"I'm not angry with her now!" cried Nancy, suddenly stopping in her weeping and drying her eyes. "The young curate came just after Stone's wife had left. I did not think much of the lad at first, but he, too, spoke what was truth, though in a different way from Bell. What he was a-saying I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Twill be hard work, but I'll do it. Then I've been thinking, oh, many and many's the time, of that evening I spent with the Frankses just afore I fell into the stream! I've been saying to myself, 'What a different home Persis gives her husband from what I've given to mine!' She has a good husband,—I'll not deny it,—but he don't deserve better of her than you do of me, John Sands, let any one deny that as can!"
"My dear!" repeated the poor clerk, in a softened tone. It was a new thing to him to have a kind word from his wife.
"Now," continued Nancy, who did not care to be interrupted, "I've lost an arm, and my right one, and it's not much as I can do now. But I'd do what I can, John Sands, and I'll not do what I've done," she went on, more vehemently. "I'll not go a-disgracing you, spending your money, and breaking your heart. I'll take the pledge to-morrow, and, God helping me, I'll keep it; never a drop of the poison shall pass my lips again!"
And this was the piece of good news which had sent the poor clerk on his homeward way almost dizzy with joy, so glad that he could not rest until he had got others to share it, though only by the very simple means of a scatter of sugar-plums and cakes!
But Nancy's conversation with her husband had not closed with her promise to take the pledge. There was something else on the woman's mind.
"We've done nothing yet, John Sands, to show that we're not ungrateful to that sailor whom I've been a worritting and abusing ever since he came to the village; and who yet jumped into the water and saved me, just as I was drawn under that fearful wheel. I'll never forget the horror;—I thought all was over with me then!"
"I'd do anything," began the clerk, but Nancy, as usual, cut him short.
"You go home, and get my pretty cuckoo-clock, the clock as was given me on my marriage, and send it over to the Frankses with a letter, a handsome letter; you're a scholar, and can write one as good as a parson. And, mind you,"—a grim, strange smile came over Nancy's features as she added,—"and mind you, don't forget to send the weights, John Sands. Persis told the truth, and I'll never forget it,—a clock can't get on without the weights."
John Sands did not forget to take down the clock that evening, and to send it to the school-house, with a letter written so neatly that it looked like copperplate. It was a fine specimen of composition also, for the clerk could write well, though he could not speak well; and if ever there was a man inspired by grateful joy, that man was the husband of Nancy. He did not, however, in his letter make the slightest allusion to his wife's late bad habits, nor to her intention of taking the pledge; there was a feeling of delicacy on the part of the husband that made him shrink from unnecessarily touching on so tender a subject. But often and often did the clerk mutter to himself on that evening, before he went to his rest, "Didn't I always say it; she was tempted, poor dear, and went wrong, but the metal was always good,—very good!"