John G. Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides. An autobiography

Front matter

AIL, f^BI

I rf^

CORNELL

Preface

THE Manuscript of this Volume, put together in a rough draft amid ceaseless and exacting toils, was placed in my hands and left absolutely to my disposal by my beloved brother, the Missionary.

It has been to me a labour of perfect love to re-write and revise the same, pruning here and expanding there, and preparing the whole for the press. In the incidents of personal experience, constituting the larger part of the book, the reader peruses in an ^almost unaltered form the graphic and simple narrative as it came from my brother's pen. But, as many sections have been re-cast and largely modified, especially in those Chapters of whose events I was myself an eye-witness, or regarding which I had information at first hand from the parties concerned therein, — and as circum-

VI PREPACE.

Stances make it impossible to submit these in their present shape to my brother before publication, — I must request the PubHc to lay upon me, and not on him, all responsibility for the final shape in which the Autobiography appears.

I publish it, because Something tells . me there is a blessing in it

January, 1889. James Paton.

NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.

The Editor desires very gratefully to acknowledge his joy in receiving, not only through Press Notices, but from Correspondents in every rank, most ample confirmation of the assurance expressed by him in the last sentence of the Original Preface — ** There is a blessing m It."

He has been urging his Brother to complete, as soon as he possibly can. Part Second of the Autobiography ; and he hopes that the call for this Second Edition of Part First at so early a date will successfully enforce his appeal.

February y 1889.

Contents

y

Chapter I. Earlier Days

PAGE

Introductory Note » • 3

Kirkmahoe • • . 4

Torthorwald Village ..••••. 5

Our Villagers ...«•••• 6

Nithsdale Scenes ••••••• 7

Our Cottage Home 9

Our Forebears ........ 12

An Idyll of the Heart ...... t6

A Consecrated Father . . . . • • 19

Accepted Vows 21

Happy Sabbath Days •..,.. 22

Golden Autumn of Life 26

Chapter II. At School And College

A Typical Scottish School , , . • • 3*

An Unacknowledged Prize ..... 32 A Wayward Master . . . . . , -33 Learning a Trade • . . , . . .33

My Father's Prayers ....... 34

"Jehovah Jireh" 34

With Sappers and Miners ...... 36

The Harvest Field 38

V'

viii CONTENTS.

PAGE

On the Road to Glasgow • • . • • • 39

A Memorable Parting ••»••• 40 Before the Examiners • • • • • .42

Killing Work 43

Deep Waters ••••••••44

Maryhill School 45

Rough School Scenes •••••• 46

"Aut Caesar Aut Nullus" 48

My Wages • » • 49

Chapter III. In Glasgow City Mission

"He Leadeth Me" S3

A Degraded District 55

The Gospel in a Hay- Loft . • • • • 56

New Mission Premises ...... 58

At Work for Jesus • • 59

At War with Hell .62

Sowing Gospel Seed .....•• 64

Publicans on the War Path ..... 65

Marched to the Police Office ..... 67

Papists and Infidels ..••... 69

An Infidel Saved 70

An Infidel in Despair 71

A Brand from the Burning 72

A Saintly Child •75

Papists in Arms ...••.,. 77

Elder and Student 81

Chapter IV. Foreign Mission Claims

The Wail of the Heathen 85

A Missionary Wanted * .. ... 85

Two Souls on the Altar 87

Lions in the Path . « 89

CONTENTS.

IX

PAGE

The Old Folks at Home 92

Successors in Green Street Mission . • . .95

Old Green Street Hands 97

A Father in God ...•••• 97

Chapter V. The New Hebrides

License and Ordination ■••«•« loi

At Sea 102

From Melbourne to Aneityum • . . . . 102

Settlement on Tanna • 105

Our Mission Stations 106

Diplomatic Chiefs .••••«« 107

Painful First Impressions 108

Bloody Scenes .••••••• 109

The Widow's Doom .•••«•• iii

Chapter VI. Life And Death On Tanna

*

Our Island Home

Learning the Language

A Religion of Fear .

With or Without a God

Ideas of the Invisible

Gods and Demons

My Companion Missionary

Pioneers in New Hebrides

Missionaries of Aneityum .

The Lord's Arrowroot •

Unhealthy Sites . • .

The Great Bereavement .

Memorial Tributes

Selwyn and Patteson at a Tanna Grave

Her Last Letter -

Last Words

Presentiment and Mystery

131 133 134 137 138

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER VIL MISSION LEA VES FROM TANNA.

fAGB

Tannese Natives • • • t • • • 141

"Tabooed'' 142

Jehovah's Rain ••••••*• 143

"Big Hays" 144

War and Cannibalism •••••• 145

The Lot of Woman 146

Sacred Days 148

Preaching in Villages • 149

Native Teachers 150

The War Shell 151

Deadly Superstitions 152

A League of Blood 154

Chiefs in Council 155

Defence of Women I57

A League of Peace 157

Secret Disciples 159

A Christo-Heathen Funeral 159

Clever Thieves • .160

Ships of Fire .... ... 164

H.M.S. Cordelia 166

Captain Vernon and Miaki . • • • • 167

The Captain and the Chiefs 168

The John Williams , • , • • . • 169 Evanescent Impressions . • • . • .170

A House on the Hill 171

In Fever Grips ..•••... 171 "Noble Old Abraham *' . . • . .172

Critics in Easy Chairs 174

CHAPTER VIIL

MORE MISSION LEA VES FROM TANNA.

The Blood Fiend Unleashed 179

In the Camp of the Enemy 180

A Typical South Sea Trader 182

Young Rarip's Death 183

CONTENTS, xi

PAGE

The Trader's Retribution 185

Worship and War • t • • • • • 186

Saved from Strangling 187

Wrath Restrained . • • • • # .188

Under the Axe • • • 191

The Clubbing of Namuri . i ... 193

A Native Saint and Martyr 195

Bribes Refused ...••••• I97 Widows Rescued ••••••• I97

The Sinking of a Well 198

Church- Building on Tanna 199

Ancient Stone God 201

Printing First Tannese Book 201

A Christian Captain 203

Levelled Muskets ..«•••• 204 A French Refugee .••..«• 205 A Villainous Captain ..••••• 208

Like Master— Like Men 209

Wrecked on Purpose 212

The Kanaka Traffic 213

A Heathen Festival 215

Sacrifices to Idols 218

Heathen Dance and Sham Fight • • . .219

Six Native Teachers 221

A Homeric Episode 222

Victims for Cannibal Feast 223

The Jaws of Death 224

Nahak or Sorcery 226

Killing me by Nahak ...... 227

Nahak Defied 229

Protected by Jehovah 230

"Almost Persuaded" 231

Escorted to the Battle-Field 232

Praying for Enemies 233

Our Canoe on the Reef 233

A Perilous Pilgrimage . . • . v . .236 Rocks and Waters , . 237 xii CONTENTS,

CHAPTER IX.

DEEPENING SHADOWS.

PAGB

Welcome Guests ••■•••• 243

A Fiendish Deed ••••••• 244

The Plague of Measles ..•••. 245

A Heroic Soul ...••••. 246

Horrors of Epidemic • • 247

A Memorable New Year 248

A Missionary Attacked ••..•• 249

In the Valley of the Shadow 251

Blow from an Adze .•••••• 252

A Missionary's Death 253

Mrs. Johnston's Letter • . . . • .255

The Story of Kowia 256

Kowia's Soliloquy .258

The Passing of Kowia •••••• 259

Mortality of Measles 261

Fuel to the Fire ••••••• 262

Hurricanes 262

A Spate of Blood and Terror 263

Nowar Vacillates 265

The Anger of the Gods 265

Not Afraid to Die ••••••• 266

Martyrs of Erromanga 267

Visit to the Gordons 268

Their Martyrdom •....♦• 269

Vindication of the Gordons 270

Gordon's Last Letter ••••••• 272

Plots of Murder ••••••• 273

Death by Nahak • • 275

Nowar Halting Again ••••«• 275

Old Abraham's Prayer ...... 277

Miaki and the Mission House • . • . • 278

Satanic Influences •••«... 280

Perplexity Deepening 280

Bishop Selwyn's Testimony « , . • .281

CONTENTS,

Xlll

PAGE

Rotten Tracts , - • . 283

Captain and Mate of Blue Bell • • • • 285

My Precious Dog ..««••• 287

Fishing- Nets and Kawases • • • • • 288

The Taro Plant 290

The Kava Drink .,.,... 290 Katasian and the Club Scene • • • • .291

Sunshine and Shadow •••,., 292

Teachers Demoralized « 293

The Chief's Alphabet 294

Our Evil Genius ..••••• 295

Ships of Fire Again ..,,••• 295

Commodore Seymour's Visit . • . • . 296

Nouka and Queen 'Toria .••••• 297

The Dog to his Vomit Again • • • • • 298

CHAPTER X.

'JEWELL SCENES.

i

The War Fever -..#•••• 303

Forced to the War Council « « ,

• 305

A Truce Among the Chiefs . . ,

► 306

Chiefs and People • • • • ,

. 308

The Kiss of Judas • • • . <

• 309

The Death of Ian .

. 309

The Quivering Knife . • . 1

A War of Revenge , . , , ,

. 312

In the Thick of the Battle

• 313

Tender Mercies of the Wicked • ,

• 315

Escape for Life .••••,

. 316

The Loss of All . . • • ,

. 317

Under the Tomahawk • • • 1

. 318

Jehovah is Hearing . • • • 1

. 318

The Host Turned Back . • • <

. 320

The War Against Manuman ;

. 320

XIV

CONTENTS,

Traps Laid .

House Broken Up

War Against Our Friends

A Treacherous Murderer

On the Chestnut Tree

Bargaining for Life .

Five Hours in a Canoe

Kneeling on the Sands

Faimungo's Farewell ,

"Follow! Follow!" ,

A Race for Life

Ringed Round with Death

Faint yet Pursuing

Out of the Lion's Jaws

Brothers in Distress •

Intervening Events ♦

A Cannibal's Taste •

Pillars of Cloud and Fire

Passing by on the Other Side

Kapuku and the Idol- Gods

A Devil Chief .

" In Perils Oft " .

Through Fire and Water

"Sail O! Sail 1" ,

"Let Me Die" .

In Perils on the Sea .

Tannese Visitors

The Devil Chief Again

Speckled and Spotted

Their Desired Haven

"I am Left Alone'* .

My Earthly All .

Eternal Hope . .

Australia to the Rescue

For My Brethren's Sake

A New Holy League.

The Uses of Adversity

PAGE

325 328

331 332

358 358

CONTENTS. XV

PAGE

Arm-cliair Critics Again »••••• 360

Concluding Note .•••••• 361

Prospectus of Part Second. . • • • • 362

Appendix

A. The Prayer of the Chiefs of Tanna • • • . 367

B. Notes on the New Hebrides . . « • • 371

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Portrait of John G. Paton Frontispiece,

*'The Man That Kills Missi Must First Kill Me" To face p. 156

Natives Stealing Property " i6o

Natives Returning Stolen Property . . . " 165

" There They Lay Me on Cocoanut Leaves on the

Ground" " 172

/ / ,' "At Daybreak I Found My House Surrounded" " i88

The Dangerous Landing Through the Surf . . " 235

*' Suddenly He Drew A Large Butcher Like Knife" " 311

Springing Forward He Caught The Club . . " 343

Map of the New Hebrides . . . . ' " loi

EARLIER DAYS.

Chapter I. Earlier Days

Introductory Note. — Kirkmahoe. — Torthorwald Vi|lage.— Our Villagers. — Nithsdale Scenes. — Our Cottage Home. — Our Forebears.— An Idyll of the Heart. -A Consecrated Father. ^- Accepted Vows, — Happy Sabbath Days. — Golden Autumn of Life.

WHAT I write here is for the glory of God. For more than twenty years have I been urged to record my story as a missionary of the Cross ; but always till now, in my sixty-fourth year, my heart has shrunk from the task, as savouring too much of self. Latterly the conviction has been borne home to me that if there be much in my experience which the Church of God ought to know, it would be pride on my part, and not humility, to let it die with me. I lift my pen, therefore, with that motive supreme in my heart ; and, so far as memory and entries in my note-books and letters of my own and of other friends serve or help my sincere desire to be truthful and fair, the following chapters will present a faithful picture of the life through which the Lord has led me. If it bows any of my readers

EARLIER DAYS.

under as deep and certain a confidence as mine, that in " God's hand our breath is, and His are all our ways/' my task will not be fruitless in the Great Day.

On the 24th May, 1824, I was born in a cottage on the farm of Braehead, in the parish of Kirkmahoe, near Dumfries, in the south of Scotland. My father, James Paton, was a stocking manufacturer in a small way ; and he and his young wife, Janet Jardine Rogerson, lived on terms of warm personal friendship with the "gentleman farmer," so they gave me his name, John Gibson; and the curly-haired child of the cottage was soon able to toddle across to the mansion, and became a great pet of the lady there. More than once, in my many journeyings, have I met with one or another, in some way connected with that family, and heard little incidents not needing to be repeated here, showing how beautiful and tender and altogether human was the relationship in those days betwixt the landlord and the cottars on his estate. On my last visit to Scotland, sixty years after, I drove to Braehead in company with my youngest brother James and my cousin David, — the latter born the same week as I, and the former nearly twenty years my junior ; and we found no cottage, nor trace of a cottage, but amused ourselves by supposing that we could dis* cover by the rising of the grassy mound, the outline where the foundations once had been I Of ten thousand homes in Scotland, once sweet and beau-

EARLIER DAYS.

tiful, each a little possible Paradise in its own wellcultivated plot, this is true to-day ; and where are the healthy, happy peasant boys and girls that such homes bred and reared ? They are sweltering and struggling for existence in our towns and cities. I am told that this must be — that it is all the result of economic laws ; but I confess to a deepening conviction that it need not be, and that the loss to the nation as a whole is vital, if not irreparable.

While yet a mere child, five years or so of age, my parents took me to a new home in the ancient village ^ of Torthorwald, about four and a quarter miles north from Dumfries, on the road to Lockerbie. At that time, about 1830, Torthorwald was a busy and thriving village, and comparatively populous, with its cottars and crofters, large farmers and small farmers, weavers and shoemakers, doggers and coopers, blacksmiths and tailors. Fifty-five years later, when I last visited the scenes of my youth, the village proper was literally extinct, except for ^v^ thatched cottages where the lingering patriarchs were permitted to die slowly away, — when they too would be swept into the large farms, and their garden plots ploughed over, like sixty or seventy others that had been obliterated ! Of course the Village Smithy still survives, but its sparks are few and fading, — the great cultivators patronizing rather the towns. The Meal Mill still grinds away, — but nothing like what it did when every villager bought or cultivated his few acres of corn, and every crofter and farmer m the parish sent all his grist to the mill. The Grocer's Shop still recalls the well-known name of Robert Henderson ; but so few are the mouths now to be fed, that his warm-hearted wife and universal favourite, the very heroine of our village life, " Jean Grier," is retiring from it in disgust, and leaving it to her son-in-law, declaring that " these Tory landlords and their big farms hae driven our folks a' awa\ and spoiled the Schule and the Shop, the Kirk and the Mill." And verily the School is robbed of its children, and the Parish Church of its worshippers, when five families only are reared where twenty once flourished 1 Political economy may curse me, if it will ; but I heard with grim satisfaction that this system of large farming, which extinguishes our village homes, and sends our peasantry to rear their children in lanes and alleys, in attics and cellars of populous towns, was proving ruinous at length to the landlords and factors, who had in many cases cruelly forced it on an unwilling people for mere selfish gain.

The Villagers of my early days — the agricultural servants, or occasional labourers, the tradesmen, the small farmers — were, generally speaking, a very industrious and thoroughly independent race of people. Hard workers they had to be, else they would starve ; yet they were keen debaters on all affairs both in Church and State, and sometimes in the "smiddy" or the "kiln," sometimes in a happy knot on the " village green," or on the road to the " kirk " or the " market," the questions that were tearing the mighty

EARLIER DAYS.

world beyond were fought over again by secluded peasants with amazing passion and bright intelligence. From the Bank Hill, close above our village, and accessible in a walk of fifteen minutes, a view opens to the eye which, despite several easily understood prejudices of mine that may discount any opinion that I offer, still appears to me well worth seeing amongst all the beauties of Scotland. At your feet lay a thriving village, every cottage sitting in its own plot of garden, and sending up its blue cloud of " peat reek," which never somehow seemed to pollute the blessed air ; and after all has been said or sung, a beautifully situated village of healthy and happy homes for God's children is surely the finest feature in every landscape! There nestled the Manse amongst its ancient trees, sometimes wisely, sometimes foolishly tenanted, but still the " man's-house," the man of God's house, when such can be found for it. There, close by, the Parish School, where rich and poor met together on equal terms, as God's children ; and we learned that brains and character make the only aristocracy worth mentioning. Yonder, amid its graves, that date back on crumbling stone five hundred years, stands the Village Church ; and there, on its little natural hill, at the end of the village, rises the old tower of Torthorwald, frowning over all the far-sweeping valley of the Nith, and telling of days of blood and Border foray. It was one of the many castles of the Kirkpatricks, and its enormous and imperishable walls seem worthy of him who wrote the legend of his family in the blood of the Red Comyn, stabbed in the Greyfriars Church of Dumfries, when he smote an extra blow to that of Bruce, and cried, " I mak' siccar."

Beyond, betwixt you and the Nith, crawls the slow-creeping Lochar towards the Solway, through miles and miles of moss and heather, — the nearest realization that I ever beheld of a "stagnant stream/' Looking from the Bank Hill on a summer day, Dumfries with its spires shone so conspicuous that you could have believed it not more than two miles away ; the splendid sweeping vale through which Nith rolls to Solway, lay all before the naked eye, beautiful with village spires, mansion houses, and white shining farms ; the Galloway hills, gloomy and far-tumbling, bounded the forward view, while to the left rose CrifTel, cloud-capped and majestic ; then the white sands of Solway, with tides swifter than horsemen.; and finally the eye rested joyfully upon the hills of Cumberland, and noticed with glee the blue curling smoke from its villages on the southern Solway shores. Four miles behind you lie the ruins of the Castle of the Bruce, within the domains of his own Royal Burgh of Lochmaben ; a few miles in front, the still beautiful and amazing remains of Caerlaverock Castle, famous in many a Border story ; all around you, scattered throughout the dale of Nith, memories or ruins of other baronial " keeps," rich in suggestion to the peasant fancy ! Traditions lost nothing in bulk, or in graphic force, as they were

EARLIER DAYS.

retold for the thousandth time by village patriarchs around the kindly peat fire, with the younger rustics gaping round. A high spirit of patriotism, and a certain glorious delight in daring enterprises, was part of our common heritage.

There, amid this wholesome and breezy village life, our dear parents found their home for the long period of forty years. There were born to them eight additional children, making in all a family of five sons and six daughters. Theirs was the first of the thatched cottages on the left, past the " miller's house," going up the "village gate," with a small garden in front of it, and a large garden across the road ; and it is one of the few still lingering to show to a new generation what the homes of their fathers were. The architect who planned it had no ideas of art, but a fine eye for durability ! It consists at present of three, but originally of four, pairs of "oak couples" (Scotticd kipples)^ planted like solid trees in the ground at equal intervals, and gently sloped inwards till they meet or are " coupled " at the ridge, this coupling being managed not by rusty iron, but by great solid pins of oak. A roof of oaken wattles was laid across these, till within eleven or twelve feet of the ground, and from the ground upwards a stone wall was raised, as perpendicular as was found practicable, towards these overhanging wattles^ this wall being roughly " pointed " with sand and clay and lime. Now into and upon the roof was woven and intertwisted a covering of thatch, that defied all to EARLIER DAYS, winds and weathers, and that made the cottage marvellously cosey, — being renewed year by year, and never allowed to remain in disrepair at any season. But the beauty of the construction was and is its durability, or rather the permanence of its oaken ribs ! There they stand, after probably not less than four centuries, japanned with " peat reek " till they are literally shining, so hard that no ordinary nail can be driven into them, and perfectly capable for service for four centuries more on the same conditions. The walls are quite modern, having all been rebuilt in my father's time, except only the few great foundation boulders, piled around the oaken couples ; and parts of the roofing also may plead guilty to having found its way thither only in recent days ; but the architect's one idea survives, baffling time and change — the ribs and rafters of oak. Our home consisted of a " but " and a " ben " and a " mid room," or chamber, called the " closet." The one end was my mother's domain, and served all the purposes of dining-room and kitchen and parlour, besides containing two large wooden erections, called by our Scotch peasantry " box-beds " ; not holes in the wall, as in cities, but grand, big, airy beds, adorned with many-coloured counterpanes, and hung with natty curtains, showing the skill of the mistress of the house. The other end was my father's workshop, filled with five or six "stocking frames," whirring with the constant action of five or six pairs of busy hands and feet, and producing right

EARLIER DAYS. II

genuine hosiery for the merchants at Hawick and Dumfries. The " closet " was a very small apartment betwixt the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table, and a chair, with a diminutive window shedding diminutive light on the scene. This was the Sanctuary of that cottage home. Thither daily, and oftentimes a day, generally after each meal, we saw our father retire, and "shut to the door''; and we children got to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct (for the thing was too sacred to be talked about) that prayers were being poured out there for us, as of old by the High Priest within the veil in the Most Holy Place. We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes of a trembling voice pleading as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past that door on tiptoe, not to disturb the holy colloquy. The outside world might not know, but we knew, whence came that happy light as of a new-born smile that always was dawning on my father's face : it was a reflection from the Divine Presence, in the consciousness of which he lived. Never, in temple or cathedral, on mountain or in glen, can I hope to feel that the Lord God is more near, more visibly walking and talking with men, than under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oaken wattles. Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, or blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in that Sanctuary Closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to

God, would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal, " He walked with God, why may not I ? "

A few notes had better here be given as to our " Forebears," the kind of stock from which my father and mother sprang. My father's mother, Janet Murray, claimed to be descended from a Galloway family that fought and suffered for Christ's Crown and Covenant in Scotland's " killing time," and was herself a woman of a pronouncedly religious development. Her husband, our grandfather, William Paton, had passed through a roving and romantic career, before he settled down to a douce deacon of the weavers of Dumfries, like his father before him.

Forced by a press-gang to serve on board a British man-of-war, he was taken prisoner by the French, and thereafter placed under Paul Jones, the pirate of the seas, and bore to his dying day the mark of a slash from the captain's sword across his shoulder for some slight disrespect or offence. Determining with two others to escape, the three were hotly pursued by Paul Jones's men. One, who could swim but Httle, was shot, and had to be cut adrift by the other two, who in the darkness swam into a cave and managed to evade for two nights and a day the rage of their pursuers. My grandfather, being young and gentle and yellow-haired, persuaded some kind heart to rig him out in female attire, and in this costume escaped the attentions of the press-gang more than once ; till, after many hardships, he bargained with the captain of a coal sloop to stow him away amongst his black diamonds, and thus, in due time, he found his way home to Dumfries, where he tackled bravely and wisely the duties of husband, father, and citizen for the remainder of his days. The smack of the sea about the stories of his youth gave zest to the talks round their quiet fireside, and that, again, was seasoned by the warm evangelical spirit of his Covenanting wife, her lips " dropping grace."

Of their children, two reproduced the disposition of their father, and two that of their mother. William took to the soldier's career, and died in Spain ; May, the only daughter, gave her heart and hand to John Wood, a jolly and gallant Englishman, who fought at Waterloo, and lived to see his hundredth birthday. John and James, the latter being my father, both learned the stocking manufacturing business of their fathers, and both followed their mother's piety and became from their early teens very pronounced and consistent disciples of the Lord.

On the other side, my mother, Janet Rogerson, had for parents a father and mother of the Annandale stock. William Rogerson, her father, was one of many brothers, all men of uncommon strength and great force of character, quite worthy of the Border rievers of an earlier day. Indeed, it was in some such way that he secured his wife, though the dear old lady in after-days was chary about telling the story. She was a girl of good position, the ward of two unscrupulous uncles who had charge of her small estate, near Langholm ; and while attending some boarding school she fell devotedly in love with the tall, fairhalred, gallant young blacksmith, William Rogerson. Her guardians, doubtless very properly, objected to the ^'connection " ; but our young Lochinvar, with his six or seven stalwart brothers and other trusty "lads," all mounted, and with some ready tool in case of need, went boldly and claimed his bride, and she, willingly mounting at his side, was borne off in the light of open day, joyously married, and took possession of her ** but and ben," as the mistress of the blacksmith's abode.

The uncles had it out with him, however, in another way. While he was enjoying his honeymoon, and careless of mere mundane affairs, they managed to dispose of all the property of their ward, and make good their escape with the proceeds to the New World. Having heard a rumour of some such sale, our young blacksmith on horseback just reached the scene in time to see the last article — a Family Bible — put up for auction. This he claimed, or purchased, or seized, in name of the heiress — but that was all that she ever inherited. It was used devoutly by her till her dying day, and was adorned with the record of her own marriage and of the birth of a large and happy family, whom by-and-by God gave to her.