It was with a thrill of joy that he saw Emmanuel kneeling before the altar rails, meekly lifting up his hands to receive the sacred symbols of Divine love. Could he leave his convert behind him in the fever-tainted alley, where the sweet summertide was ever the harbinger of death? No. He made up his mind that Emmanuel and his mother should go with him. ‘I am doubtful if you would be able to live at Little Yafford by shoe-mending,’ he said, when he discussed the question with Joyce and the widow, ‘but, if I could get the schoolmaster a better berth somewhere else, I am sure you could manage the school, with a little help from me at the beginning.’ ‘Oh, sir, it would be the very thing for him,’ cried Mrs. Joyce. ‘His father began life as a parish schoolmaster, and he gave Emmanuel a good plain education. He was very severe with the poor lad, but that was partly in his anxiety to make him a thorough scholar. I don’t think there’s any one could beat my boy in arithmetic or Bible history. I’m sure he could teach. You’d like to teach, wouldn’t you, Emmanuel?’ ‘John Milton was a schoolmaster,’ said Joyce, with his face all aglow. ‘I should like it of all things, if you think I could do it, Mr. Culverhouse.’ ‘As for book learning,’ cried the widow, ‘I don’t think there’s one in a thousand--no, not even among the gentlefolks--has read as much as my Emmanuel.’ ‘A wide range of reading would hardly be required, though every teacher must be the better for it,’ said Cyril, smiling. ‘But I know that Emmanuel has been well grounded in a plain English education, and that he now thinks rightly upon religious questions, so I fancy he might teach well in our parish school. Of course, the first thing to be done is to get a better place for the present man, who is a very good master.’ Cyril did not add, as he might have done, that the present schoolmaster’s merits were chiefly his work. He had taken infinite pains to teach the teacher as well as the pupils. Before Cyril had been at Little Yafford a month he contrived to get the schoolmaster transferred to a more profitable situation forty miles away, and to get Emmanuel Joyce accepted as master upon probation. He was to do the work for a quarter without remuneration; and if he succeeded in pleasing the Vicar and churchwardens, was to be engaged at the end of that time at the handsome stipend of five-and-thirty pounds a year, with a cottage adjoining the school, and an allowance of coals and candles. This, in Yorkshire twenty years ago was to be passing rich.