FullReads

“I shall soon be done, Jamie, and I must not think of rest till then, for there is neither food nor fuel for the morrow. Sleep, yourself, dear, and dream of pleasant things; I am not very tired.”

And Bess bent closer to her work, trying to sing a little song, that they might not guess how near the tears were to her aching eyes.

From beneath his pillow Jamie drew a bit of bread, whispering to his friend as he displayed it,–

“Give it to Bess; I saved it for her till you came, for she will not take it from me, and she has eaten nothing all this day.”

“And you, Jamie?” asked Walter, struck by the sharpened features of the boy, and the hungry look which for a moment glistened in his eye.

“I don’t need much, you know, for I don’t work like Bess; but yet she gives me all. Oh, how can I bear to see her working so for me, and I lying idle here!”

As he spoke, Jamie clasped his hands before his face, and through his slender fingers streamed such tears as children seldom shed.

It was so rare a thing for him to weep that it filled Walter with dismay and a keener sense of his own powerlessness. Ho could bear any privation for himself alone, but he could not see them suffer. He had nothing to offer them; for though there was seeming wealth in store for him, he was now miserably poor. He stood a moment, looking from brother to sister, both so dear to him, and both so plainly showing how hard a struggle life had been to them.

With a bitter exclamation, the young man turned away and went out into the night, muttering to himself,–

“They shall not suffer; I will beg or steal first.”

And with some vague purpose stirring within him, he went swiftly on until he reached a great thoroughfare, nearly deserted now, but echoing occasionally to a quick step as some one hurried home to his warm fireside.

“A little money, sir, for a sick child and a starving woman;” and with outstretched hand Walter arrested an old man. But he only wrapped his furs still closer and passed on, saying sternly,–

“I have nothing for vagrants. Go to work, young man.”

A woman poorly clad in widow’s weeds passed at that moment, and, as the beggar fell back from the rich man’s path, she dropped a bit of silver in his hand, saying with true womanly compassion,–

“Heaven help you! it is all I have to give.”

“I’ll beg no more,” muttered Walter, as he turned away burning with shame and indignation; “I’ll take from the rich what the poor so freely give. God pardon me; I see no other way, and they must not starve.”

With a vague sense of guilt already upon him, he stole into a more unfrequented street and slunk into the shadow of a doorway to wait for coming steps and nerve himself for his first evil deed.

Glancing up to chide the moonlight for betraying him, he started; for there, above the snow-clad roofs, rose the cross upon the tower. Hastily he averted his eyes, as if they had rested on the mild, reproachful countenance of a friend.

Far up in the wintry sky the bright symbol shone, and from it seemed to fall a radiance, warmer than the moonlight, clearer than the starlight, showing to that tempted heart the darkness of the yet uncommitted wrong.

That familiar sight recalled the past; he thought of Jamie, and seemed to hear again the childish words, uttered long ago, “God will remember us.”

Steps came and went along the lonely street, but the dark figure in the shadow never stirred, only stood there with bent head, accepting the silent rebuke that shone down upon it, and murmuring, softly,–

“God remember little Jamie, and forgive me that my love for him led me astray.”

As Walter raised his hand to dash away the drops that rose at the memory of the boy, his eye fell on the ring he always wore for his dead mother’s sake. He had hoped to see it one day on Bess’s hand, but now a generous thought banished all others and with the energy of an honest purpose be hastened to sell the ring, purchase a little food and fuel, and borrowing a warm covering of a kindly neighbor, he went back to dispense these comforts with a satisfaction he had little thought to feel.