"My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not."
He turned to his companion, and in a tone of decision said, "Thanks, Perkins, for your offer of a ticket to the theatre, but I would rather not go. I am not ashamed to confess that I know my doing so would grieve the most loving-hearted mother that ever a lad possessed; and so, although she never said to me not to go, still I believe she trusted me to respect her wishes in this matter, and I mean, God helping me, to do it. You know I am the only son of my mother, and she is a widow."
Perkins's only answer was a low whistle of contempt, and any further conversation was stopped by the head of the firm, Mr. Arbuthnot, tapping young Farran on the shoulder. "Look here," he said, "I have to go off in a hurry; take this letter to Macintosh, and tell him I forgot to give it to him when I was speaking to him just now. It came for him just after he had left the house this morning. See, he has left his desk and moved to the other end!"
Farran rose to fulfil Mr. Arbuthnot's order.
Macintosh took the letter with thanks, then began to speak to Farran. "It seems strange," he said, "that we two, who spend our days in the same place, have never yet exchanged words. My cousin told me that you were, like myself, from the country—a stranger in London. If your Saturdays are not always engaged, would you join me in a walk? It is pleasant on the Heath if the day be fine. Say, to-morrow?"
Farran gave a hearty response to the proposal, adding, "I often long for a breath of country air in this smoky town, but walking alone is stupid work."
And so a friendship, which we have not time to follow out, was struck up between these two; and to Ronald was given once more the joy of lending a hand to hold up the faltering steps of a weak child of God, who had well-nigh slipped amidst the temptations of a crowded city and the attractions of thoughtless companions.
Ere long Farran could write to his mother that he "believed that God had given him Ronald Macintosh as a friend and companion in answer to her prayers." And who shall say that it was not even so?
Snow fell on the evening of the day we are writing of, and the children at many a window in the comfortable houses of luxury in the west of London watched with delight the merry snowflakes, as they called them, as they fell whirling about with every breath of air. All over the great city they fell, covering up the dirt in the crowded, dingy streets and courts, as well as whitening the large parks and gardens.
Very fast they seemed to fall on the window-sill of a poor lodging-house, where a lad, sick unto death, tossed from side to side on his comfortless bed. Far from home and friends, he lay forsaken and desolate, reaping the bitter harvest of a wasted life, experiencing even now the truth of the Scripture words, that "the wages of sin is death;" "the way of transgressors is hard." Yes, he felt it now; and somehow it seemed to him as if the little snowflakes were repeating the words to him over and over again: "The way of transgressors is hard." No other words would come just then to his memory; but before his eyes floated a far-off vision of a lowly Highland hut, and an old woman, and of just such a snowy winter day, when he had stolen away from his happy home, enticed by wild companions, to escape the dull life, as they termed it, of the Highland glen, and try his fortune in the great city.