The glorious surprise of Charley’s safety greeted Hamish on his return home to dinner. In fact, he was just in time, having come in somewhat before one o’clock, to witness Charley’s arrival from the college schoolroom, escorted by the whole tribe, from the first to the last. Even Gerald Yorke made one, as did Mr. William Simms. Gerald, the smart over, thought it best to put a light, careless face upon his punishment, disgraceful though it was considered to be for a senior. To give Gerald his due, his own share in the day’s exploits faded into insignificance, compared with the shock of mortification which shook him, when he heard the avowal of his mother, respecting Roland. He and Tod had been the most eager of all the school to cast Arthur’s guilt in Tom Channing’s cheek; they had proclaimed it as particularly objectionable to their feelings that the robbery should have taken place in an office where their brother was a pupil; and now they found that Tom’s brother had been innocent, and their own brother guilty! It was well that Gerald’s brow should burn. “But she’d no cause to come here and blurt it out to the lot, right in one’s face!” soliloquized Gerald, alluding to Lady Augusta. “They’d have heard it soon enough, without that.”

Mr. William Simms, I have said, also attended Charles. Mr. William was hoping that the return of Charley would put him upon a better footing with the school. He need not have hoped it: his offence had been one that the college boys never forgave. Whether Charley returned dead or alive, or had never returned at all, Simms would always remain a sneak in their estimation. “Sneak Simms,” he had been called since the occurrence: and he had come to the resolution, in his own mind, of writing word home to his friends that the studies in Helstonleigh college school were too much for him, and asking to be removed to a private one. I think he would have to do so still.

Hamish lifted Charley to him with an eager, fond movement. A weight was taken from his mind. Although really irresponsible for the disappearance of Charles, he had always felt that his father and mother might inwardly attach some blame to him—might think him to have been wanting in care. Now, all was sunshine.

Dinner over, Mr. Channing walked with Hamish to the office. They were some time in getting there. Every other person they met, stopped Mr. Channing to congratulate him. It seemed that the congratulations were never to end. It was not only Mr. Channing’s renewed health that people had to speak of. Helstonleigh, from one end to the other, was ringing with the news of Arthur’s innocence; and Charley’s return was getting wind.

They reached Guild Street at last. Mr. Channing entered and shook hands with his clerks, and then took his own place in his private room. “Where are we to put you, now, Hamish?” he said, looking at his son with a smile. “There’s no room for you here. You will not like to take your place with the clerks again.”

“Perhaps I had better follow Roland Yorke’s plan, and emigrate,” replied Hamish, demurely.

“I wish Mr. Huntley—By the way, Hamish, it would only be a mark of courtesy if you stepped as far as Mr. Huntley’s and told him of Charles’s return,” broke off Mr. Channing; the idea occurring to him with Mr. Huntley’s name. “None have shown more sympathy than he, and he will be rejoiced to hear that the child is safe.”

“I’ll go at once,” said Hamish. Nothing loth was he, on his own part, to pay a visit to Mr. Huntley’s.

Hamish overtook Mr. Huntley close to his own home. He was returning from the town. Had he been home earlier, he would have heard the news from Harry. But Harry had now had his dinner and was gone again. He did not dine at the later hour.

“I have brought you some news, sir,” said Hamish, as they entered together.

“News again! It cannot be very great, by the side of what we were favoured with last night from Mr. Roland,” was the remark of Mr. Huntley.

“But indeed it is. Greater news even than that. We have found Charley, Mr. Huntley.”

Mr. Huntley sprang from the chair he was taking. “Found Charley! Have you really? Where has he—Hamish, I see by your countenance that the tidings are good. He must be alive.”

“He is alive and well. At least, well, comparatively speaking. A barge was passing down the river at the time he fell in, and the man leaped overboard and saved him. Charley has been in the barge ever since, and has had brain fever.”

“And how did he come home?” wondered Mr. Huntley, when he had sufficiently digested the news.

“The barge brought him back. It is on its way up again. Charley arrived under escort of the barge-woman, a red handkerchief on his head in lieu of his trencher, which, you know, he lost that night,” added Hamish, laughing. “Lady Augusta, who was going out of the house as he entered, was frightened into the belief that it was his ghost, and startled them all with her cries to that effect, including the bishop, who was with my father in the drawing-room.”

“Hamish, it is like a romance!” said Mr. Huntley.

“Very nearly, taking one circumstance with another. My father’s return, cured; Roland’s letter; and now Charley’s resuscitation. Their all happening together renders it the more remarkable. Poor Charley does look as much like a ghost as anything, and his curls are gone. They had to cut his hair close in the fever.”

Mr. Huntley paused. “Do you know, Hamish,” he presently said, “I begin to think we were all a set of wiseacres. We might have thought of a barge.”

“If we had thought of a barge, we should never have thought the barge would carry him off,” objected Hamish. “However, we have him back now, and I thank God. I always said he would turn up, you know.”

“I must come and see him,” said Mr. Huntley. “I was at the college school this morning, therefore close to your house, but I did not call. I thought your father would have enough callers, without me.”

Hamish laughed. “He has had a great many. The house, I understand, has been like a fair. He is in Guild Street this afternoon. It looks like the happy old times, to see him at his post again.”

“What are you going to do, now your place is usurped?” asked Mr. Huntley. “Subside into a clerk again, and discharge the one who was taken on in your stead, when you were promoted?”

“That’s the question—what is to be done with me?” returned Hamish, in his joking manner. “I have been telling my father that I had perhaps better pay Port Natal a visit, and join Roland Yorke.”

“I told your father once, that when this time came, I would help you to a post.”

“I am aware you did, sir. But you told me afterwards that you had altered your intention—I was not eligible for it.”

“Believing you were the culprit at Galloway’s.”

Hamish raised his eyebrows. “The extraordinary part of that, sir, is, how you could have imagined such a thing of me.”

“Hamish, I shall always think so myself in future. But I have this justification—that I was not alone in the belief. Some of your family, who might be supposed to know you better than I, entertained the same opinion.”

“Yes; Constance and Arthur. But are you sure, sir, that it was not their conduct that first induced you to suspect me?”

“Right, lad. Their conduct—I should rather say their manner—was inexplicably mysterious, and it induced me to ferret out its cause. That they were screening some one, was evident, and I could only come to the conclusion that it was you. But, Master Hamish, there were circumstances on your own part which tended to strengthen the belief,” added Mr. Huntley, his tone becoming lighter. “Whence sprang that money wherewith you satisfied some of your troublesome creditors, just at that same time?”

Once more, as when it was alluded to before, a red flush dyed the face of Hamish. Certainly, it could not be a flush of guilt, while that ingenuous smile hovered on his lips. But Hamish seemed attacked with sudden shyness. “Your refusal to satisfy me on this point, when we previously spoke of it, tended to confirm my suspicions,” continued Mr. Huntley. “I think you might make a confidant of me, Hamish. That money could not have dropped from the clouds; and I am sure you possessed no funds of your own just then.”

“But neither did I steal it. Mr. Huntley”—raising his eyes to that gentleman’s face—“how closely you must have watched me and my affairs!”

Mr. Huntley drew in his lips. “Perhaps I had my own motives for doing so, young sir.”

“I earned the money,” said Hamish, who probably penetrated into Mr. Huntley’s “motives;” at any rate, he hoped he did so. “I earned it fairly and honourably, by my own private and special industry.”

Mr. Huntley opened his eyes. “Private and special industry! Have you turned shoemaker?”

“Not shoemaker,” laughed Hamish. “Book-maker. The truth is, Mr. Huntley—But will you promise to keep my secret?”

“Ay. Honour bright.”

“I don’t want it to be known just yet. The truth is, I have been doing some literary work. Martin Pope gave me an introduction to one of the London editors, and I sent him some papers. They were approved of and inserted: but for the first I received no pay. I threatened to strike, and then payment was promised. The first instalment, I chiefly used to arrest my debts; the second and third to liquidate them. That’s where the money came from.”

Mr. Huntley stared at Hamish as if he could scarcely take in the news. It was, however, only the simple truth. When Martin Pope paid a visit to Hamish, one summer night, frightening Hamish and Arthur, who dreaded it might be a less inoffensive visitor; frightening Constance, for that matter, for she heard more of their dread than was expedient; his errand was to tell Hamish that in future he was to be paid for his papers: payment was to commence forthwith. You may remember the evening, though it is long ago. You may also remember Martin Pope’s coming hurriedly into the office in Guild Street, telling Hamish some one was starting by the train; when both hastened to the station, leaving Arthur in wonder. That was the very London editor himself. He had been into the country, and was taking Helstonleigh on his way back to town; had stayed in it a day or two for the purpose of seeing Martin Pope, who was an old friend, and of being introduced to Hamish Channing. That shy feeling of reticence, which is the characteristic of most persons whose genius is worth anything, had induced Hamish to bury all this in silence.

“But when have you found time to write?” exclaimed Mr. Huntley, unable to get over his surprise. “You could not find it during office hours?”

“Certainly not. I have written in the evening, and at night. I have been a great rake, stopping up later than I ought, at this writing.”

“Do they know of it at home?”

“Some of them know that I sit up; but they don’t know what I sit up for. By way of a blind—I suppose it may be called a justifiable deceit,” said Hamish, gaily—“I have taken care to carry the office books into my room, that their suspicions may be confined to the accounts. Judy’s keen eyes detected my candle burning later than she considered it ought to burn, and her rest has been disturbed with visions of my setting the house on fire. I have counselled her to keep the water-butt full, under her window, so that she may be safe from danger.”

“And are you earning money now?”

“In-one sense, I am: I am writing for it. My former papers were for the most part miscellaneous—essays, and that sort of thing; but I am about a longer work now, to be paid for on completion. When it is finished and appears, I shall startle them at home with the news, and treat them to a sight of it. When all other trades fail, sir, I can set up my tent as an author.”

Mr. Huntley’s feelings glowed within him. None, more than he, knew the value of silent industry—the worth of those who patiently practise it. His heart went out to Hamish. “I suppose I must recommend you to Bartlett’s post, after all,” said he, affecting to speak carelessly, his eye betraying something very different.

“Is it not gone?” asked Hamish.

“No, it is not gone. And the appointment rests with me. How would you like it?”

“Nay,” said Hamish, half mockingly: “the question is, should I be honest enough for it?”

Mr. Huntley shook his fist at him. “If you ever bring that reproach up to me again, I’ll—I’ll—You had better keep friends with me, you know, sir, on other scores.”

Hamish laughed. “I should like the post very much indeed, sir.”

“And the house also, I suppose, you would make no objection to?” nodded Mr. Huntley.

“None in the world. I must work away, though, if it is ever to be furnished.”

“How can you tell but that some good spirit might furnish it for you?” cried Mr. Huntley, quaintly.

They were interrupted before anything more was said. Ellen, who had been out with her aunt, came running in, in excitement. “Oh, papa! such happy news! Charles Channing is found, and—”

She stopped when she saw that she had another auditor. Hamish rose to greet her. He took her hand, released it, and then returned to the fire to Mr. Huntley. Ellen stood by the table, and had grown suddenly timid.

“You will soon be receiving a visit from my mother and Constance,” observed Hamish, looking at her. “I heard certain arrangements being discussed, in which Miss Ellen Huntley’s name bore a part. We are soon to lose Constance.”

Ellen blushed rosy red. Mr. Huntley was the first to speak. “Yorke has come to his senses, I suppose?”

“Yorke and Constance between them. In a short time she is to be transplanted to Hazledon.”

“It is more than he deserves,” emphatically declared Mr. Huntley. “I suppose you will be for getting married next, Mr. Hamish, when you come into possession of that house we have been speaking of, and are your own master?”

“I always intended to think of it, sir, as soon as I could do so,” returned saucy Hamish. And Ellen ran out of the room.

That same afternoon Arthur Channing was seated at the organ in pursuance of his duty, when a message came up from the dean. He was desired to change the selected anthem, taken from the thirty-fifth Psalm, for another: “O taste, and see, how gracious the Lord is!”

It was not an anthem in the cathedral collection, but one recently composed and presented to it by a private individual. It consisted of a treble solo and chorus. Why had the dean specially commanded it for that afternoon? Very rarely indeed did he change the services after they were put up. Had he had Arthur in his mind when he decided upon it? It was impossible to say. Be it as it would, the words found a strange echo in Arthur’s heart, as Bywater’s sweet voice rang through the cathedral. “O taste, and see, how gracious the Lord is, blessed is the man that trusteth in him. O fear the Lord, ye that are his saints, for they that fear him lack nothing. The lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they who seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good. The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous: and his ears are open unto their prayers. Great are the troubles of the righteous; but the Lord delivereth him out of all. The............