from his
childhood; they thought he had a tendency to consumption, and so he had
been kept at home and taught by his father, who had made a companion of
him, and from whom he had gained good scholarship, and a knowledge of
and interest in many subjects which boys in general never come across
till they are many years older.

Just as he reached his thirteenth year, and his father had settled that
he was strong enough to go to school, and, after much debating with
himself, had resolved to send him there, a desperate typhus fever broke
out in the town. Most of the other clergy, and almost all the doctors,
ran away; the work fell with tenfold weight on those who stood to their
work. Arthur and his wife both caught the fever, of which he died in a
few days; and she recovered, having been able to nurse him to the end,
and store up his last words. He was sensible to the last, and calm and
happy, leaving his wife and children with fearless trust for a few years
in the hands of the Lord and Friend who had lived and died for him, and
for whom he, to the best of his power, had lived and died. His widow's
mourning was deep and gentle. She was more affected by the request of
the committee of a freethinking club, established in the town by some of
the factory hands (which he had striven against with might and main, and
nearly suppressed), that some of their number might be allowed to help
bear the coffin, than by anything else. Two of them were chosen, who,
with six other labouring men, his own fellow-workmen and friends, bore
him to his grave--a man who had fought the Lord's fight even unto the
death. The shops were closed and the factories shut that day in the
parish, yet no master stopped the day's wages; but for many a year
afterwards the townsfolk felt the want of that brave, hopeful, loving
parson and his wife, who had lived to teach them mutual forbearance and
helpfulness, and had almost at last given them a glimpse of what this
old world would be if people would live for God and each other instead
of for themselves.

What has all this to do with our story? Well, my dear boys, let a fellow
go on his own way, or you won't get anything out of him worth having.
I must show you what sort of a man it was who had begotten and trained
little Arthur, or else you won't believe in him, which I am resolved you
shall do; and you won't see how he, the timid, weak boy, had points in
him from which the bravest and strongest recoiled, and ma