"If he does not come forward, is his backwardness an example to be followed?" asked Franks.
"Let the clergy see to it; it's their business," said Bell, with a little disagreeable twitch of the nostril, which with him was always a sign that something was "putting him out."
"Mr. Leyton preached twice yesterday in aid of the work, but the collections made were wretched,—not one tenth of what is absolutely required."
"The parish overseers must do something."
"They refuse to stir a finger," said Franks; "they say it's no business of theirs."
"Then I'm sure that it's no business of mine," interrupted the miller.
"Is it no business of ours," said the school-master, earnestly, "that they whom we have known for years, they who have lived amongst us, and hoped to die amongst us, should be deprived of the comfort, the quiet, the independence which they so dearly prize?"
"I'm sorry for them," said the miller, carelessly; "the founder should have left something to keep the wheel going."
"What is wanted is the full stream of Christian love," observed Franks. "There are scores of charities in London kept constantly working by nothing but that stream."
The miller did not look as if he had a drop of such love within him. "It is clear," thought Franks, "that I'm not in the right tack yet. Let me try him on that of conscience. Why," he continued, aloud, "there's no plainer command in the Bible than To do good and to distribute, forget not; let us do good unto all men, and specially unto them that are of the household of faith."