The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-04 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Christie's Faith. By the author of " High Church,"
" Mattie : a Stray," &c. 3 Vols. Hurst and

Blackett.

Very heartily may we congratulate the author of
"Hattie" and " Owen" upon the production of this
new work, which does equal honour to the skill and
ability of the novel-writer, and to the earnest feel-
ing of the philanthropist. The interest of the story
is so enthralling throughout that it holds the reader
enchained during its perusal, and the purpose of
the story is so admirable that the wisest and the
best amongst us may justly consider the time well-
bestowed that is occupied by its perusal. Let not
the genuine novel-reader, who hates " a moral
story," be dismayed at what we have said. This is
no moral tale with an "object," full of homilies and
exhortations. Nothing of the kind. The lessons
which it teaches are like the lessons of life scattered
around us, only suggested by observation and en-
forced by example. At the opening of the tale we
find a dying woman and a hungry boy—two worn-
out wayfarers—turned from the door of the work-
house with the official announcement " no room."
With the utmost difficulty the feeble woman, wearied
by a twenty miles' walk, drags herself to Hen-
wood's Wharf, in Upper Ground-street, where,
alone in all London, she thinks she may find a friend.
The following extract will give some idea of the
" situation" of the plot. The old watchman on duty
for the night answers the unusual summons at the
gate.

Swinging his huge lantern in one hand, and plodding
on with his stick in another, Mr. Wynn went beneath the
archway to the gates again. Reaching tho gates, he sent
his stick against them, and asked the nature of the busi-
ness of the applicant without. This time a woman's voice
responded to his summons, and the rattle that he had half
drawn from ono capacious pocket, was dropped to its
depths in his amazement.

" I am a woman you know in old days, lir. Wynn, over
sixteen years ago, when you were a gardener down, in
Warwickshire. Will you let mo in, and—give me food."
The old man gasped for breath beneath the gateway. A
trap fell back in tho gate, and reminded those without of
the workhouse they had recently quitted—a voice called
through—

" Not she who ran away with Fernwell long ago?—don't
say it's Miss Ellen, please !"
" Yes, it is 1 and my boy."

The gate was wrenched open, and a shaking hand held
forth a lantern close to tho woman's face, that did not
flinch from the test, but looked hard beyond into tho
shadows where Charles Wynn stood.

" You are alone ?—he's not with you ?"
" No."

" Oh! dear— come in. Down, speck—come in, I say !"
Mother and son passed through the door made in the
great gates of Ilenwood's Wharf, and stood with the
watchman in the dark entry—stood for awhile, until the
tired woman sought the support of the wall, and then slid
slowly downwards in a crouching position against it.
"You are ill, Miss Ellen—Mrs. Fernwell, I should say."
" I am very ill, Mr. Wynn—very poor—or I should not
have come hero to ask for shelter till daylight. Only till
then, and I shall be gone, sir."
"There's very little shelter in this place," said the old
man. " The warehouses are locked, and the foreman keeps
the key of them. I mind the yard all night—when it rains
hard, I stop under here." _ _

" They should have—treated you better—an old sar-
vant," murmured the woman.

"You're very kind to bay so," replied the watchman.
"I don't complain—l have been paid fair wages for fair
work. Bute--oh ! dear !—how is this ?" And held out
his lantern at arm's length, and looked into her face
again. _ _

"It was to be expected—everybody expected—it but
me."

" Ah! you—poor woman !"
" Has the guv'uor anything to eat 2" asked the boy, sotto
voce.

The watchman produces his own untasted supper,
which the boy devours ravenously :

"I wouldn't be in such a hurry," said the watchman to
the boy, "in case your mother should come round a bit."

"Go on, Zach," said the woman. "It wasn't for myself
I asked for food just now, Mr. Wynn, but for him who
turns against me almost when I have nothing to give him.
Oh, you don't know how hard I have tried to make this
boy more honest than his brother—to keep him as much
as I could from his father."

" Two children, then ?"

~ Two."

" Aud Ferawell ?"

"lie is tramping towards London now— I am to meet
him in Whitechapel on Boxing-night, at a haunt well
known to both of us. lle wants this boy, because he's
very sharp—and quick to learn."
" To learn what's bad, you mean ?"
" God help him! —Yes."
"It's a hard story," said the watchman ; "and to think
that you, a lady born, should drop to this."
" I don't say it's hard," said the woman ; " I chose my
lot in life at seventeen years of age, and left them all be-
cause they would have stopped my marriage. They told
rue that they'd cast me off, if I took up with that man—
you remember the day—and I said let thorn.' I said that
I would not ever stoop to ask a favour of them, whatever
happened to me. And then one day I ran away from
home."

" Ah !" sighed the old man in assent, "you did."
" I say now that they weren't kind to me, that they
drove me to it, not knowing my right nature—that they
were hard, and cold, and unforgiving—weren't they ?" she
AskoJ, eagerly ; '• weren't they, Wynn ?"
" They didn't understand you," said the old man, speak-
ing with a reserve.

"Where is she ?"
" Abroad—always abroad."
" You have not seen her since—when ?"

"I have not seen her for twelve years."
" Tell her some day that I came to see you —that I,
turned away from the workhouse, stole in here. She will
be glad to say, "1 warned her of it years ago—it's all
come true, just as I rrophesied.' She was always a vain
woman !

" She is your sister," remarked the old man ; " I'd try
and think a little more of that, just now."
"I will not," asserted the woman ; "I never called her
sister—she was the daughter of a strange mother, and no
sister to me—nothing liko OM—never was one—never, by
Heaven !—*ever !"
" I wouldn't go on like that, Mrs. Ferntvoll."

" I never forgave her —I never shall," she said ; " in all
my mis-spent, awful, self-destroying life, I kept my pride;
and I let her last words stand between her and me, as they
will even to the Judgment. She can't say that I ever
asked her for a penny ; that my husband and I, or my
children—beggars and tramps, the whole of us—disgraced
her with our importunity."

The unhappy woman dies, and the old watchman
gets a place on the wharf as errand-boy for Zach,
and Polly Wynn, the watchman's daughter, who
had known Zach's mother when they were
girls in Warwickshire, tries, but almost in
vain, to reform and instruct the unpro-
mising lad. Zach, after a while, yields a little,
not to the teaching, but to the humanising influ-
ence of unwearying kindness. Zach is a hard boy,
by no means attractive, like too many of his ne-
glected class. Just as he is beginning to improve
somewhat he is startled by a visit from Teddy, his
older brother, the reckless, reprobate Teddy, to
whom he looks up with admiration. He is about to
leave his new home in company with Teddy, when
Pplly arrives and stops his progress.

Zach shrank back a step behind his brother—that
brother who had always taken his part, and stood his
friend before he was fool enough to go away from him !
Why, Teddy had fought his father once to save him from
blows—he should never forgot that night!—and he would
never desert Teddy again, if he would always take his
part and stick up for him. Teddy would stick up for him
now—for ho could not face that little woman who had
been kind to him, and whose pitying interest it had been
so hard to boar!

" What do you want hero ?" asked Miss Wynn almost
peremptorily.
"I've been sent to fetch my brother home. Ile's wanted,"
was the dogged answer.
"I can't part with him."
Teddy implied, by an expressive gesture, that it was ab-
solutely necessary to take him away.
",And I shan't part with him. That's more !"

Tho little woman set her back against the door, and
looked defiance to the death. Right and wrong--good and
evil—stood face to face there, and paused.

A FAIR FIGHT.

Teddy Penwell, as defender of his faith—his own dark
faith in the power to do wrong—stood his ground well,
though he did not admire the round little grey eyes that
were filed unflinchinglyupon him. lle could look people
in the face for a longer time,thau most of his family, for he
possessed a fair amount of nerves, and a fairer amount of
impudence, but ho rather objected to a steady conflict of
eyes for all that. He looked away at last—a trifle away—
at a knot in the panel over Polly Wynn's head. Polly
saw her advantage, and began at once:
"You've no right to come into my house," she said.
" I'm going out of it—we're both going."
" It's an honest house."
"Nell, you needn't bo so proud of it—l s'pose there's
another somewhere about," was the defiant answer.
"It's a house that hits sheltered your poor brother, and
done him good, oven in the little while ho's been here.
And now yon come to do all the harm you can by tempting
him away. Oh! bow I wish Martin was back!"
" Zach's my brother. Zach's tired of this place."
ci Oh! don't say ZaclA !" cried Polly Wya33, setting