Janet's Love and Service Part 17

"There's no hurry. It's nothing particular."

But Mr Snow was not in his usual spirits evidently, and watching him stealthily, Janet saw a care-worn anxious expression fastening on his usually, cheerful face.

"Are you no' weel the night?" she asked.

"Sartain. I never was sick in my life."

"And how are they all down-by?" meaning at Mr Snow's house, by "down-by."

"Well, pretty much so. Only just middling. Nothing to brag of, in the way of smartness."

There was a long silence after that. Mr Snow sat with folded arms, looking out on the scene before them.

"It's kind o' pleasant here, ain't it?" said he, at last.

"Ay," said Janet, softly, not caring to disturb his musings. He sat still, looking over his own broad fields, not thinking of them as his, however, not calculating the expense of the new saw-mill, with which he had been threatening to disfigure Carson's brook, just at the point where its waters fell into the pond. He was looking far-away to the distant hills, where the dim haze was deepening into purple, hiding the mountain tops beyond. But it could not be hills, nor haze, nor hidden mountain tops, that had brought that wistful longing look into his eyes, Janet thought, and between doubt as to what she ought to say, and doubt as to whether she should say anything at all, she was for a long time silent. At last, a thought struck her.

"What for wasna you at the Lord's table, on the Sabbath-day?" asked she.

Sampson gave her a queer look, and a short amused laugh.

"Well, I guess our folks would ha' opened their eyes, if I had undertook to go there."

Janet looked at him in some surprise.

"And what for no? I ken there are others of the folk, that let strifes and divisions hinder them from doing their duty, and sitting down together. Though wherefore the like of these things should hinder them from remembering their Lord, is more than I can understand. What hae you been doing, or what has somebody been doing to you?"

There was a pause, and then Sampson looked up and said, gravely.

"Mis' Nasmyth, I ain't a professor. I'm one of the world's people Deacon Fish tells about."

Janet looked grave.

"Come now, Mis' Nasmyth, you don't mean to say you thought I was one of the good ones?"

"You ought to be," said she, gravely.

"Well,--yes, I suppose I ought to. But after all, I guess there ain't a great sight of difference between folks,--leastways, between Merleville folks. I know all about _them_. I was the first white child born in the town, I was raised here, and in some way or other, I'm related to most folks in town, and I ought to know them all pretty well by this time. Except on Sundays, I expect they're all pretty much so. It wouldn't do to tell round, but there are some of the world's people, that I'd full as lief do business with, as with most of the professors.

Now that's a fact."

"You're no' far wrong _there_, I daresay," said Janet, with emphasis.

"But that's neither here nor there, as far as your duty is concerned, as you weel ken."

"No,--I don't know as it is. But it kind o' makes me feel as though there wasn't much in religion, anyway."

Janet looked mystified. Mr Snow continued.

"Well now, see here, I'll tell you just how it is. There ain't one of them that don't think I'm a sinner of the worst kind--gospel hardened.

They've about given me up, I know they have. Well now, let alone the talk, I don't believe there's a mite of difference, between me, and the most of them, and the Lord knows I'm bad enough. And so you see, I've about come to the conclusion, that if there is such a thing as religion, I haven't never come across the real article."

"That's like enough," said Janet, with a groan. "I canna say that I have seen muckle o' it myself in this town, out of our own house. But I canna see that that need be any excuse to you. You have aye the word."

"Well, yes. I've always had the Bible, and I've read it considerable, but I never seem to get the hang of it, somehow. And it ain't because I ain't tried, either. There was one spell that I was dreadful down, and says I to myself, if there's comfort to be got out of that old book, I'm bound to have it. So I began at the beginning about the creation, and Adam and Eve, but I didn't seem to get much comfort there. There was some good reading, but along over a piece, there was a deal that I could see nothing to. Some of the Psalms seemed to kind o' touch the spot, and the Proverbs _are_ first-rate. I tell _you_ he knew something of human nature, that wrote _them_."

"There's one thing you might have learned, before you got far over in Genesis," said Mrs Nasmyth, gravely, "that you are a condemned sinner.

You should have settled that matter with yourself, before you began to look for comfort."

"Yes. I knew that before, but I couldn't seem to make it go. Then I thought, maybe I didn't understand it right, so I talked with folks and went to meeting, and did the best I could, thinking surely what other folks had got, and I hadn't, would come sometime. But it didn't. The talking, and the going to meeting, didn't help me.

"Now there's Deacon Sterne; he'd put it right to me. He'd say, says he, 'Sampson, you're a sinner, you know you be. You've got to give up, and bow that stiff neck o' your'n to the yoke.' Well, 'I'd say, I'd be glad to, if I only knew how to.' Then he'd say, 'But you can't do it yourself, no how. You're clay in the hands of the potter, and you'll have to perish, if the Lord don't take right hold to save you.' Then says I, 'I wish to mercy He would.' Then he'd talk and talk, but it all came to about that, 'I must, and I couldn't,' and it didn't help me a mite.

"That was a spell ago, after Captain Jennings' folks went West. I wanted to go awfully, but father he was getting old, and mother she wouldn't hear a word of it. I was awful discontented, and then, after a spell, worse came, and I tell _you_, I'd ha' given most anything, to have got religion, just to have had something to hold on to."

Mr Snow paused. There was no doubting his earnestness now. Janet did not speak, and in a little while he went on again.

"I'd give considerable, just to be sure there's anything in getting religion. Sometimes I seem to see that there is, and then again I think, why don't it help folks more. Now, there's Deacon Sterne, he's one of the best of them. He wouldn't swerve a hair, from what he believed to be right, not to save a limb. He is one of the real old Puritan sort, not a mite like Fish and Slowcome. But he ain't one of the meek and lowly, I can tell you. And he's made some awful mistakes in his lifetime. He's been awful hard and strict in his family. His first children got along pretty well. Most of them were girls, and their mother was a smart woman, and stood between them and their father's hardness. And besides, in those days when the country was new, folks had to work hard, old and young, and that did considerable towards keeping things straight. But his boys never thought of their father, but to fear him. They both went, as soon as ever they were of age.

Silas came home afterwards, and died. Joshua went West, and I don't believe his father has heard a word from him, these fifteen years. The girls scattered after their mother died, and then the deacon married again, Abby Sheldon, a pretty girl, and a good one; but she never ought to have married him. She was not made of tough enough stuff, to wear along side of him. She has changed into a grave and silent woman, in his house. Her children all died when they were babies, except William, the eldest,--wilful Will, they call him, and I don't know but he'd have better died too, for as sure as the deacon don't change his course with him, he'll drive him right straight to ruin, and break his mother's heart to boot. Now, what I want to know is--if religion is the powerful thing it is called, why don't it keep folks that have it, from making such mistakes in life?"

Janet did not have her answer at her tongue's end, and Sampson did not give her time to consider.

"Now there's Becky Pettimore, she's got religion. But it don't keep her from being as sour as vinegar, and as bitter as gall--"

"Whist, man!" interrupted Janet. "It ill becomes the like o' you to speak that way of a poor lone woman like yon--one who never knew what it was to have a home, but who has been kept down with hard work and little sympathy, and many another trial. She's a worthy woman, and her deeds prove it, for all her sourness. There's few women in the town that I respect as I do her."

"Well, that's so. I know it. I know she gets a dollar a week the year round at Captain Liscome's, and earns it, too; and I know she gives half of it to her aunt, who never did much for her but spoil her temper. But it's an awful pity her religion don't make her pleasant."

"One mustna judge another," said Mrs Nasmyth, gently.

"No, and I don't want to. Only I wish--but there's no good talking.

Still I must say it's a pity that folks who have got religion don't take more comfort out of it. Now there's mother; she's a pillar in the church, and a good woman, I believe, but she's dreadful crank sometimes, and worries about things as she hadn't ought to. Now it seems to me, if I had all they say a Christian has, and expects to have, I'd let the rest go. They don't half of them live as if they took more comfort than I do, and there are spells when I don't take much."

Janet's eyes glistened with sympathy. There was some surprise in them, too. Mr Snow continued--

"Yes, I do get pretty sick of it all by spells. After father died--and other things--I got over caring about going out West, and I thought it as good to settle down on the old place as any where. So I fixed up, and built, and got the land into prime order, and made an orchard, a first-rate one, and made believe happy. And I don't know but I should have stayed so, only I heard that Joe Arnold had died out West--he had married Rachel Jennings, you know; so I got kind of unsettled again, and went off at last. Rachel had changed considerable. She had seen trouble, and had poor health, and was kind o' run down, but I brought her right home--her and little Emily. Well--it didn't suit mother. I hadn't said anything to her when I went off. I hadn't anything to say, not knowing how things might be with Rachel. Come to get home, things didn't go smooth. Mother worried, and Rachel worried, and life wasn't what I expected it was going to be, and I worried for a spell. And Mis'

Nasmyth, if there had been any such thing as getting religion, I should have got it then, for I tried hard, and I wanted something to help me bad enough. There didn't seem to be anything else worth caring about any way.

"Well, that was a spell ago. Emily wasn't but three years old when I brought them home. We've lived along, taking some comfort, as much as folks in general, I reckon. I had got kind of used to it, and had given up expecting much, and took right hold to make property; and have a good time, and here is your minister has come and stirred me up, and made me as discontented with myself and everything else as well."

"You should thank the Lord for that," interrupted Janet, devoutly.

"Well, I don't know about that. Sometimes when he has been speaking, I seem to see that there is something better than just to live along and make property. But then again, I don't see but it's just what folks do who have got religion. Most of the professors that I know--"

"Man!" exclaimed Janet, hotly, "I hae no patience with you and your professors. What need you aye to cast them up? Canna you read your Bible? It's that, and the blessing that was never yet withheld from any one that asked it with humility, that will put you in the way to find abiding peace, and an abiding portion at the last."

"Just so, Mis' Nasmyth," said Mr Snow, deprecatingly, and there was a little of the old twinkle in his eye. "But it does seem as though one might naturally expect a little help from them that are spoken of as the lights of the world; now don't it?"

"There's no denying that, but if you must look about you, you needna surely fix your eyes on such crooked sticks as your Fishes and your Slowcomes. It's no breach o' charity to say that _they_ dinna adorn the doctrine. But there are other folk that I could name, that are both light and salt on the earth."