I judge, from what I hear, that
you're just the man we want."

Johnson paused for a while.

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head; "I don't know. I'm not so
sure it'll do at all."

"Oh, fayther," cried Betty, "you must do what the gentleman axes you.
It may do good to some poor creatures, and lead 'em to sign. It's only
a small candle-end as the Lord's given such as we are, but we must light
it, and let it shine."

"Well," said her father, slowly, "maybe I oughtn't to say `No;' and yet
you may be sure, if it gets talked on in the village, it's little peace
as I shall have."

"Well, my friend," said the stranger, "of course I don't wish to bring
you into trouble. Still this is one of the ways in which you may take
up a cross nobly for your Saviour, and he'll give the strength to carry
it."

"Say no more," replied Johnson; "if the Lord spares me, they shall hear
a gradely tale from me."

It was soon noised abroad in Langhurst that Thomas Johnson was to give
an account of himself as a reformed man and a total abstainer, at a
meeting to be held in the village in the following month of November.

His old companions were half mad with rage and vexation. What could be
done? They were determined that he should be served out in some way,
and that he should be prevented from appearing at the meeting. Come
what would, he should not stand up and triumph in his teetotalism on the
platform--that they were quite resolved on. Some scheme or plan must be
devised to hinder it. And fortune seemed to favour them.

A short time after it became generally known that Johnson was to speak,
a young lad might be seen hurrying home in his coal-pit-clothes to a
low, dirty-looking cottage that stood on the outskirts of the village.

"Mother," cried the boy, as soon as he reached the house and could
recover his breath, "where's fayther?"

"He's not come home yet," said the mother; "but what ails you, John?"

"Why, mother," said the boy, with trembling voice, "fayther gave me a
shilling to get change just as we was leaving the pit-bank, and I
dropped it somewhere as I were coming down the lane. I'm almost sure
Ben Taylor's lad found it, and picked it up; but when I axed him if he
hadn't got it, he said `No,' and told me he'd knock my head against the
wall if I didn't hold my noise. I see'd fayther go by at the lane end,
but he didn't see me. He'll thrash the life out of me if he finds I've
lost the shilling.--I've run fo