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Page 23
Ellen was delighted with the proposition, and warmly expressed her
thanks, and Agnes's wishes were speedily carried into effect. A small
unoccupied cottage was fitted up as a school-house, to which all the
children of the neighborhood, far and near, daily repaired, while at
night the young people of both sex filled the good-sized room of Mr.
Williamson's dwelling, thirsting for that instruction which Agnes was so
willing to impart. Nor did her efforts end here. Of pastoral guidance
these poor people were equally destitute; as sheep without a shepherd,
they had long "stumbled on the dark mountains of sin and error," but now
each Sabbath morning found them congregated in the school-house, singing
the hymns that some of them had learned in childhood, in their distant
native lands, or listening to the sweet tones of their teacher and
guide, as she explained, by many simple and touching illustrations, the
sacred Word, or offered up the fervent prayer, which from her lips
seemed to come with double power, and caused even the sturdy fishermen's
hearts to melt within them. The afternoon of the sacred day was
especially devoted to the children; classes were formed, over which the
most intelligent members of the community presided, conspicuous among
whom was Ellen, whose naturally quick and clever mind, brought into
contact with one so superior as Agnes, rapidly developed, while her
whole appearance gave indications of how much she had profited by
constant intercourse with her youthful companion.
Ellen's parents were not natives of the land in which she now resided.
They had come from one of the counties of England, when Ellen was little
more than an infant; their original destination being Canada, but having
been wrecked on the Newfoundland coast, and lost nearly all they
possessed, they had not means to travel farther; and while Williamson
gladly joined the fishermen in their occupation for the purpose of
temporarily supplying the necessities of his family, his wife,--who was
a skilful needle woman, and clever at almost everything,--made herself
generally useful among their families, and thus acquired much influence
over them.
Gradually they came to look upon the sterile coast, unlike, strangely
unlike though it was, to the cultivated lands they had left, as their
home, at least for some years to come. Both frugal and industrious, a
little cottage was speedily erected, which very soon, from the superior
thrift and neatness of its owners, became the best in the place, and as
time passed on, they not only continued to gain a subsistence, but
succeeded in gathering round them many little comforts, which were the
admiration and, sometimes, the envy of their less fortunate neighbors.
From time to time, Mr. Williamson was in the habit of taking a quantity
of their chief export, fish, to H----, and obtaining, in lieu of it,
plentiful supplies of food and clothing; and, what his wife and daughter
had prized more than all, in returning from his last voyage, he had
brought with him a few school-books, with some entertaining works, and
several volumes of interesting and evangelical sermons.
Mrs. Williamson, who was the daughter of a small farmer, had, in her
youth, received the elements of a good English education. She could read
with tolerable fluency, and had taught her children this important
branch; but though, when a child, she had learned to write, want of
practice and varied duties connected with her toilsome condition, had
almost erased the power from memory; and it was with deep regret at her
own neglect, that she found her children growing up as ignorant, as
herself, of the power of communicating their thoughts through the medium
of the pen. It was, therefore, with no small delight, that she had
hailed Agnes's welcome offer; and as she sat, evening after evening, in
her corner by the fireside, apparently busily engaged in knitting, but,
in reality, an attentive listener to the instruction Agnes was imparting
to the young people,--or as she mingled her tones with theirs who, on
the Sabbath, warbled, from hearts attuned to devotion, those melodies
that had been familiar to her from childhood,--again and again, would
memory revert to the happy days of her infancy and youth, when with
beloved parents and friends she had gone up to the house of God, and
while a tear of sorrow and penitence would steal down her cheeks, to
think how much of the instructions, then received, had been forgotten,
she blessed the Parental Hand that had placed beneath her roof, one so
fitted to counsel and comfort, to prove to her, as well as to many
others, a ministering angel indeed.
Thus, happily and usefully employed, the winter months glided by
comparatively swiftly to Agnes. Not that the past was forgotten,--not
that she never sighed for more congenial society, for the friends of her
early youth, or even for the refinement and luxuries by which she had
been surrounded,--that would be affirming too much, for she had a
genuine woman's heart, and that innate perception and love of the
beautiful, which delights in the elegancies and embellishments of life,
and could not as easily accommodate itself, as some could, to a
situation where those are wholly wanting.
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