The Knights of the White Shield Part 40

And the mother said, "I hope my boy will now take his true name, and come again soon, and bring Antonio Walton with him."

But would he and Tony ever come again? Tony came to bid good-bye to Charlie, and said, very soberly and touchingly, "We'd better kiss each other, for I feel that we shall never see each other again. Good-bye, for we shall never see each other any more."

It was a very pathetic speech, and Charlie said, mournfully, as he kissed him, "Well, good-bye, Tony."

Tony and his father went to Italy in a bark that left Seamont bound for the Mediterranean. Charlie watched the vessel from the barn window.

Like a gull that flying afar sinks lower and then disappears behind some rising billow, so the sails of the bark, receding farther and farther, vanished behind that blue rim of the horizon that rises up to check our sight and hide away the vessels that may hold our dearest hopes.

CHAPTER XX.

THE BOUND HIGHER UP.

Miss Barry was talking to her boys one Sunday; "Boys, you have had an Up-the-Ladder Club this past year, and I hope it has not been simply a play-ladder, but while playing you have also done something else. I think you have done a good work for temperance, and you have been kind to another in trouble. I think you have tried to keep your badge clean, and not stain it by bad words. You have tried to get hold of some useful knowledge through your club. All that is excellent as far as it goes. But I am thinking, while you are on this ladder, whether there may not be a round you haven't touched, and yet one you ought to put your foot on.

Between this time and next Sunday, please think what that other round may be, the round higher up."

The boys looked sober, but no one made a reply.

"The round higher up," Charlie would sometimes say to himself during the week.

Sometimes in the midst of his play and his studies, that thought would visit him, "the round higher up." It came to him in his dreams. Looking up, he saw a silver ladder and it stretched above him, reaching at last a beautiful palace. Over the palace, flashed out, in letters of gold, the words, "G.o.d's Palace." But what was it Charlie saw not far from this ladder? Another, but O, so mean and little! Charlie knew it.

"My ladder!" he shouted. "Let me see how many rounds are there!"

"I think there is room for a round higher up," said a voice. "That, as it is, wont touch G.o.d's Palace."

Startled by the sound Charlie awoke.

The next Sunday Miss Barry said: "Boys, I don't think I need ask about the round higher up which your ladder needs. You understand me, and I want you to put it in. We never can climb very high, unless our life is pure and lovely and n.o.ble. It must be like Christ's life, and filled with the beautiful thoughts and purposes he had. That is the round higher up we need."

These words stirred Charlie still more deeply. He thought about that round higher up. If he could only put it into his ladder and get his feet on it!

One night he went to his little bedroom, thinking still about the round higher up. He could lie in bed and look up to the white, silver stars that, like ladder-rounds, seemed to stretch across the sky in lines going higher and higher. If he only had rounds by which he could climb as high as they, his ladder would be tall enough. But how find and where get "the round higher up?" Once more he dreamed and he was looking again at a ladder that starting on the ground stretched up a little way and then suddenly stopped.

"My ladder!" exclaimed Charlie. Then it seemed to him as if above his ladder he saw a bright, beautiful, silver round, but it was up so high he could not reach it! Looking at it, longing to plant his feet upon it, some one seemed to approach Charlie whom he immediately knew, because he resembled pictures in the old family Bible at Aunt Stanshy's. He had a shepherd's crook in his hand, and there was a crown of thorns on his head.

"That's the Good Shepherd," thought Charlie.

"You can't reach that round. Let me help you," said the Good Shepherd. He laid down his crook and lifted Charlie at once. Then the beauty of the dream, its light, its ladder, the Good Shepherd, seemed to vanish, slowly though, even as the stars die away out of the early morning sky. Charley knew what it all meant. When he awoke and thought it over, he knelt by his bed and he prayed to the Saviour. He told him that he wanted to lead that better life, and would he not lift a little fellow where he could not climb himself? And a Saviour's arms, ever waiting to raise us all, were lowered for Charlie's help, and they lifted him to the "round higher up."

Is it not time that we all looked upward, beseeching G.o.d to forgive us, receive us, and make us his forever? Forget not "the round higher up," and through the strength of G.o.d, may it become yours! This very day may your feet be planted on it!

THE END.