And by his side there moved a form of beauty,
Strewing sweet flowers along his path of life.
And looking up with meek and love-lent duty:
I call her angel, but he called her wife.
n reaching Liverpool, his first visit was to his sister's grave. He would never have found it, were it not for a curious-shaped stone that he had embedded in the sod ere he went away. As it was, he was a long time before he could discover it among the hundreds of grass-grown mounds lying all around it. It seemed to him that he had lived a long life since he lay there that summer night, and resolved that he would leave Liverpool behind him, and go out into the great world that lay beyond to seek his fortune. "Ah, well!" he mused, "I have made no fortune, but I have lived a life of peace, and God has taken care of me, and now I have come back again no longer a child, though scarcely a man, and I believe God will take care of me here." Kneeling by the little grave, he offered up a silent prayer for help and protection. He thanked God for his little sister that was safe from the world's temptation, and prayed that when he should be laid down to sleep by her side, they might meet by the far-off Jordan river, and part no more for ever.
He was in a very subdued frame of mind when he left the cemetery and wended his way in the direction of Tempest Court. He could not help wondering as he threaded his way through the busy streets whether granny was still alive, but he certainly did not expect to find that Tempest Court was no longer in existence. Such, however, was the case. The march of improvement had swept away hundreds of tumble-down houses, in one of which granny had dwelt for so many years. But she did not live to see that day. In the little home in which she had lived so long she was permitted to die; and so, when the "destroyer," as she would have called it, came to Tempest Court, she was gone—gone home to the Father's mansion, to the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
But Benny knew nothing of this, and so he gazed with a look of pain at the heaps of broken bricks and mortar which men were busy carting away, and thought what a grief it would be to granny. His next visit was to St. George's Hall, and for a while he sat in the shadow of the great portico to watch the hurrying crowds passing up and down. How different it was from the silent country and the still, drowsy fields! What a tremendous hurry everybody seemed to be in! Was it always so? He had never noticed it in the old days: surely the great town must have grown bigger and busier in the years he had been away from it. "But I daresay I shall soon get used to it," he said to himself, as he rose from his seat, and started this time for the landing-stage. Here he saw no change. The mighty river was the same as in the old days, a scene of life and beauty. But the children selling matches and the women crying newspapers brought more vividly back to his mind than anything else the days of his own childhood. In the cemetery it seemed a life-time since he went away; here, on the stage, it seemed only yesterday since he was a poor famished child, earning a precarious living as best he could. He could hardly realize that he was a strong, well-dressed young man. Once or twice the word "Perks" leaped to his lips as a shock-headed ragged lad ran against him; and when a little girl came up to him with "Fusees, sir?" the face of his dead little sister seemed to flash upon him for a moment, and he started and turned pale, then handed the child some coppers, and patted her on the head, telling her to be a good girl.
He now began to think it time to put in an appearance at Mr. Lawrence's office. But he could not resist the temptation of a sail to Birkenhead and back first. For years he had longed for the day when he would be rich enough to afford such a luxury; that day had come at last, and the wish should be gratified; and surely, as he floated across the broad placid river and back again, no child ever felt half so delighted with a new toy as did he.
Mr. Lawrence was pleased to see that our hero had arrived, and offered him the option of a few days' holiday before he settled down to the desk. But Benny said he would be quite ready for work on the following morning; he only wanted to see Joe Wrag and granny, and he thought he would be able to find them before the day closed, and he knew that he should be happier at work than doing nothing.
Benny's next move was to make inquiries of the police as to what streets were being repaired; and, having been furnished with a list, he waited until half-past five, and then went in search of his old friend. But Joe was not so easily found as he had imagined. He went from one street to another until his list was exhausted; but all the watchmen were strangers to him, and he began to fear that his old friend was either dead, or that failing health and strength had compelled him to retire from his occupation. Benny now began to consider what he was to do next, for he had not the remotest idea in what part of the town Joe lived, if indeed he were still living.