out in a violent huff; and it seems that she did not soon recover her serenity. The stone she never restored; and when the collector of my Easter-offerings called upon her according to custom, she refused to give a single doit, and told him, moreover, that she would not herself be buried in my parish, lest I should get any fee by it.

§. 2. Mrs. Martin, John Harwich,
Mrs. Costar, &c.

THIS little anecdote may be useful to others as well as to the clergy; but now I return to graver matters.

As early as I conveniently could, I determined to follow up the impression which had been made in the immediate neighbourhood of the scene of the murder. Approaching the spot on the side of old South's cottage I went there first; but neither of the two inhabitants were at home. Mrs. Forbes, however, who occupied the adjoining one, upon hearing me knock in vain, came out and gave me a sad account of these wretched people. "It was but yesterday, Sir," she said, "that Mrs. South was drunk to madness, and threw us all into a ferment. I heard, Sir, a good deal of what you told them both but a week ago, and I put her in mind of it; and it stung her to the quick. But, I believe, I had nearly lost my life by the interference; for she rushed out of the house with a large caseknife, and pursued me into my own; and if she had not fallen down upon the sill, luckily for me, Sir, my days had been numbered. I tremble now when I think of it."-"Ah! Mrs. Forbes," I said, in sor

VOL. III.

K

row,

you will have another murder here very soon, I fear. See how wicked habits cling to people up to the very last moment! They cannot shake them off if they would. They do not pray to God for his grace, and therefore they can do nothing. But, as to praying to God, you are all alike, I believe, in this ungodly place. Some of you, perhaps, may pray to him in private; but you never, any of you, honour him in public. Look yonder, Mrs. Forbes,' I said, pointing with my cane, "and tell me what it is that you see, rising above the trees, and peering in the sky." "It is the Church, Sir," she answered. "And do you ever hear the bells?" I asked. "Yes, Sir," she replied; "whenever the wind sets this way, and in all calm weather." 66 But, alas! you never obey their call, Mrs. Forbes," I said; " and yet you have not the shadow of an excuse for your great neglect of God's public worship. You have no young children to nurse; you may be respectably dressed if you will; for both your husband and yourself get full wages, without a family to maintain out of them; and you have nothing to complain of on the score of health. These will be fearful items in your account, when your Judge shall reckon with you." All this was so unexpected by Mrs. Forbes, that she was in an instant quite speechless. She stepped out to accuse her neighbours, and now she found the tables turned upon herself. I gave her a little book to read, and hastened onwards to the rest whom I had seen before, and whom I now commended for the promptness with which they had sent their children to school, and for the regularity with which they kept them there. 66 Well," I said, this is the first right step; when shall I have the

46

Will you

satisfaction of seeing you take the next? not come to church?" To this question the greater part made no answer but by hanging down their heads. Two, of whom Mrs. Hudson was one, assured me, that they had been to church in the neighbouring parish at the six o'clock service. Again, none of the Hodges family were at home, except a little girl, sister to young Hodges, and then employed in sweeping out his house. As for his wife, she disappeared, it seems, sometimes for two or three days together; and some of her neighbours, especially old Mrs. South, having lately cast it in her teeth, that her marriage was all a pretence, she threatened to confute their slander by producing a copy of the register. The character of this young woman I found to be worse and worse as I enquired farther into it. One thing appeared to be certain, that, young as she was, she had been a mother before she came here; but the child having died since, she now regretted, as they told me at least, that she had attached herself to Hodges, and had thereby abridged herself of her former unbridled freedom. "She has been wild, Sir," they all said; an expression which I understood too well, and I was the more grieved to be a second time disappointed in my wish of speaking to her.

"Was this the house," I said to the little girl, "in which poor Mrs Brockbourn was drinking, the very night that she was killed?" "Yes, Sir," she answered," it was here." "And can any body bear to live in this house then?" I asked. "Sir?" she said, staring at me, and evidently neither feeling nor comprehending what I meant. "Would her husband have killed her, do you think," I enquired, "if she

had not been drunk?" "No, I suppose not, Sir," she replied. "And did not she get drunk here?" I enquired again. "Yes, Sir," she answered. "Then it was the merry-making here, my little girl," I said, "which caused the poor woman's death; was it not?" She was silent; so I asked her, if she thought these merry-makings were things to be desired, being often the causes of very dreadful consequences, and almost always of quarrelling, swearing, and fighting. She was still silent; so I now asked her a plainer question, whether she thought Mrs. Brockbourn would have come there, if she had known that she should be killed afterwards. "No, Sir," she answered at length, "that she would not." "Should you not be sorry then," I said, "if you had been the person who persuaded her to come and drink here that night?" "Yes, Sir," she replied. "To be sure," I said, for you would have been the cause of her death. And would you not have been sorry also, if it had been your house, in which she was drunk before she was killed, and in which she was led to drink in such a manner as to cause her being killed?" Again she was silent; and I asked her next, if she had not very often heard her brother and his wife say, how sorry they were that they had any body to drink in their house that terrible night. "No, Sir," she answered, "I never did."—" Well then," I said, 'little girl, I am sorry for them, if they are not sorry for themselves. For, one day or other, I fear, sooner or later, God will punish them for it; and then they will be sorry, when it is too late. Will you tell them what I say 66 ?" 'Yes, Sir," she replied. After this I went to Mrs. Martin's, and it gave me some pleasure to observe, that her cottage was quite.

clean and tidy; and I complimented her upon it, and said good-humouredly, that I should not now be surprised to find her husband some day at dinner with her. "Why, Sir," she answered, "my child is better, and I am better myself, as I dare say you perceive; and so I can bestir myself a little to make things comfortable. But as to my husband, Sir, I do not know what to think of it. It is no encouragement to us poor wives, Sir, to toil and slave to keep every thing neat and pleasant, if they will not 'come near us. "That is true," I said; "but I would do it, nevertheless, for many reasons; and then, if he should happen to come in, he might find himself so comfortable, and so happy, as to be tempted to try the experiment again: so that, in the end, when he observes that he is always welcomed with a cheerful countenance, and can sit down on a clean chair, with a clean cloth also before him, and have his bacon and potaoes nicely fried, he will get into the habit of prizing the calm and cheap and innocent delights of wife, children and home, before the noisy, expensive, and too often guilty mirth of the tap-room. If he comes once, Mrs. Martin, be sure to press him to come again the next day, and then the following day, and so on day after day. Habit is the great thing; and if you could bring him to that, it might be as difficult hereafter to separate him from his home, as it is now to tear him from the ale-house." “Ah! Sir,” she replied mournfully, "I wish I could bring it about! But it is not so easy a matter. However, Sir, I think he has come home lately more than he used to do. At one time he never came at all; and, just as was to be expected, my oldest boy followed his example, and fell into bad company; and, poor fel