Peter Trawl | Page 6

came at once, and shaking his head as soon as he saw the stranger, he advised that she should be removed forthwith to the hospital.
"Not to-night, doctor, surely," said mother. "It might be the death of her, poor young creature!"
"She may rapidly grow worse, and it may be still more dangerous to move her afterwards," remarked Dr Rolt.
"Then, please God, I'll keep charge of her till she recovers, or He thinks fit to take her," said mother, in her determined way.
"She will never recover, I fear," said the doctor; "but I will do the best for her I can."
Telling mother how to act, and promising to send some medicine, he went away. When father, who had been across to Ryde in the wherry, came home, he approved of what mother had done.
"Why, you see, Jack, what I think is this," I heard her say; "I've no right to point a finger at her, for if I hadn't had a good mother to show me right and wrong, I might have been just as she is."
The next morning the doctor came again. He looked grave when he left the stranger's room. "You are still resolved to let this poor outcast remain in your house, Mrs Trawl?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, my good man thinks as I do, that we ought," answered mother, positively.
Dr Rolt returned in the afternoon, accompanied by a gentleman wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a straight-cut broadcloth coat of sombre hue. He smiled pleasantly at mother as he took the seat she offered him without doffing his hat, and beckoning to Mary and me, put his hands on our heads, while he looked into our faces and smiled as he had done to mother.
"I have brought Mr Silas Gray, a member of the Society of Friends, knowing that I should have your leave, Mrs Trawl, as he desires to see the poor girl you have taken care of," said Dr Rolt.
"Verily, sister, thou hast acted the part of the Good Samaritan towards the hapless one of whom friend Rolt has told me, and I would endeavour to minister to her spiritual necessities, the which I fear are great indeed; also with thy leave I will help thee in supplying such creature comforts as she may need," said Mr Gray.
"Thank you kindly, sir," answered mother. "I couldn't say much on the matter of religion, except to tell her that God cares for her as well as He does for the richest lady in the land, and will pardon her sins if she will but turn to Him through Christ; and as to food, kickshaws fit for sick folk are not much in my way, still I'll--"
"Thou knowest the very gist of the matter, sister," observed Mr Gray, interrupting her; "but time is precious. I'll go in with friend Rolt and speak to the wandering child." Saying this, Mr Gray accompanied the doctor into the stranger's room.
He, after this, came again and again--never empty-handed--oftener indeed than the doctor, whose skill failed, as he feared it would, to arrest the poor girl's malady, while Mr Gray's ministrations were successful in giving her the happy assurance that "though her sins were as scarlet, she had become white as snow," so he assured mother.
"Praise the Lord," was her reply.
So the young stranger died--her name, her history, unknown. Mr Gray paid the expenses of her funeral, and frequently after that came to see us, to inquire, as he said, how we were getting on.
We had not heard from brother Jack since he went aboard the Lapwing. Mother thought that he might have got some one to write for him, though he was no great hand with a pen himself. All we knew was that the brig had gone out to the East Indies, which being a long way off would have accounted for our not often getting letters from him; but just one father hoped he would have contrived to send after he had been a year away; now nearly three years had passed since then. Had the Lapwing been fitted out at Portsmouth, we should have got news of him from others, but as none of her crew hailed from our town, there was no one to whom we could go to ask about him. Father had taken lately to talk much about Jack, and sometimes regretted that he had let him go away.
"You acted for the best, and so don't be blaming yourself," observed mother, trying to console him. "There's One aloft looking after him better than we can, and He'll bring our boy back to us if He thinks fit."
Mary and I little knew all the trials father and mother had to go through. Mother's trade was bad, and father was often out all day without bringing a shilling home. Younger men