The Vicar's Daughter Part 41

"And find fault with them," interposed Evans, rather viciously I thought.

"Yes; for they were to blame for their own trouble, and ought to send it away."

"What! To blame for the storm? How could they send that away?"

"Was it the storm that troubled them then? It was their own fear of it. The storm could not have troubled them if they had had faith in their Father in heaven."

"They had good cause to be afraid of it, anyhow."

"He judged they had not, for he was not afraid himself. You judge they had, because you would have been afraid."

"He could help himself, you see."

"And they couldn't trust either him or his Father, notwithstanding all he had done to manifest himself and his Father to them. Therefore he saw that the storm about them was not the thing that most required rebuke."

"I never pretended to much o' the sort," growled Evans. "Quite the contrairy."

"And why? Because, like an honest man, you wouldn't pretend to what you hadn't got. But, if you carried your honesty far enough, you would have taken pains to understand our Lord first. Like his other judges, you condemn him beforehand. You will not call that honesty?"

"I don't see what right you've got to badger me like this before a congregation o' people," said the blind man, rising in indignation. "If I ain't got my heyesight, I ha' got my feelin's."

"And do you think _he_ has no feelings, Mr. Evans? You have spoken evil of _him_: I have spoken but the truth of _you_!"

"Come, come, grannie," said the blind man, quailing a little; "don't talk squash. I'm a livin' man afore the heyes o' this here company, an' he ain't nowheres. Bless you, _he_ don't mind!"

"He minds so much," returned Marion, in a subdued voice, which seemed to tremble with coming tears, "that he will never rest until you think fairly of him. And he is here now; for he said, 'I am with you alway, to the end of the world;' and he has heard every word you have been saying against him. He isn't angry like me; but your words may well make him feel sad--for your sake, John Evans--that you should be so unfair."

She leaned her forehead on her hand, and was silent. A subdued murmur arose. The blind man, having stood irresolute for a moment, began to make for the door, saying,--

"I think I'd better go. I ain't wanted here."

"If you _are_ an honest man, Mr. Evans," returned Marion, rising, "you will sit down and hear the case out."

With a waving, fin-like motion of both his hands, Evans sank into his seat, and spoke no word.

After but a moment's silence, she resumed as if there had been no interruption.

"That he should sleep, then, during the storm was a very different thing from declining to a.s.sist his father in his workshop; just as the rebuking of the sea was a very different thing from hiding up his father's bad work in miracles. Had that father been in danger, he might perhaps have aided him as he did the disciples. But"--

"Why do you say _perhaps_, grannie?" interrupted a bright-eyed boy who sat on the hob of the empty grate. "Wouldn't he help his father as soon as his disciples?"

"Certainly, if it was good for his father; certainly not, if it was not good for him: therefore I say _perhaps_. But now," she went on, turning to the joiner, "Mr. Jarvis, will you tell me whether you think the work of the carpenter's son would have been in any way distinguishable from that of another man?"

"Well, I don't know, grannie. He wouldn't want to be putting of a private mark upon it. He wouldn't want to be showing of it off--would he? He'd use his tools like another man, anyhow."

"All that we may be certain of. He came to us a man, to live a man's life, and do a man's work. But just think a moment. I will put the question again: Do you suppose you would have been able to distinguish his work from that of any other man?"

A silence followed. Jarvis was thinking. He and the blind man were of the few that can think. At last his face brightened.

"Well, grannie," he said, "I think it would be very difficult in any thing easy, but very easy in any thing difficult."

He laughed,--for he had not perceived the paradox before uttering it.

"Explain yourself, if you please, Mr. Jarvis. I am not sure that I understand you," said Marion.

"I mean, that, in an easy job, which any fair workman could do well enough, it would not be easy to tell his work. But, where the job was difficult, it would be so much better done, that it would not be difficult to see the better hand in it."

"I understand you, then, to indicate, that the chief distinction would lie in the quality of the work; that whatever he did, he would do in such a thorough manner, that over the whole of what he turned out, as you would say, the perfection of the work would be a striking characteristic. Is that it?"

"That is what I do mean, grannie."

"And that is just the conclusion I had come to myself."

"_I_ should like to say just one word to it, grannie, so be you won't cut up crusty," said the blind man.

"If you are fair, I sha'n't be crusty, Mr. Evans. At least, I hope not,"

said Marion.

"Well, it's this: Mr. Jarvis he say as how the jiner-work done by Jesus Christ would be better done than e'er another man's,--tip-top fashion,--and there would lie the differ. Now, it do seem to me as I've got no call to come to that 'ere conclusion. You been tellin' on us, grannie, I donno how long now, as how Jesus Christ was the Son of G.o.d, and that he come to do the works of G.o.d,--down here like, afore our faces, that we might see G.o.d at work, by way of. Now, I ha' nothin' to say agin that: it may be, or it mayn't be--I can't tell. But if that be the way on it, then I don't see how Mr. Jarvis can be right; the two don't curryspond,--not by no means.

For the works o' G.o.d--there ain't one on'em as I can see downright well managed--tip-top jiner's work, as I may say; leastways,--Now stop a bit, grannie; don't trip a man up, and then say as he fell over his own dog,--leastways, I don't say about the moon an' the stars an' that; I dessay the sun he do get up the werry moment he's called of a mornin', an' the moon when she ought to for her night-work,--I ain't no 'stronomer strawnry, and I ain't heerd no complaints about _them_; but I do say as how, down here, we ha' got most uncommon bad weather more'n at times; and the walnuts they turns out, every now an' then, full o' mere dirt; an' the oranges awful. There 'ain't been a good crop o' hay, they tells me, for many's the year. An' i' furren parts, what wi' earthquakes an' wolcanies an' lions an' tigers, an' savages as eats their wisiters, an' chimley-pots blowin' about, an' ships goin' down, an' fathers o' families choked an'

drownded an' burnt i' coal-pits by the hundred,--it do seem to me that if his jinerin' hadn't been tip-top, it would ha' been but like the rest on it. There, grannie! Mind, I mean no offence; an' I don't doubt you ha' got somethink i' your weskit pocket as 'll turn it all topsy-turvy in a moment.

Anyhow, I won't purtend to nothink, and that's how it look to me."

"I admit," said Marion, "that the objection is a reasonable one. But why do you put it, Mr. Evans, in such a triumphant way, as if you were rejoiced to think it admitted of no answer, and believed the world would be ever so much better off if the storms and the tigers had it all their own way, and there were no G.o.d to look after things."

"Now, you ain't fair to _me_, grannie. Not avin' of my heyesight like the rest on ye, I may be a bit fond of a harguyment; but I tries to hit fair, and when I hears what ain't logic, I can no more help comin' down upon it than I can help breathin' the air o' heaven. And why shouldn't I? There ain't no law agin a harguyment. An' more an' over, it do seem to me as how you and Mr. Jarvis is wrong i' _it is_ harguyment."

"If I was too sharp upon you, Mr. Evans, and I may have been," said Marion, "I beg your pardon."

"It's granted, grannie."

"I don't mean, you know, that I give in to what you say,--not one bit."

"I didn't expect it of you. I'm a-waitin' here for you to knock me down."

"I don't think a mere victory is worth the breath spent upon it," said Marion. "But we should all be glad to get or give more light upon any subject, if it be by losing ever so many arguments. Allow me just to put a question or two to Mr. Jarvis, because he's a joiner himself--and that's a great comfort to me to-night: What would you say, Mr. Jarvis, of a master who planed the timber he used for scaffolding, and tied the crosspieces with ropes of silk?"

"I should say he was a fool, grannie,--not only for losin' of his money and his labor, but for weakenin' of his scaffoldin',--summat like the old throne-maker i' that chapter, I should say."

"What's the object of a scaffold, Mr. Jarvis?"

"To get at something else by means of,--say build a house."

"Then, so long as the house was going up all right, the probability is there wouldn't be much amiss with the scaffold?"

"Certainly, provided it stood till it was taken down."

"And now, Mr. Evans," she said next, turning to the blind man, "I am going to take the liberty of putting a question or two to you."