CHAPTER II.

WANDERINGS.

_"When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer."_—Psalm xxxii. 3, 4.

WHILE the exhausted lad is sleeping on his hard couch of sand, I will briefly relate the story of his past life, and tell the circumstances which led to his being a Wanderer in Africa, and in the service of Hans Kuhe, the Boer.

David Aspinall was the son of a small farmer in Dorsetshire,—an honest, God-fearing man, who had held a blameless course through life, looking to the Life beyond the tomb. He had no other son than David, but he had five little daughters, all of whom were younger than their brother. With so many mouths to feed, the farmer had little to spare, though many a poor neighbour had a slice of bacon, or a jug of skimmed milk from his good wife's dairy.

John Aspinall's strong wish was to bring up this only boy as his helper, and then successor at Greenside Farm. He felt that his own health was frail, and his life even more uncertain than that of most other men.

"It's a comfort to me," he would say to himself, when he was more poorly than usual, "that there will be Davy to look after the place, and take care of his mother and sisters, if so be as God should please to take me."

But David's plans for himself were very different from those of his father for him. He wanted to see life, to go into the world, to have something more exciting to do than foddering cattle, or shearing sheep, or driving the plough a-field. David was a sharp, clever lad, sure to make his way to fortune, at least so his vanity told him, and not the boy to be buried in a small out of the way farm!

The time came when a decision must be made. After a sharp attack of rheumatic fever, which had made him feel more than ever that he needed the help of his son, John Aspinall, one day late in April, explained his wishes and those of his wife to David. The lad was somewhat taken aback. He had that very morning been poring over the advertisements in a newspaper, and calculating how much money it would take to carry him up to London, and thinking what grand things he might do, and what a great man he might become, if he could once "get a fair start in life." David had always been a wild and wilful boy, ready for any sport or fun, and the idea of being shut up all his life at Greenside Farm was more than his spirit would bear.

Here now were two paths open before David Aspinall; the way of duty,—"God's way," and his own way,—the path of "Self-will." The lad was not long in choosing between them. He said, indeed, how much he should like to please his father, only he could not please him in "this." He kissed his mother fondly, but he grieved her none the less. He made little presents to all his sisters, and promised them fine things from London, but he would not give up for their sakes that upon which he had set his own heart.

John Aspinall was not a man of words: his face sharpened by pain, and the crutch which he used, said more than he could say; he let his son know his wishes, and then suffered him to follow his own.

"We can't make the lad bide here against his will," observed the farmer to his wife: "it may please God to give me back health,—and if not, He'll care for you and our poor little lasses."

The mother turned aside to dry her tearful eyes, and hoped and prayed that all might turn out for the best. It was a sore disappointment not to be able to keep Davy at home—but she would send him to her own worthy brother, the grocer in London; he could learn nothing but good with him, and would be kept out of the way of temptation.

So two of the pigs were sold to pay expenses, and David, in high glee, prepared to bid farewell to the little farm in the valley, and the sad and loving hearts that he would leave behind him. It touched him a little, indeed, to see how pale his mother's cheek had grown, and how red and tearful were the eyes of poor Jenny, the eldest but one of his sisters, as she sat stitching at his new shirts. She had been his especial playmate and pet, and loved him more than she loved anyone else upon earth.

"Well, Jenny, don't look so down-hearted!" cried the lad, as he came and seated himself by her side. "I can't bear to see you so doleful."

"And I can't bear to see you so merry just when you're going to leave us all," answered the girl, with a broken voice.

"I'm not so merry now, Jenny; I can't help having a bit of a twinge when I think of saying Good-bye."

"Then why should you say it?" exclaimed Jenny, dropping her work in her eagerness to speak. "O Davy, Davy! Stay with us—we cannot get on without you,—the farm will seem so lonely—so dreary! Even little Nelly will miss you so,—there will be no brother to dance her on his knee, or whistle her favourite songs! I shall never care to see the green leaves budding again, nor to hear the cuckoo, for they will always remind me of the time when Davy went to London! Oh! Don't go,—stay with us, Davy! Why should we not all be happy together?" And the poor girl burst into tears.

Davy kissed away the tears, and patted his sister on the shoulder, and said that he would be always thinking of her, that he would often write home, and maybe would come to old Greenside Farm at Christmas,—and would not they have rare fun then! David felt the appeal to his affections: he loved his parents, and his little sisters, and the dear old home, but he loved "himself" best of all. Therefore, he resolved to go up to London.

Another effort was made to keep the wilful lad at his home. Minnie, the eldest of the girls, gentle, thoughtful, and good, her father's comfort, her mother's right hand, felt that it would be right to try one more appeal to her brother's sense of duty. As Davy was on his knees, on the evening before the day fixed on for his departure, beginning to pack his box, he heard her gentle tap at the door.

"Come in," said Davy, looking up. "So, Minnie, you've come to help me, like a dear good child as you are!"

"Not exactly that," said his sister, "though I should be glad to help you to pack if—if you indeed must go. But, O Davy! I wish to speak a few words to you first. I want to tell you what I heard dear father say to mother to-day." Minnie found it difficult to command her voice,—but she was determined to say what she had to say, though her brother looked a little impatient, as if afraid of a lecture. "Father said, 'I sometimes think I won't last long, Mary, and if I go, you'll have to give up the farm, as you'll have no son to help you.'"

"I hope that father is better than he thinks himself," said David, looking grave.

"I hope and trust that he is," faltered Minnie, "but he has been so much pulled down by pain!"

"Yes, that makes him take care about this thing and that. I believe what ails him is more worry than anything else."

"And if a son could take off any of those cares, could prevent any of the worry, would it not be right—" began Minnie, but David impatiently cut her short.

"Don't bother me about that,—I've made up my mind to go, and I'm going! Father hasn't thriven well as a farmer; I mean to thrive in some other line, and come back rich, and make you all comfortable and happy!"

There was a verse of Scripture in Minnie's mind, and she felt that she must repeat it, though it made her heart beat faster to do so, for she knew her brother's dislike to "religious talk."

"Davy," she said very softly, "'The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.' Can we look for that blessing if we turn away from our duty?"

"Minnie, it's a pity you're not a parson, but I don't want sermons out of church!" cried David, half inclined to be angry, and yet aware in his conscience that his sister was in the right. "Go and fetch me a bit of rope, will you,—and ask Jenny if the last shirt is ready. Come what may, nothing shall change me,—I'm off to London to-morrow!"

And so the lad set off on the following morning: and if a little sadness came over his heart as he received his mother's kiss and his father's blessing, and saw his sisters crying, it soon passed away. By the time that David had lost sight of the clump of elm-trees on the hill, and the church spire, which was a landmark for miles around, rising amongst them, and had crossed the little one-arch which marked the boundary of the parish, his thoughts flowed as merrily and freely as the brook which sparkled below.

David found amusing companions in the train, whose talk beguiled the long journey to London. Great was his pleasure and excitement on arriving at the great bustling city, where everything was to him so new and so strange. David felt himself in a new world! He soon got into an omnibus and went off to the house of his uncle, the grocer, who had agreed to receive him, and put him into the way of earning an honest living.

The farmer's son did not much fancy the look of his new home, which was in rather a narrow, smoky street in the east end of London; he missed the clear air, the bright sunshine, the sweet scents to which he had been accustomed at Greenside. Nor was the lad much pleased with the manner and appearance of his uncle. Mr. White was a quiet, sober man of business, who went on year after year in the same routine of occupation, without himself requiring amusement or change, or ever thinking that others might require them.

His uncle, however, was kind to him; that is to say, he provided all that was needful for him, did not overwork his nephew, nor treat him with any harshness. But he naturally expected him to be punctual and steady, and do his allotted work. David soon tired of this; he found that standing behind a counter, weighing out pounds of sugar and half pounds of tea, was no more exciting or amusing than threshing out corn in a barn. Besides this, David disliked the ways of his uncle's house; he could not bear the regular hours; he found the family prayer irksome, and he was angry at being warned against companions and amusements that were a great deal more to his taste.

"I can't stand this sort of thing!" said David to himself, after he had been but five days in London.

Short as his visit had been, he had already managed to pick up acquaintance with three or four wild lads whom he fancied, as being "fellows up to a lark!"

One of them put him in the way of getting another place—"Quite a different thing, a place where he wouldn't be hunted after by a prosing old Methodist uncle; where he would have the evenings and nights to spend as he pleased, and where he might be as jolly and free as ever he liked!"

David knew perfectly well that his parents would wish him to stay with his uncle White; that they would be uneasy if they knew him to be exposed to the numberless temptations of a great city, and seeking the society of such comrades as would only lead him into evil. Again, two paths lay before David Aspinall,—God's path of duty,—his own of self-will.

Again the lad turned from the right, in his careless pursuit after pleasure. He left his uncle, telling him that he thought he could "better himself" in another place, and that after giving it a trial, he was convinced that he never could settle down to the grocery business.

David soon found that he had indeed chosen a downward way; he would hardly have believed it possible, but a month before, that he could have made such quick progress in evil. The lad had always been careless and thoughtless as regarded religion, but he had not hitherto been "profane," he had never uttered an oath in his life. He had behaved decently, both when at his father's home and when under the roof of his uncle. Now all restraint was removed, and David became like one of his Godless companions. He could laugh at what once would have made him blush. He never prayed, he never opened his Bible, he never entered the door of a church. He frequented the public-houses, the theatres, and places of low amusement. Sunday excursions were his delight. His guilt was all the greater that he knew what was his duty.

David did not care to write to his parents; he scarcely liked to remember them at all, for a pang of conscience would sometimes shoot through his soul, when the thought would come, "What would father say if he could see me now?" "Poor mother! If she knew what I am after, it would well-nigh break her heart!"

David even hated the sight of letters from home, they always made him so dull. He often wished that his family did not know his address.

This career of folly and sin lasted almost to the end of that year, and then it was brought suddenly to a close. David and a party of his companions were returning from Greenwich one Sunday night, heated with drink, when they took to breaking windows, and insulting or knocking down peaceable citizens whom they met. Young Aspinall, indeed, took less part than the rest in the more serious mischief, but he was mixed up in the whole affair, and accordingly found himself, with one of the others, in the lock-up before morning.

It was a dreadful trial to the lad, who had by no means lost his sense of shame, to be brought to a police-court on the Monday morning, charged with breaking the law. Some delay occurred, from the absence of an important witness, and David was remanded till the next day, so had to spend another miserable night in the company of pickpockets and drunkards. But if he had been wretched on his first appearance before a magistrate, David was far more wretched on his second, for as the prisoner entered the crowded, heated court, and raised his eyes for a moment (for he had hitherto kept them bent on the floor), they fell on the form of his father leaning on his crutch, his honest face looking old and haggard, and with such an expression of grief and shame upon it as cut his son to the soul.