"Well done, my boy," said Mr. Carlton; "tell me where you picked up all this knowledge."
The men were gone off to their work, and Mr. Carlton soon drew all Charlie's little history from him. He made no remark, excepting that when Charlie made his polite bow and turned off to his work, he asked him where his father lived.
In the evening, when Charlie got home, he thought his father and mother looked very smiling and mysterious, and after they had kept him guessing what was the cause for a little while, they told him that Mr. Carlton had been there; he thought they would like to hear of Charlie's success with the engine. "And here's good news for you," said his mother. "Mr. Carlton says that if you like to work as a putter six hours a day you may help the engineer, and learn all you can, the other six, and he will give you the same wages as you earn now."
Charlie threw himself into a chair, and sat quite still for a few moments. "Isn't it wonderful, mother?" he said at last—"isn't it wonderful? When I went down the pit there seemed no chance of my ever doing anything else all my life. The other seemed impossible; and yet how God has brought it all about! I shall be an engineer after all, and I have good wages too to begin with. If I hadn't given up all thoughts of it, and gone quietly down the pit because God made me feel it was my duty, I should have lost all this. I hope I shall never doubt Him after this. Won't it be capital, father?" he went on, getting excited. "When I get plenty of money you shall have such a beautiful garden and greenhouse! I think you're feeling better for the rest already, are you not?"
John Heedman could not bear to damp Charlie's happiness, so he turned off the question by saying, "Mr. Roberts, the clergyman, was here to-day. I told him about Brownlee and Bob White; he was very pleased to hear about you all meeting for Bible reading, and he is going to look out for them, and get them to a Bible class he has every week, and to the house of God."
The only drawback to Charlie's happiness now was the increasing illness of his father. Sanguine and hopeful as he was, he could not blind himself to the fact that every day his father got weaker and weaker.
A visit to John Heedman was a lesson in Christianity to any one,—his wonderful patience under suffering, his perfect trust in the Saviour, his quiet waiting for the end—happy to go, yet happy to stay and suffer so long as it pleased God.