"Now for Thursday. 'At 12 o'clock, visit the hospital. Jews' meeting in the evening.'

"'Friday, 10 a.m. Club. Afternoon, district visiting.'

"'Sat.u.r.day, 3 p.m. Mothers' meeting.'--Why, this mothers' meeting is something quite new. I thought the vicar's wife took that."--"So she does, John; but, poor thing, she is so overworked, that I could not refuse when she asked me to take it for her during the next three months."

"And is this sort of thing to go on perpetually?" asked the doctor in a despairing voice.

"Why should it not, dearest husband? You would not have your wife a drone in these days, when the world all round us is full of workers?"

"Certainly not; but I very much question if we have not gone mad on this subject of work--at any rate as regards female workers."

"And would you, then, John, shut up people's hearts and hands? I thought none knew better than yourself what a vast field there is open for n.o.ble effort and service of every kind. Surely you ought to be the last person to discourage us."

"Nay, my beloved wife, you are not doing me justice," said the doctor warmly. "What I am convinced of is this--and the conviction gains strength with me every day--that good and loving women like yourself are in grievous peril of marring and curtailing their real usefulness by attempting too much. If agencies for good are to be multiplied, let those who set new ones on foot seek for their workers amongst those who are not already overburdened or fully occupied. I cannot help thinking that there is often much selfishness, or, to use a less harsh word, want of consideration, in those who apply to ladies whose time is already fully and properly occupied, to join them as workers in their pet schemes; for it is easier to try and enlist those who are known to be zealous workers already, than to be at the pains of hunting out new ones. I am sure no one rejoices more than I do in the wonderful and complicated machinery for doing good which exists on all sides in our land and day--I think it one of the most cheering signs and evidences of real progress amongst us; but, for all that, if a person wants to launch a new ship, he should have reasonable grounds for trusting that he shall be able to find hands to man her without borrowing those from a neighbouring vessel, who have kept their watch through stormy winds and waves, and ought, instead of doing extra duty, to be now resting in their hammocks."

Mrs Prosser was again silent for a while, and sat looking thoughtfully into the fire. Then, in rather a sorrowful voice, she said, "And what, then, dear John, do you think to be my duty? I can't help feeling that there is a great deal in what you say. I have not been really satisfied with my own way of going on for some time past. But what would you have me do? What must I give up?"

"I think," was his reply, "that the thing will settle itself, if you will only begin at the right end."

"And which is that, dearest?"

"The home end. Let your first and best energies be spent on the home; it will surely be happier for us both. And let the care of your own health, in the way of taking proper exercise, be reckoned as a most important part of home duties. Life is given us to use, and not to shorten. Therefore, don't undertake anything which will unfit you for the due performance of these home duties. You have no just call to any such undertaking. Do that which is the manifest work lying at your hand, and I feel sure you will be guided aright as to what other work you can find time and strength for."

"Well, John, I will think it well over; I am glad we have had this conversation."

"So am I, my precious wife; I am sure good will come of it. And you know we have an invitation to visit the Maltbys in the spring: we shall be sure to get some words of valuable counsel there. I don't want to hinder you from doing good out of your own home; I don't want selfishly to claim all your energies for home work, and my own convenience and comfort: but I do feel strongly, and more and more strongly every day, that there is a tendency at the present day to make an idol of woman's work; to keep, too, the bow perpetually on the stretch; to drag wives, mothers, and daughters from their home duties into public, and to give them no rest, but bid them strain every nerve, and gallop, gallop till they die."

"Perhaps so, John; but it is time for me to go up and dress for dinner."

CHAPTER FOUR.

TOMMY TRACKS.

No one was more universally respected or more vigorously abused in Crossbourne than "Tommy Tracks," as he was sneeringly called. His real name was Thomas Bradly. He was not a native of Crossbourne, but had resided in that town for some five years past at the time when our story opens. As he was a capital workman, and had two sons growing up into young men who were also very skilful hands, it was thought quite natural that he should have come to settle down in Crossbourne, where skilled labour was well remunerated. As to where he came from, some said one thing, some another. He was very reserved on the matter himself, and so people soon ceased to ask him about it.

Thomas was undoubtedly an oddity, but his eccentricities were of a kind which did no one any harm, and only served to add force to his words and example. He was an earnest Christian, and as earnest an abstainer from all intoxicating drinks; and his family walked with him on the narrow gospel way, and in their adherence to temperance principles and practice. He was also superintendent of the church Sunday-school, and the very life of the Temperance Society and Band of Hope, of both which a.s.sociations the vicar, who was himself an abstainer, was the president.

Indeed, he was the clergyman's right-hand in the carrying out of every good work in the place. He was something of a reader of such sterling and profitable works as came in his way, but his Bible was his chief study.

His special characteristics were a clear head, a large stock of shrewd common sense, and an invincible love of truth and straightforwardness, so that he could hold his ground against any man in the place, William Foster the styptic not excepted. Not that Bradly was at all fond of an argument; he avoided one when he could do so consistently, preferring to do good by just sowing seeds of truth in his own humble way, leaving it to G.o.d to deal with the tares and weeds.

One of his favourite modes of sowing was to carry along with him at all times a little bundle of religious and temperance tracts, and to offer these whenever he had an opportunity, commonly accompanying the offer with some quaint remark which would often overcome the reluctance to accept them, even in those who were opposed to his principles and practice. From this habit of his he was generally known among the working-cla.s.ses of Crossbourne by the nickname of "Tommy Tracts," or "Tracks," as it was usually p.r.o.nounced--an epithet first given in scorn, but afterwards generally used without any unkindly feeling. Indeed, he was rather proud of it than otherwise; nor could the taunts and gibes which not unfrequently accompanied it ever ruffle in the least his good- humoured self-possession.

His family, which consisted of himself, his wife, their two sons, and a daughter, all grown up, and an invalid sister of his own, lived in a comfortable house on the outskirts of the town.

This house he had built for himself out of the profits of his own industry. Like its owner, it was rather of an eccentric character, having been constructed on an original plan of his own, and, in consequence, differed from any other dwelling-house in the town. Of course, he was not left without abundance of comments on his architectural taste, many of them being anything but complimentary, and all of them outspoken. This moved him nothing. "Well, if the house pleases me," he said to his critics, "I suppose it don't matter much what fashion it's of, so long as the chimney-pots is outside, and the fire-places in." Not that there was anything grand or ambitious in its outward appearance, nor sufficiently peculiar to draw any special attention to it. It was rather wider in front than the ordinary working-men's cottages, and had a stone parapet above the upper windows, running the whole length of the building, on which were painted, in large black letters, the words, "Bradly's Temperance Hospital."

As might have been expected, this inscription brought on him a storm of ridicule and reproach, which he took very quietly; but if any one asked him in a civil way what he meant by the words, his reply used to be, "Any confirmed drunkard's welcome to come to my house for advice gratis, and I'll warrant to make a perfect cure of him, if he'll only follow my prescription." And when further asked what that prescription might be, he would reply, "Just this: let the patient sign the pledge, and keep it." And many a poor drunkard, whom he had lured up to his house, and then pleaded and prayed with earnestly, had already proved the efficacy of this remedy.

When blamed by foes or friends for misleading people by putting such words on his house, he would say--"Where's the harm? Haven't I as much right to call my house 'Temperance Hospital' as Ben Roberts has to call his public 'The Staff of Life'? What has _his_ 'Staff of Life' done?

Why, to my certain knowledge, it has just proved a broken staff, and let down scores of working-men into the gutter. But my 'Temperance Hospital' has helped back many a poor fellow _out_ of the gutter, and set him on his feet again. It's a free hospital, too, and we're never full; we takes all patients as comes."

The inside of the house was as suggestive of Thomas's principles and eccentricities of character as the outside.

The front door opened into a long and narrow hall, lighted by a fan- light. As you entered, your eyes would naturally fall on the words, "Picture Gallery," facing you, on the farther wall, just over the entrance to the kitchen. This "picture gallery" was simply the hall itself, which had something of the appearance of a photographer's studio, the walls being partly covered with portraits large and small, interspersed with texts of Scripture, pledge-cards bearing the names of himself and family, and large engravings from the _British Workman_, coloured by one of his sons to give them greater effect. The photographs were chiefly likenesses of those who had been his own converts to total abstinence, with here and there the portrait of some well-known temperance advocate.

To the left of the hall was the parlour or company sitting-room, which was adorned with portraits, or what were designed to be such, of the Queen and other members of the royal family. Over the fire-place was a handsome mirror, on either side of which were photographs of the vicar and his wife; and on the opposite side of the room stood a bookcase with gla.s.s doors, containing a small but judicious selection of volumes, religious, historical, biographical, and scientific: for Thomas Bradly was a reader in a humble way, and had a memory tenacious of anything that struck him. But the pride of this choice apartment was an enormous ill.u.s.trated Bible, sumptuously bound, which lay on the middle of a round table that occupied the centre of the room.

The kitchen, however, was the real daily living-place of the family. It had been built of unusually large dimensions, in order to accommodate a goodly number of temperance friends, or of the members of the Band of Hope, who occasionally met there. Over the doors and windows were large texts in blue, and over the ample fire-place, in specially large letters of the same colour, the words, "Do the next thing."

Many who called on Thomas Bradly, and saw this maxim for the first time, were rather puzzled to know what it meant. "What _is_ 'the next thing'?" they would ask. "Why, it's just this," he would reply: "the next thing is the thing nearest to your hand. Just do the thing as comes nearest to hand, and be content to do _that_ afore you concern yourself about anything else. These words has saved me a vast of trouble and worry. I've read somewhere as 'worry' is one of the specially prominent troubles of our day. I think that's true enough.

Well, now, I've found my motto there--'Do the next thing'--a capital remedy for worry. Sometimes I've come down of a morning knowing as I'd a whole lot of things to get done, and I've been strongly tempted to make a bundle of them, and do them all at once, or try, at any rate, to do three or four of 'em at the same time. But then I've just cast my eyes on them words, and I've said to myself, 'All right, Thomas Bradly; you just go and do the next thing;' and I've gone and done it, and after that I've done the next thing, and so on till I've got through the whole bundle."

Opposite the broad kitchen-range was a plate-rack well filled with serviceable chinaware, and which formed the upper part of a dresser or plain deal sideboard. Above the rack, and near the ceiling, were the words, "One step at a time."

This and the maxim over the fire-place he used to call his "two walking- sticks." Thus, meeting a fellow-workman one day who had lately come to Crossbourne, about whose character for steadiness he had strong suspicions, and who seemed always in a hurry, and yet as if he could never fairly overtake his work--

"James," he said to him, "you should borrow my two walking-sticks."

"Walking-sticks!--what for?" asked the other.

"Why, you'll be falling one of these days if you hurry so; and my two walking-sticks would be a great help to you." The other stared at him, quite unable to make out his meaning.

"Walking-sticks, Tommy Tracks! You don't seem to stand in need of them.

I never see you with a stick in your hand."

"For all that I make use of them every day, James; and if you'll step into my house any night I'll show them to you: for I can't spare them out of the kitchen, though I never go to my work without them."

"Some foolery or other!" exclaimed the man he addressed, roughly.

Nevertheless his curiosity was excited, and he stopped Bradly at his door one evening, saying "he was come to see his two walking-sticks."

"Good--very good," said the other. "Come in. There, sit you down by the table--and, missus, give us each a cup of tea. Now, you just look over the chimney-piece. There's one of my walking-sticks: 'Do the next thing.' And, now, look over the dresser. There's the other walking- stick: 'One step at a time'. And I'll just tell you how to use them.

It don't require any practice. When you've half-a-dozen things as wants doing, and can't all be done at once, just you consider which of 'em all ought to be done first. That's 'the next thing.' Go straight ahead at that, and don't trouble a bit about the rest till that's done. That's one stick as'll help you to walk through a deal of work with very little bustle and worry. And, James, just be content in all you do to be guided by the great Master as owns us all, the Lord Jesus Christ, who bought us for himself with his own blood. Just be willing to follow him, and let him lead you 'one step at a time,' and don't want to see the place for the next step till you've put your foot where he tells you. You'll find that a rare stout walking-stick. You may lean your whole weight on it, and it won't give way; and it'll help you in peace through the trials of this life, and on the road to a better."

Such was Thomas Bradly's kitchen. Many a happy gathering was held there, and many a useful lesson learned in it.

But, besides the rooms already mentioned, there was one adjoining the kitchen which was specially Thomas Bradly's own. It was of considerable size, and was entered from the inside by a little door out of the kitchen. This door was commonly locked, and the key kept by Bradly himself. The more usual approach to it was from the outside. Its external appearance did not exactly contribute to the symmetry of the whole premises; but that was a matter of very small moment to its proprietor, who had added it on for a special purpose. The house itself was on the hill-side, on the outskirts of the town, as has been said.

There was a little bit of garden in front and on either side, so that it could not be built close up to. At present it had no very near neighbours. A little gate in the low wall which skirted the garden, on the left hand as you faced the house, allowed any visitor to have access to the outer door of Bradly's special room without going through the garden up the front way. On this outer door was painted in white letters, "Surgery."

"Do you mend broken bones, Tommy Tracks?" asked a working-man of not very temperate or moral habits soon after this word had been painted on the door. "If you do, I think we may perhaps give you a job before long, as it'll be Crossbourne Wakes next Sunday week."

"No," was Bradly's reply; "I mend broken hearts, and put drunkards'

homes into their proper places when they've got out of joint."

"Indeed! You'll be clever to do that, Tommy."

"Ah! You don't know, Bill. P'raps you'll come and try my skill yourself afore long."