Eric needed no urging to become a Methodist after this—he regarded it as part of the love and duty that he owed his adopted father—and so the very first letter that was sent to Sister Martin in England told how Eric, her waif, had become a professed Methodist at his own desire.
The following season she came again with another party of slaves, but after this there was an end of sending convicts to His Majesty's plantations of America, for the American War broke out the following year, and so there were no more visits from Sister Martin. The war which began so hastily, and was expected to end in a few months to the confusion of the colonists, was not over until Eric was a full-grown man, and all memory of him as a slave-convict had been forgotten here in England; so that he could return to see his native country and the one dear friend it held for him without fear of discovery.
So, ten years after he left his native shore, he returned on a visit to Sister Martin, and to transact some business for his adopted father and the Methodist congregation to which he belonged.
People did not cross the Atlantic for mere pleasure in those days, and therefore, if business of some importance had not arisen, that he alone could transact for Mr. Consett, it is unlikely that Eric would ever have come back to his native land.
But when he had seen Sister Martin, and the friends of his adopted father, a desire to see his mother's grave and his old home at The Magpie took him to Summerleigh once more.
He went in very different guise from that in which he had left it ten years before, but still he wondered whether any one would recognise him as the Eric Hunter who had been driven away as a beggar and vagabond, unworthy even to be stable boy at the village inn.
Now he went back as a gentleman traveller, who could command the best horses and the best room at any inn where he might choose to put up, and as such he was received by his old mistress when he ordered a good dinner to be served, and the best bedroom in the house prepared for a lady who would come by post-chaise a few hours later.
He had ridden out on horseback, but Sister Martin had promised to come and stay with him for a few days in his old home, and it was for her comfort he was so solicitous, and so particular as to what room she would occupy.
He also insisted upon seeing to his horse himself, for this would give him a peep at the old stable-yard, and a chance of finding out whether his old dumb friend Peggy was still alive.
But although Summerleigh as a whole had stood still through all the years he had been away, and the landlady herself was not much altered from what he had known her, still there had been changes.
Old Toby lay in the churchyard, and not one of the horses he had formerly tended at The Magpie was in its stables now. The old doctor and the constable too were dead, and the boys he had known, and often envied, were lounging, sleepy-looking men, like their fathers before them.
But before he had been an hour in the place, he heard that the village still boasted of its intolerance and hatred of strangers, especially Methodists.
"I wouldn't have one o' them pestilent people in my house, no, not if they was to pay me double, sir," said the mistress of The Magpie to Eric when he ventured to make some inquiry about these people. "Summerleigh wouldn't abide 'em," she continued. "One of 'em did attempt to preach here once, but a good ducking in our horsepond cured him, and we ain't never been pestered since."
Eric thought he would like to try what he could do to break down this prejudice, but just now he had to think of Sister Martin, for her health had given way, and she was coming to try what the forest air would do for her restoration.
Eric told her what he wished the next day, as they slowly walked along the grassy paths he remembered so well in the forest, and together they formed a plan by which Summerleigh should be taken by guile.
Life in London could not be long for her, the doctor had said; but here, in the fresh country air, her life might be prolonged for some years, and so, as they walked, it was arranged that the little cottage where Eric had lived, and his mother had died, should be bought by him now, for Sister Martin's future home.
The owner would be glad to sell it, they had heard, for no one stayed in it long, since the witch woman had lived there some years ago.
The cottage was bought and put into thorough repair by Eric for his second mother, and before he returned to America, he had the joy of seeing her installed there, and received by the villagers with respect at least; for her connection with the wealthy gentleman who had bought the property made her a person of some importance in their eyes.
Here Sister Martin settled down to spend the evening of her days, and so to live the life known as Methodist, that these people could not but be touched and helped, though they might never hear the name of Wesley; for it was not Wesley, but the Lord Jesus Christ, who was the spring and fount of life in these people, and it was of Him her Master that she spoke whenever she could.
This method might be slow, but it was sure, and from her cottage home, Sister Martin could send and tell Eric of the changed life of one and another among his old friends, until at last she could venture to tell them who was their benefactor, and why he had sought to help them, so that "Eric the Waif" whom they had driven away, came to be a name of honour and renown in many a home in Summerleigh.
THE END.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.