"Oh, that it had indeed been so with me!" thought poor Norah; "that I had always kept my lips pure from falsehood; I would not then be returning to be a burden upon my kind and generous uncle. I, whose character stood so high, sent away in disgrace! I, whose word was at once believed! I feel as if I could not bear to tell uncle all,—to let him know of the direct falsehood, and the deceit carried on for months, my mistress's trust so abused by his niece! Uncle will think that all his care and kindness have been thrown away upon Norah; that I am still the foolish, deceitful, bad girl that I was when he first came to Colme, and tried to teach me to be honest and truthful, and straightforward, as a Christian should be. It seems as if I could endure anything rather than the loss of his good opinion, and that of dear Aunt Persis! And yet,"—thus Norah pursued her reflections, to which the miller now left her, his mind being occupied in reckoning up the amount of his savings deposited in the county bank of B——,—"and yet, the safest, the best course for me now, must be to be perfectly frank and open. Alas! I cannot recall the past, but I can draw from bitter experience a lesson for the future. I will confess everything to my uncle, conceal nothing, make no excuses; and oh, may the God of truth help me from this time forward indeed to take heed to my ways, that I offend not with my tongue!"
I will not dwell on the kindly welcome given to Norah Peele by Persis and Ned Franks. She was received as a daughter, no questions asked, no painful inquiries made as to the cause of her leaving her place. "Leave the lass to tell her own story when and how she likes," the one-armed sailor had said to his wife. So the baby now happily sleeping, was shown and admired; topics of general interest were alone spoken of at the evening meal which followed Franks's day of toil; the state of the almshouses in Wild Rose Hollow, the progress made in their repair, the accident to the clerk's wife, the sudden and serious illness of Stone the carpenter, the good report of improvement in the health of the vicar,—all these were made subjects of conversation, everything being avoided which might possibly embarrass the guest. All was done to make her feel at her ease. Norah, it was said, would be so useful in helping to nurse the baby; Norah would look after the flowers, now that her uncle was too busy all day to have time to work in his garden. How delighted old Sarah Mason would be to have Norah to read the Bible to her again!
The poor girl felt grateful for the kindness and consideration thus shown her, and thankful that such a home was left to her still; but a burden was weighing on her mind, and even while conversation was going on, in which she appeared to join, a smothered sigh, or a sudden moistening of her eyes, showed that her thoughts were wandering to something painful. When the tea-things had been cleared away by the active Persis, assisted by Norah, when cups and saucers had been washed and replaced on the shelf, and the outer door closed for the night (it never was bolted or barred), Norah sat down on a little wooden stool at the feet of her aunt, and recounted, with simple truthfulness, all the circumstances that had led to her hasty dismissal from the service of Mrs. Lowndes. I shall give you the story, not in Norah's words, but my own, beginning it by a short account of her early days in Colme.
XIV.
Norah's Story.
Norah and her brother were the only children of the half-sister of Ned Franks, Bessy Peele, a woman who, in every important respect, had been an utter contrast to her brother. While Ned's maxim was to do everything in clear daylight, Bessy was one who, if possible, always took an underground way. He considered the straight road always the shortest; she wound and doubled like a fox. He was convinced that honesty is the best policy; she looked upon cunning as wisdom. One of the earliest lessons learned by Mrs. Peele's unfortunate children was that the great thing in life is to pick up money by any safe means; by "safe" being meant whatever would not lead to the prison or the gallows. There was no harm, she said, in telling a lie,—at least a white lie, that hurt no one, and helped one's self on in the world. What need was there to be so very particular about a little slip of the tongue? She was sure, for her part, that God would not notice such trifles as these.
It is said that some Chinese parents are actually so inhuman as to blind their children, that the poor, wretched creatures may earn more money by begging. Mrs. Peele, a fond though a foolish parent, would have been horrified at the idea of inflicting such an injury upon her children, while actually doing them a wrong yet more cruel. For was it not such to blind their consciences, to make them unable to distinguish the wrong from the right, at the risk of their walking, through the darkness of their souls, into everlasting destruction? And this all for the sake of paltry gain, miserable profits of sin, more dearly bought than the alms given to the poor blinded Chinese beggars!
The mischief done to the characters of Bessy Peele's children was very serious as regarded her son, and had Norah long remained under the roof of her mother, the principles of the young girl might, like his, have been utterly ruined. Happily Norah went early into service, and became the attendant of an aged Christian lady, who gave her every opportunity of hearing the gospel faithfully preached, and made her read to her the Bible and other religious books. Under her roof Norah received religious impressions; her young and tender heart turned towards Him of whose love and compassion she heard so much. But, alas! the poison-seeds sown in childhood had left their evil roots in the soil. Norah would one hour be listening in church with tearful eyes to the account of Peter's sin and repentance, and the next hour be falling, without repentance, into a similar sin of untruth! She was fearfully inconsistent,—not because she was insincere, but because she had actually no clear line drawn in her mind as to where innocence ended and guilt began. Norah had been led to fancy that little sins were no sins,—"white lies" no falsehood,—picking not to be classed with stealing. She wished to please a merciful God and go to heaven, but she felt not that the God of Love is the God of Holiness also; that all sin, if unforgiven, must end in death; that the least can be washed out in nothing less precious than the blood of the Saviour, and that for every idle, untruthful word the sinner must give account at the judgment.
The return to England of her maimed uncle, the sailor, at this time proved a great blessing to Norah. She met with one whose standard of right was the Bible standard,—one who spake the truth as a man who serves the God of Truth should speak, and who trampled on deceit as he would have set his heel on a venomous serpent. Norah's eyes were opened to see that religious profession is but a mask if it do not influence the conduct; that to have prayer on the lips at one moment and untruth at another is fearful mockery before God! Norah Peele asked the help of the Holy Spirit to enable her to walk in the path of holiness, which she now found to be so much more narrow than she had before believed it to be. She became watchful over herself,—she set a guard over her tongue; the little bark, with heaven's wind swelling its sails, did "sheer off" from the treacherous iceberg of falsehood.
Mrs. Peele died rather suddenly after a few days' illness, and closed her worse than useless life with little consciousness of sin, and no sincere repentance. She had been a good mother, she said; God was merciful; she was going to a better world. The habit of a life continued to the end; and, having constantly tried to deceive others, poor Bessy deceived herself at the last. She had built her house on the sand; there was no solid foundation for her hope; she had heard the word, and done it not; what could she plead, where would she stand, in the last awful day?