CHAPTER II.

THE GREAT SORROW.

JOHN TREVAN was among the most prosperous inhabitants of Newlyn. He was an industrious man; his wife was thrifty, and he had a small family to support. It consisted of one son, who had wandered far away from his father's house, eight years before our story commences, and the twin daughters.

John Trevan married Philippa Nance, at the age of thirty-five. He brought his wife, who was six years his junior, to the whitewashed cottage we have described, where his parents had lived before him. Her father came too, for he could not be separated from his only remaining child. When Philippa consented to marry John Trevan she stipulated that her well-beloved parent should share her future home.

"He will be no burden upon you, John, for he has enough to keep him," she said.

To which her future husband replied, "He would be welcome for your sake, Philippa, were he penniless."

A boy was born to them at the end of two years. This event brought great joy to the little circle; but as the lad grew in years, his parents had many reasons for deep anguish regarding him. He was named William, after his grandfather; and known to all in Newlyn as "mischievous Willy." He was brought up carefully, and taught to fear God; but he spurned the good, and clung to the evil; yet sometimes, when his mother took him into her room, and knelt in prayer to God, with him at her side, his tears would come, and he would say,—

"Mother, it is so hard not to be naughty."

And she answered him, "I know it, my darling boy; but do not trust to yourself, pray to God, Willy, to make you a better lad. Ask your Heavenly Father to give you His Spirit to help you, and change your heart of stone to a heart of flesh. He will not refuse to hear your prayer if you ask in Christ's name."

For one or two days after an outbreak Willy was more obedient, and then he began to be tiresome again. He had no regard for truth, and played truant so often that at last either his father or mother took him to school every morning, and gave him into his teacher's charge, before they went about their daily work.

When Willy reached his tenth year, his twin sisters were born, and for a few weeks all went smoothly with him. He loved the little baby girls, and felt very proud when his mother allowed him to hold one of them in his arms, but this novel pleasure wore off, and he was again running wild with unruly boys.

"I must send him to sea a year or two hence, under some wise captain," said John Trevan to his wife, many times. "I can't keep him at home if he does not turn over a new leaf. He'll have to think when he has to go before the mast, and be obliged to obey; and he'll be quite away from his bad companions."

But the mother clung to her prodigal; her love for him grew all the more because Willy's friends were so few, and because he was the child of so many tears and prayers.

A hundred years ago smuggling was rife in Cornwall, and contraband goods and spirits were netted instead of fish. Then Wesley and Whitfield roused the people up to better things by their preaching, and taught them to reverence God and believe in His Son. Willy had heard many wonderful stories about these smugglers, and he thought it was just the sort of life that would have suited him. He wished those old times were not over, for he disliked the hard work of a fisherman's life.

So time passed on until Willy reached his fifteenth year. On the morning of his birthday, he quarrelled with his father, and refused to help him dry his net. John Trevan grew angry, and high words passed between the two. The end of it was, that the boy packed on his clothes, and when his father went out fishing and the rest were asleep, crept to the old teapot where his mother kept her money, and having robbed her of two sovereigns, stole away from his home, and took the road towards Plymouth. He walked some miles before he ventured to get a lift in a waggon, lest he should be recognised and taken back to Newlyn. At Plymouth, he engaged himself to a captain who commanded a large ship bound to Lagos, in Africa; but a bad unprincipled man. Thus far he had been traced, and eight years had passed away without bringing him home again, or a message or letter being received from him.

Mrs. Trevan was bowed down with grief when she found her son had left his home without bidding her farewell. So soon as she discovered that her little store of money was gone too, and thought of her first-born as a common thief, she moaned out in the bitterness of her sorrow, "My heart will break. Oh, Willy, Willy! What have I done that you should treat me so cruelly?"

John Trevan was indignant. "Let him go," he said; "I do not own a thief as my son."

But when year after year ran on, he forgot Willy's faults, and only yearned to clasp him in his arms once more. No family prayer ever closed without remembering him. His mother felt she could give him up if only she knew what fate had befallen him, and that he had turned to God.

The little girls retained a vivid remembrance of their brother; they hushed their voices when his birthday came, it was so differently kept to their own; there was no holiday-making. Their mother looked sad, and always went out alone before breakfast, up the hill behind Newlyn, into the fields, to a point which commanded a view of the broad ocean. Her birthday prayer for Willy was that he might come home, not as he left her, but with a new heart and a right spirit.

The little circle at Newlyn would have known but few cares had Willy been with them, a steady well behaved boy.

"It's doing us good," John said to his wife, when they reverted to their great sorrow. "Perhaps we should have grown away from God if our boy had given us no trouble; but now He's chastening us, and teaching us the value of having a Father in heaven, to whom we can tell out all our troubles. I am like your father, Philippa, I believe God will help Willy, as He has helped us, and bring him home again."

The mother sighed when her husband spoke thus, and answered, "God grant it may be so."

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