He turned so faint after this, that they were obliged to lift him on the sofa and to cover him with a thick shawl. And then, when the others were gone, and Mr. and Mrs. Robin were alone, they talked long and earnestly together about what was to be done with old Joe. He was evidently a poor, ignorant old man, with no idea of right or wrong, and as dark in his soul as a heathen in Africa. Yet perhaps God had sent him to them that they might lead him into the Kingdom of Light, and if so, they ought not to send him away.
So in the morning, after they had given him some breakfast, they talked to him about it.
"We have an empty room at the top of the house," said Mr. Robin, "where you may sleep, and we'll put a mattress for you to lie on, if you'll do two things to please us, and if you'll keep your word about them. First, you must promise me you'll never go into the old church again—if you do, we shall feel it our duty to tell of you; and next, you must let me put that lying board of yours at the back of the fire. If you'll do those two things, old Joe, we'll give you a shelter and welcome."
"And you'll not tell of me?" said the old man.
"Not as long as you keep your word," said Mr. Robin.
So old Joe stayed on. His illness seemed to have been brought on by exposure and by want, and after a few days' quiet, he seemed almost himself again. Then he was never to be seen in the daytime, for wet or fine, he went to play under the railway-bridge; and he found that he received quite as many pence as he had done when he had that lying board round his neck.
But in the evening, just as it was growing dark, he climbed over the wall on the opposite side of the churchyard, and came creeping through the graves up to Granny Robin's window. Here he rapped three times, and when they had let him in, they took him to the kitchen fire, that he might warm himself before going up to bed.
Audrey and Stephen would often come in to talk to him, as he sat holding his thin, wrinkled hands to the blaze. Audrey felt him her special charge, and often said that Old Joe belonged to her, for she had found him first.
"How was it we only saw your light on Sunday?" she asked him one day.
"Because I was in earlier that night," he said. "I came later on week nights; I was afraid of folks seeing me; but I didn't think as anybody would be about the old church of a Sunday night."