The Poor Clerk and his Crooked Sixpence

Front matter

■'YOU 1.AJ t>IVE ME CHiKGE EOU 11ALJ? A SOVEREIGN?" fags. 28. AND HIS CROOKED SIXPENCE. BY GEOEG-E E. SAEGENT, Author of "The Stoey or a Pjcket Bible," "Sundiy Evenings at NoBTHCOUBT," ETC. LONDON: THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 56, Patebnoster. Bow; 65, ST. Paul's Churohtaed; and 164, Piccadilly. Contents. CHAP. PAGE i. The Poor Clerk and the Pocket-book ... 7 n. Something Ghostly . . . . . . .15 in. Sixpence becomes the unwilling Instrument of an Imposture 23 iv. Sixpence becomes acquainted with an honest Cabman 34 v. The poor Cabman meets with an Adventure . . 46 vi. Sixpence witnesses a Strange Scene in the Cabman's Home; and departs with a New Owner, on - " Urgent Private Affairs " 51 vn. Towards Home, Love, and Beauty . . . .61 vm. Firm and Faithful 68 ix. Sixpence is promoted to the Magisterial Bench . 73 x. Farmer Jackson and his man Joe . . . .85 xi.

"If I had been in his place" 91 xn. Sixpence is present at an Incendiary Fire . . CONTENTS. CHAP. "GB xni. After passing through a variety of Adventures, Sixpence finds a New Owner .... 109 xiv. The Orphans ... ...*.. 117 xv. The Orphans.— The Poor Clerk and his Landlord 127 xvi. The Orphan Sister and Brother at Home . . 136 xvn. The Poor Clerk begins to narrate his own Story to his friend the Barber 146 xvm. Sixpence makes more Beflections, and tells of a dying Youth and his Mother . . . .154 xix. The Poor Clerk resumes his own Stora', but does not FINISH IT 164 xx. The Poor Clerk falls in again with the Man in the Dreadnought Coat . . . . .171 xxi. The Mysterious Stranger and the Advertisement 174 xxn. The Poor Clerk goes on avith his own History . 180 xxm. The Poor Clerk's History draws towards a Close 188 xxiv.

The Poor Clerk finishes his own STor.Y . .197 xxv. 0. P. Q. . CHAPTEE I. THE POOR CLEKK AND THE POCKET-BOOK. E was a lonely being, that poor clerk. All day long he sat alone at his desk in a little wooden watch-box at Peggram's Wharf ; walked home alone to his lonely lodgings (a single room, and that not a large one) over the barber's shop in Whirlpool Rents, when his day's work was done ; lived alone there ; and communed with himself alone. He was a pale, thin man, with mild grey eyes and grizzhd hair, which hung in long scanty locks down to his shoulders. He was so pale and thin that his landlord — the small barber — said that he half starved himself. Perhaps Mr. Keenedge had even better reason than his poor lodger's mere looks for saying so ; but this is no business of yours nor of mine.

Chapter II

***» &*&£*», SOMETHING GHOSTLY. " />p9iWpi2> T was rather mean, I think," said the poor clerk (to himself of course) as he v^iPR* sa^ *n Uttle room, dimly lighted up L'^v^jfKv' by a small candle with a long thick wick. He had been reading till his eves ached t^^£^\ and then he had leant his elboAv on the i/IU table, and his pale face on his hand, A /\\ while his thoughts had wandered far -** a way, back into the past, forAvard into tbe future, tdl they rested for a moment on the adven ture of the previous night. It was night now, of course, for the poor clerk knew his home at no other time — in the working-day Aveek at least ; but it was a different night from the first, and the stars, shining out cheerily, did not disdain to be visible, even from Whirlpool Eents. The night Avas chdly, but the solitary man's window was half open as yet : he liked to look up at the stars and wonder about them.

The poor clerk's room was very far from luxurious. It had dull stencilled walls, on one of which was sus pended a little set of hanging bookshelves. There was a rusty grate, very unused to fire ; a narrow truckle-bed^ which, small as it was, occupied a considerable slice of the uncarpeted floor ; a chair and a small deal table, and a very tiny set of drawers, which filled up another slice with very little room to spare : and this was all. On the table lay the book over which the poor clerk had been straining his sight ; his candlestick, an inkstand, a pen or two, and some loose papers ; also a crooked sixpenny piece among a little heap of coppers. " Not that I wanted to be paid, or expected to be paid, or wouldn't have run after the gentleman a mile to give him back his property " " Two miles," said, or seemed to say, a silvery voice near him ; but where the voice came from it would have been hard to tell.

" I am not sure about the two, being weak in the legs, you see, " said the poor clerk musingly, and looking down at his inferior members with a half-sigh. As to the voice, he did not seem surprised at that. He was a visionary being, you must know, often taking excursions into dreamland, and holding intercourse with shadows. " They are very weak, I know, poor fellow," rejoined the voice, compassionately ; " weaker than when we met last." " Met last ! Do you mean to say that we have met before, then ? " demanded the poor clerk, with a slight infusion of curiosity ; not much, however. " Twice before," replied the voice ; " and like you, John, I am a little the worse for the rubs I have had to put up with in the world ; but never mind." " /don't mind," said the poor clerk ; " that is, I don't mind about it much ; but I don't see," added he, looking round him in a sort of maze.

SOMETHING GHOSTLY. 17 The poor clerk snuffed the candle with a steady hand, and at that moment his eye happening to fall upon the crooked sixpence on the table, he had no doubt as to where the silvery voice came from. " Ah ! " said he, " I see now ; and a little the worse for rubs too ; yes, yes ; and crooked into the bargain." Saying this he nodded confidentially to the small coin. " You know my name, too ; and we have met before ? Well, well." " Twice before," said the sixpence : " shall I tell you when ? " The poor clerk nodded. " The first time was when you were a young man, a long while ago." " A long while ago," echoed the poor clerk, uncon sciously ; " but it was only just now " " That you were thinking of those days. Very true. And you said to yourself, ' They will never return.' " " They will never return !

Yes, I said so, I dare say : they will never return." " You were a gay-hearted youth then, John ; you didn't know much about trouble and sorrow ; there was a bright prospect before you, and kind, loving hearts around." The poor clerk waved his hand impatiently, as though he would have said, " Why tell me all this ? " but the voice went on. " You had your choice of companions then, my poor friend ; you were not solitary, no, no ; you had your choice, and you made your choice ; you chose " "The evil, and refused the good," sighed the poor clerk. B " Knowing better," said the voice, gravely and sorrowfully. " Knowing better," whispered the man, in response. " You were high in trust then, poor fellow ; and you might have risen higher ; you had talents and you had influence, and wealth at your command ; and — you fell."

" I fell," echoed the poor clerk : " God forgive me ! I fell." " There was one man against whom you had been warned, whom you knew in your heart to be old in vice, though young in years ; you remember him ; you were thinking of him just now." " True, true ; I prayed that God would forgive him too, if he yet lives." " Even as you have forgiven him," suggested the voice. " Even as I hope and pray I have forgiven him long since," rejoined the poor clerk ; " only more fully, more freely, more efficaciously." " It is well. But he tempted you." " He tempted me ! Alas ! I was my own tempter." " He tempted you, " the voice repeated : " he led you into almost all evil ; he sought your ruin, and he prevailed." " How know you all this ? " demanded the poor clerk, his curiosity again half awakened. " Rest content," said the voice ; " I know only that which it is given me to know."

"Because," continued the poor clerk, "our acquaint ance must have been but short in those days." " Of not many hours' duration. I came into your SOMETHING GHOSTLY. hands at the tavern where your nights were spent till the early morning ; and the next day you cast me to a beggar in the streets." " Likely enough," said the lonely man, musingly and bitterly. " There was one who would have saved you from your degradation, " resumed the voice. " She loved you, wept over you, warned and entreated you, prayed for you " The solitary being bowed down his face, covered it with his spread hands, and groaned. " She died," he sobbed. " She died," the voice repeated. " Enough : I will not dwell on this." " Years passed away," continued the voice, " and we met a second time. A poor despairing wretch, without a home, without a friend, without food, without even the slightest, smallest means of procuring a meal, hurrying with feverish haste through the byways of this great city towards " " The river," said the poor clerk, with a shudder ; " I remember it all — too well, too well."

" It was the evening of a winter's day, dusk and foggy; and you were drenched with the falling mist, and faint with long fasting." " True, true ; it is present with me now. I thought of it just now, when it came before me as one of the visions of the past." " Never to return but in self-abasement and gratitude," continued the voice. " Never but in self-abasement and gratitude," repeated the lonely man. " I came across you in your path and turned you from your design," the voice went on. " The sixpence I saw on the pavement when I stum bled—that I picked up and pressed to my lips as a precious boon of Providence — saved my life then," said the poor clerk. " It supplied me with food, it procured me a night's lodging. With the return of day came other thoughts and fresh resolves. That morning, on bended knees, I confessed my sin and sought mercy.

That day I was directed to one who pitied and relieved me, and gave me employment. And having received help, I continue to this day. " "To this day," echoed the voice; "but you are poor still." " I seek to make restitution for the past," said the solitary being, humbly ; " and until this is accomplished, how dare I call anything my own ? Years have passed, and the debt has slowly, very slowly, diminished ; but years more must pass before my work is done." " And you do not repent your self-denial ? " While the silvery voice seemed to ring in his thoughts, the poor clerk looked down at the book open before him, and read, " To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life." The poor clerk imagined that he read the words only in silence, and without a motion of his lips ; but the voice seemed to continue : " When you picked up that pocket-book last night " — the poor clerk started, but the voice went on — " and when you for a moment balanced it in your hand and felt its weio-ht you trembled as though you had committed a crime."

SOMETHING GHOSTLY. 21 " I trembled — yes, doubtless I trembled," mused the lonely man ; " I might well tremble." " For your strength of purpose, yes," continued the voice ; " for you felt that strength failing. Poor soul ! you might well tremble ; your strength was weakness ; and your strength was in your knowledge and sense of weakness. You prayed." " I prayed," echoed the solitary ; " and I thank God I was heard." " You were heard," resumed the voice ; " and He to whom you prayed put strength into you ; you regained firmness ; you had resisted the tempter, and he fled from you ; you followed the man who had dropped the pocket book, you restored it, and you had your reward — not in the paltry recompence for your integrity, but in peace, and the answer of a good conscience." " True," said the poor clerk ; " I was thankful and happy."

" But the tempter has since assailed you," the voice went on. " I am very, very weak," sighed the lonely man. " All day your thoughts have wandered to that rich man's treasures — that bulky pocket-book — those repre sentatives of tangible wealth to so large an amount, on which for a moment your gaze was fixed when he eagerly and suspiciously turned them over in his hand. If you have not coveted his riches, you have sighed in your secret soul to be even as he is." " I am weak, very weak," again sighed the poor humbled man. " You are weak : it is mine to strengthen you," said the voice. " See ! " and at these words a curtain seemed to fall before the bodily eyes of the solitary watcher, while a scene uprose before him, revealing craft, chi canery and cruelty. With that scene were mingled cries and groans of distress ; unheeded prayers of the widow and fatherless ; curses, both loud and deep, of the ruined and desolate— made desolate by him— him, the man of wealth aud power, the man in the dreadnought coat.

The poor clerk started back in wild horror and de testation, while the words trembled on his lips, " Doth not God know ? Is there not knowledge in the Most High ? " The scene slowly passed away : the lonely watcher opened his eyes and looked around, but saw nothing beyond the walls of his poor chamber, his truckle-bed, the paper and book before him, and the crooked, sixpence shining out from the little heap of copper. He roused himself with a strong effort, while a fresh cool breeze sweeping through his open casement dallied for a moment with the feeble flame of his expiring candle, then extinguished it, and left him in darkness. " I must have been dreaming," he muttered, as he closed his window, and groped his way to the side of his bed. There he knelt and prayed penitently and fer vently, and this was the burden of his prayer ; " Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil : for Thine, 0 Lord, is the kingdom, the power, and Thine shall be the glory." Then he lay down to rest ; yet not for a while to sleep : but, asleep or awake, the silvery tones of the phantom voice were yet ringing in his ears.