Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood Part 62

"Well, is his father not a respectable man?"

"Oh, yes, certainly. Thoroughly respectable."

"He wouldn't borrow money of his tailor instead of paying for his clothes, would he?"

"Certainly not"

"And if he were to die to-day he would carry no debts to heaven with him?"

"I believe not."

"Does he bear false witness against his neighbour?"

"No. He scorns a lie as much as any man I ever knew."

"Which of the commandments is it in particular that he breaks, then?"

"None that I know of; excepting that no one can keep them yet that is only human. He tries to keep every one of them I do believe."

"Well, I think Tom very fortunate in having such a father. I wish my mother had been as good."

"That is all true, and yet--"

"And yet, suppose a young man you liked had had a fashionable father who had ruined half a score of trades-people by his extravagance--would you object to him because of his family?"

"Perhaps not."

"Then, with you, position outweighs honesty--in fathers, at least."

To this I was not ready with an answer, and my wife went on.

"It might be reasonable if you did though, from fear lest he should turn out like his father.--But do you know why I would not accept your offer of taking my name when I should succeed to the property?"

"You said you liked mine better," I answered.

"So I did. But I did not tell you that I was ashamed that my good husband should take a name which for centuries had been borne by hard-hearted, worldly minded people, who, to speak the truth of my ancestors to my husband, were neither gentle nor honest, nor high-minded."

"Still, Ethelwyn, you know there is something in it, though it is not so easy to say what. And you avoid that. I suppose Martha has been talking you over to her side."

"Harry," my wife said, with a shade of solemnity, "I am almost ashamed of you for the first time. And I will punish you by telling you the truth. Do you think I had nothing of that sort to get over when I began to find that I was thinking a little more about you than was quite convenient under the circ.u.mstances? Your manners, dear Harry, though irreproachable, just had not the tone that I had been accustomed to.

There was a diffidence about you also that did not at first advance you in my regard."

"Yes, yes," I answered, a little piqued, "I dare say. I have no doubt you thought me a boor."

"Dear Harry!"

"I beg your pardon, wifie. I know you didn't. But it is quite bad enough to have brought you down to my level, without sinking you still lower."

"Now there you are wrong, Harry. And that is what I want to show you.

I found that my love to you would not be satisfied with making an exception in your favour. I must see what force there really was in the notions I had been bred in."

"Ah!" I said. "I see. You looked for a principle in what you had thought was an exception."

"Yes," returned my wife; "and I soon found one. And the next step was to throw away all false judgment in regard to such things. And so I can see more clearly than you into the right of the matter.--Would you hesitate a moment between Tom Weir and the dissolute son of an earl, Harry?"

"You know I would not."

"Well, just carry out the considerations that suggests, and you will find that where there is everything personally n.o.ble, pure, simple, and good, the lowliness of a man's birth is but an added honour to him; for it shows that his n.o.bility is altogether from within him, and therefore is his own. It cannot then have been put on him by education or imitation, as many men's manners are, who wear their good breeding like their fine clothes, or as the Pharisee his prayers, to be seen of men."

"But his sister?"

"Harry, Harry! You were preaching last Sunday about the way G.o.d thinks of things. And you said that was the only true way of thinking about them. Would the Mary that poured the ointment on Jesus's head have refused to marry a good man because he was the brother of that Mary who poured it on His feet? Have you thought what G.o.d would think of Tom for a husband to Martha?"

I did not answer, for conscience had begun to speak. When I lifted my eyes from the ground, thinking Ethelwyn stood beside me, she was gone.

I felt as if she were dead, to punish me for my pride. But still I could not get over it, though I was ashamed to follow and find her. I went and got my hat instead, and strolled out.

What was it that drew me towards Thomas Weir's shop? I think it must have been incipient repentance--a feeling that I had wronged the man.

But just as I turned the corner, and the smell of the wood reached me, the picture so often a.s.sociated in my mind with such a scene of human labour, rose before me. I saw the Lord of Life bending over His bench, fashioning some lowly utensil for some housewife of Nazareth. And He would receive payment for it too; for He at least could see no disgrace in the order of things that His Father had appointed. It is the vulgar mind that looks down on the earning and worships the inheriting of money. How infinitely more poetic is the belief that our Lord did His work like any other honest man, than that straining after His glorification in the early centuries of the Church by the invention of fables even to the disgrace of his father! They say that Joseph was a bad carpenter, and our Lord had to work miracles to set the things right which he had made wrong! To such a cla.s.s of mind as invented these fables do those belong who think they honour our Lord when they judge anything human too common or too unclean for Him to have done.

And the thought sprung up at once in my mind--"If I ever see our Lord face to face, how shall I feel if He says to me; 'Didst thou do well to murmur that thy sister espoused a certain man for that in his youth he had earned his bread as I earned mine? Where was then thy right to say unto me, Lord, Lord?'"

I hurried into the workshop.

"Has Tom told you about it?" I said.

"Yes, sir. And I told him to mind what he was about; for he was not a gentleman, and you was, sir."

"I hope I am. And Tom is as much a gentleman as I have any claim to be."

Thomas Weir held out his hand.

"Now, sir, I do believe you mean in my shop what you say in your pulpit; and there is ONE Christian in the world at least.--But what will your good lady say? She's higher-born than you--no offence, sir."

"Ah, Thomas, you shame me. I am not so good as you think me. It was my wife that brought me to reason about it."

"G.o.d bless her."

"Amen. I'm going to find Tom."

At the same moment Tom entered the shop, with a very melancholy face. He started when he saw me, and looked confused.

"Tom, my boy," I said, "I behaved very badly to you. I am sorry for it.

Come back with me, and have a walk with my sister. I don't think she'll be sorry to see you."

His face brightened up at once, and we left the shop together. Evidently with a great effort Tom was the first to speak.

"I know, sir, how many difficulties my presumption must put you in."