CHAPTER X.

IS IT TRUE?

SANDY was off again by daybreak, before Mrs. Shafto could get down. But he had promised John the night before to return every evening until Gip was found. He had done his utmost to describe her to him, though he had not been very successful; except in giving him to understand that she had black eyes and black hair, curling all over her head. But the vague idea he had gained of another Person, who knew Gip as well as he did, and who was looking for her, had lifted the heaviest part of the burden from him. He had listened eagerly to all John Shafto and his mother had been able to tell him about the Lord Jesus Christ, who had lived a sorrowful life, and died a painful death for the sake of a lost world; and though there was very much that he could not understand, he began to feel that he was not left alone. The true and tender Friend, whom John Shafto knew to be always near to him, would surely take a little notice of the poor boy John Shafto was befriending!

It was rather earlier than it had been the night before when Sandy turned out of the street into the quiet grave-yard that evening. It was quite light enough for him to see at the first glance the tall lanky figure of Mr. Shafto, loitering along the smooth path of gravestones, in slipshod shoes trodden down at the heels. He called to Sandy, and pointed out to him an old smoke-stained tablet fixed against the wall of the chapel.

"Can you read, boy?" he enquired.

"No, sir, never a word," replied Sandy, putting his head on one side, and staring at the blackened stone, as if he could by staring make out the inscription upon it.

"That," said Mr. Shafto, "is my grandfather's tombstone, John Shafto, minister of this chapel. He was a very learned man; and large numbers of people flocked to hear him preach—rich people and grand people. He ought to have been rich himself; but he left nothing more to his children than yonder poor tumble-down hovel. He never thought that his great-grandson would make a friend of a boy out of the streets."

"I'm very sorry, sir," remarked Sandy, as Mr. Shafto paused in his speech. "I s'pose, sir, you took to buryin' folks because it were so handy bein' near the buryin' ground?"

"There was nothing else to take to," said Mr. Shafto, in a slow, dreamy manner, as if he forgot he was speaking to Sandy; "I had the hatchment on hand, and every one told me I had such a solemn manner at a funeral. But the city grave-yards were closed immediately after, and now the family vaults even are not opened. Nothing has come of it. But boy," he continued, in a voice less languid, "I don't consider you a fit companion for my son; and I can't allow it. You must not get into the habit of coming here every night, as if it was your home."

Mr. Shafto had come to this conclusion during the day, and had resolved to put a stop to the thing. A boy picked up out of the scum of the street to be the chosen friend of Johnny Shafto! That could not be. Sandy listened in dismay, but he had no idea of rebelling against Mr. Shafto's orders. He knew himself to be quite unfit for such a place, and such friends; and he was not in the least surprised to hear that he must not think of it as his home. There were disappointment and regret in his heart, but no bitterness, as he heard Mr. Shafto's speech. But here was a chance of asking a question or two that had puzzled him during the day, whenever he thought of what John and his mother had tried to teach him. He drew a little nearer to Mr. Shafto, and spoke in a low, mysterious voice.

"You don't b'lieve the same as them others?" he said, pointing over his shoulder to the house.

"Believe what?" asked Mr. Shafto.

"As He's everywhere, hearkenin' to us, and watchin' of us," whispered Sandy: "God, you know? I didn't think as it were true, only Mr. Johnny were so sure of it."

"Of course it's true," answered Mr. Shafto; "I believe it as surely as my son does."

"I didn't think as you did," pursued Sandy. "If I b'lieved of it, it 'ud make a difference to me, it would. I couldn't go on doin' as I'm used to do. I don't see how folks can b'lieve in it; they goes on doin' jest the same as if it weren't true. Does God know as you don't like me to have a bite of bread, and sleepin' on your floor?"

Mr. Shafto was not ready with an answer. He looked at his grandfather's tablet, and from that to Sandy's brown, weather-beaten face, alive with earnest feeling; but neither of them helped him to any words.

"You don't think, do you," went on Sandy, "as Lord Jesus Christ 'ud do all they say He'll do for a poor boy in the streets, without shoes to his feet or a cap to his head? Or as He'll look for a ragged little gel like Gip, and take care on her for me? Oh! no. You don't b'lieve that; and maybe it's not true. You know lots more than they do; I heard Mr. Johnny's mother say so."

Still Mr. Shafto was tongue-tied.

Sandy spoke earnestly and sadly, with no look or tone as if he intended to give him any offence; he was only putting into words the difficulties that had come to his mind during the day.

A strange, new sense of shame smote the conscience of Mr. Shafto. All his life long he had professed to believe that God was everywhere, taking note of all that was said and done by every human being. He had professed also to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ had died for all, making no difference between rich and poor, learned and ignorant. Yet now, when this poor, untaught boy stood before his face, demanding of him if he really believed these things, he dared not say that he did.

"If it ain't true," continued Sandy, very sorrowfully, "there's nobody taking care of little Gip. I could get along somehow for myself, but I don't see what's to become of her. I were beginnin' to be glad again, I were; but now, if it's not true, Gip's lost, and mother's lost, and there's nobody to care a straw about it. I wish I'd never heard tell of such a thing!"

No answer yet from Mr. Shafto. If it was true that God was beside him, what a miserable fool he had been all his life! If God had been hearing, day after day, his fretful murmurings and his conceited boasting about his grandfather; if He had been watching all his idleness and selfishness, what a wretched, sinful man he had been! If Jesus Christ, the Saviour, who had laid down His life for him, knew how he had spent his own life, wasting it, and casting away all the golden opportunities of being good and doing good, why, then he was as much lost as poor little Gip or Sandy's drunken mother. There was as much need for the Lord to come seeking him, in long-suffering patience, as ever there had been for Him of old to seek and save the publican and sinner.

As for Sandy, his heart was very heavy again. The strange good news told to him by John and Mrs. Shafto had all turned out untrue. Nobody else believed these things. Even Mr. Shafto, living in the same house, and hearing all about it, did not believe it; that was very plain. Yet to turn away from this new hope and this new love, just dawning before him, would make the old life he must go back to a hundred-fold darker and sadder than it had seemed before. There was no unseen Friend seeking him and little Gip; no home for them to go to after death. The grave was the end of all; and even those who were rich or learned had nothing left to them when they died, but gravestones, growing black with time and the smoke of the busy city.

Sandy stole away silently, and without speaking again to Mr. Shafto, whose head had dropped down, and whose eyes had closed, not now in sheer laziness, but in something like shame and repentance.

The boy was at no loss for a shelter to-night; for one of his comrades had urged him to share an empty sugar-cask he knew of, where, lying close together, they might keep one another tolerably warm. It was not that he cared about; but it was the thought of little Gip, with no one now to care for her, except himself, and the loss of his new friend, John Shafto.

When Mr. Shafto roused himself from his reverie, and found that Sandy had disappeared, his first feeling was one of relief. The boy's questions had stung him too keenly for him not to be almost glad to be rid of him. But as the evening passed away, and he did not return to the house, and John Shafto wondered what had prevented his keeping his promise, Mr. Shafto began to listen eagerly for a low tap at the door, and was ready to fetch the boy in and make him welcome to his fireside. But no Sandy came; and at a late hour the shop door was locked, and John went upstairs to his little room, with a sad face and a sadder heart.

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