard-work- 
 ing, conscientious girl, who will rise in her 
 profession eventually, if perseverance is 
 genius, as I have read somewhere it is." 
 
 " You haven't answered all my questions, 
 sir." 
 
 " You exacting child, no more I have. 
 Well, then, I certainly am fond of Maud." 
 
 " Perhaps you would rather be beside her 
 now. Let me go directly, Hermann ! Why 
 do you hold me ? " 
 
 " Because, upon the whole, I think I pre- 
 fer you where you are. You little goose, 
 I'm not fond of her in that way, any more 
 than she is of me. Maud has no heart for 
 anything but her profession since her little 
 sister died a year ago. I never saw any- 
 thing like the devoted affection between 
 those two. Little Eose was delicate, and
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 263 
 
 every sixpence that Maud could scrape 
 together went to procure luxuries to tempt 
 the child's sickly appetite, or books to 
 amuse her, and make her forget pain for a 
 while. I have seen Maud — though a good- 
 looking girl — wearing day after day clothes 
 that the poorest hangers-on of the theatre 
 would have disdained, although at the time 
 she was drawing a fair salary ; and yet she 
 always looked happy and contented, for at 
 home there was little Rose waiting with 
 a welcoming smile on her pinched white 
 face." 
 
 '' Poor girl ! " said Deeta, with tears in 
 her eyes. " And did she lose Rose after all 
 her care ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it was consumption — and that, you 
 know, can only have one end. But she says 
 that the memory of that child is always with 
 her, and that she dare not have even a wrong 
 thought in her mind along with it." 
 
 " I should like you to know Maud some
 
 264 BEFORE THE DAWN. 
 
 day. She made me point you out to her 
 once, and loved you at first sight, because 
 your blue eyes reminded her of Kose's. 
 If it wasn't that David has such a preju- 
 dice against everybody connected with the 
 theatre, I would have asked him to let me 
 take you to see her. She is not like the 
 other actresses at all, and sadly needs a 
 friend to cheer her up sometimes. What a 
 blessing David's prejudice didn't extend to 
 me, or we might never have known each 
 other, my sweetest ! " 
 
 " Why has he such a dislike to theatres 1 " 
 asked Deeta, pettishly. " I do want so to 
 see a play ! Just fancy, I am nearly 
 seventeen ! " 
 
 " A mature age, certainly," exclaimed 
 Hermann. 
 
 '* And I have never been to either a play 
 or an opera yet. It's too bad, isn't it, Her- 
 mann i 
 
 Hermann nodded.
 
 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 265 
 
 " Perhaps David will let you go with 
 me the next time there's anything worth 
 seeing ? " 
 
 Deeta shook her head despondently. 
 
 " Not he ! It's all those stupid chapel- 
 going notions that granny preaches up to 
 him. As if it would do me any harm ! 
 But I mean to go — there ! — whether they 
 like it or no. Not that I would do any- 
 thing, to vex old David, poor dear, he's so 
 fond of me. But I know it w^ouldn't vex 
 him in his heart, only he doesn't like to give 
 w^ay, having once said a thing." 
 
 " How can / blame him for taking such 
 care of my little flower ? " whispered Her- 
 mann tenderly. " Oh, my Deeta, tell me 
 once again you love me ! " 
 
 '' I thought you promised to wait till you 
 were quite sure of your own constancy *? " 
 said David, gravely, when the young lover 
 told of his happiness.
 
 266 BEFOEE THE DAWN. 
 
 " So I did. I waited — oh, ever so long ! " 
 
 " A week ! Is that so long to wait to 
 find love, think you ? Some wait their 
 dreary lives through, and never gain it 
 after all." 
 
 " Well, well, young love is ever head- 
 strong, and apt to forget aught but its own 
 wishes, so I suppose I must e'en give in, the 
 more so as you say the child's fond of you. 
 Mind you, I would gladly set you to the 
 right-about to-morrow, lad — although I like 
 you well enough too — did I think her smile 
 would be none the rarer, nor her cheek the 
 whiter, for the miss of you ; for it wellnigh 
 breaks my heart to let her go to another, to 
 see the sparkle come to her eye and the joy 
 to her face, and to know it's none for me." 
 
 " You couldn't love her more if she were 
 your own/' said the younger man, startled 
 for the moment by the passion in the other's 
 voice. 
 
 " She IS my own — my very own pet lamb,
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN. 267 
 
 that I brought up and fed from my hand, 
 and that trusted and looked to me for every- 
 thing. No, that's wrong — she is yours now," 
 he added, with a groan ; then in a calmer 
 voice, " but I never denied her anything 
 yet that I could give her, and I'll not begin 
 now. So, since she loves you, I must con- 
 sent — only she's such a young thing yet ! 
 Don't coax her away from us for a year 
 or two. You will have her all your life. 
 Leave her to me a little lono-er." 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 PRINTED BV WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.