No Blessing.
"WHAT an odd view mother takes of life!" thought John, as he went
whistling along the road towards the house of Justice Burns, to whom
his uncle had been butler, and in whose hands he had left his savings.
"Mother always seems to feel as if she were on a journey, with her
staff in her hand, and her bundle on her back, though she has bided
these thirty years in that little cottage where I was born. She's
always a-thinking of getting on to another world, and perhaps since
father has gone there that's natural enough, for he was the light
of her eyes. But I take it this world is a very good world, and I'm
in no hurry to leave it. I mean to settle down and thrive in that
little public-house which is to be let at such a bargain, drive a good
business, make plenty of money, and then ask little Dinah to come and
share my home. A lucky legacy that of my uncle's, and come at a lucky
time. Mother may say what she likes, there's nothing better in life
than a little hard cash—except a great deal of it!" And John Carey
laughed gaily to himself as he pulled the bell at the Justice's door.
"What do you want here?" asked the liveried servant who answered the
bell.
"I want to see Justice Burns. I'm the nephew of his late butler, and he
has money of mine in his hands."
"Ah! You're the nephew of poor old Carey, are you?" said the footman,
relaxing into an easy sociable manner. "Come in and sit down in the
hall. You can't see master yet, for he's taking his breakfast."
As John entered the hall, he might have guessed that a meal was going
on in the house, from the very savoury scent which proceeded out of the
dining-room.
"Breakfast! Why it's nigh noonday!" cried honest John, who had already
taken his dinner, "It's plain the Justice ain't up with the lark."
"You wouldn't be up with the lark neither, if you had such nights as he
has," said the servant, who was inclined for a gossip. "The Justice is
a martyr to gout—suffers misery, he does, and makes every one about him
miserable too, I suppose to keep him company."
"I should say his gout doesn't take away his appetite," observed John,
glancing at a steaming dish which the butler was carrying in at that
moment to his master.
The footman shrugged his shoulders. "There's the mischief," said he.
"The more the Justice suffers, the more he eats; the more he eats, the
more he suffers; but he can't do without his turtle and venison, his
sauces and wines. Doctor and cook, he keeps both of them at work. I'd
not have such legs as he has for ten thousand pounds a year; they're
swelled as big as two, and he can hardly get up from his chair; we've
to wheel him from one room to another."
"'Twould have been better, maybe, for the Justice if he'd had to follow
the plough at sunrise, and get a good appetite for his bread and
cheese," observed John, glancing down with some satisfaction at his own
active powerful limbs, that had never suffered from an hour's disease.
"Oh! I often say that it would have been a good thing for him, if he'd
had to work hard for his bread, clip hedges or break stones on the
road," said the talkative footman. "But there's his bell, I must answer
it at once, for he's mighty easily put out when a fit of the gout is
upon him."
"Well, maybe hard cash, even a great deal of it, is not always a
blessing," was the thought which John Carey had leisure to turn well
over in his mind during the half-hour which he had to wait while
the Justice was eating and drinking in misery and pain, wasting on
gluttonous indulgence that money for which he would one day have to
render a strict account.
At last the Justice was ready to see John Carey in the study. The
young countryman, as he trod the Turkey-carpet of that luxurious
room, looked with mingled pity and contempt on the owner of so much
wealth, bolstered up with cushions, and swathed in flannels, with the
peevishness of suffering written upon his red bloated face. John could
not help thinking of the cheerful patience of his own father during
sickness, and the thankful pleasure with which he had received every
little comfort, as a direct gift from his God.
"What's this you want—your uncle's legacy? I don't know why he should
have bothered me with a petty matter like this," said the Justice
peevishly, when John had explained his business.
"Thirty pounds—is that the sum? Yes, I remember; I was writing out a
cheque for it last night when I was taken so ill that I could scarcely
hold the pen in my fingers."
The Justice looked as if it were a labour and pain to him now to open
the desk before him with his swollen gouty hands, and he had hardly
taken out the cheque when his servant ushered in the doctor.
"There—go, they'll cash it for you in Argyll Street; I can't be plagued
with business," said the Justice hastily, motioning to John to quit his
presence.
Young Carey hurriedly put the cheque into his pocket-book and left
the house, feeling that he would not change places with that wretched
Dives, who lived but for self, even if there were no danger of the
"place of torment" succeeding the state of luxury of him who fared
sumptuously every day.
"I'm thirsty, and I've a long trudge before me," said John to himself.
"I'll just step into the little inn yonder, and refresh myself with a
tumbler of beer."
John found in the "White Hart," Sam Soames, a man with whom he had
but a slight acquaintance, "the less the better," as Mrs. Carey
often had said. No one who looked at Sam as he sat with his elbows
rubbing through his sleeves, with his battered hat, dirty shirt, and
poverty-stricken aspect, would have guessed that he was a skilled
workman, who could win two guineas a week. Sam had earned a great
deal of money in his time, but as fast as he made it, the gold seemed
to slip through his fingers. It might be said of him in the forcible
language of Scripture, "he earneth wages to put into a bag with
holes." *
* Haggai i. 6.
Never had John's father, through all his long sickness, when he had no
power to earn a shilling, known the actual want which was staring in
the face of this man, who had no one to blame but himself that he was
not one of the most thriving workmen in the town where he lived. Money
had come—and had gone—a blessing was not upon it!
John Carey was of a kindly, sociable temper, such as scarcely suited
his nickname of "young lion." Worthless as he knew Sam Soames to be, he
pitied his wretched condition, and was willing to do him a kindness.
He treated Soames to beer, and while the two men drank together, John
chatted freely with his companion over his own affairs. Carey told
Soames of the legacy which had been left by his uncle, and of the
cheque for thirty pounds which he was going to get cashed in London. In
his openness of heart, the "young lion" told him moreover of his own
plan of partnership with Brace, and invited Sam to come and look in on
him sometimes when he should be landlord of the "Jolly Ploughboys."
This Sam Soames very readily promised to do, hoping, no doubt, that
his easy-tempered friend would not be hard upon him when the time for
reckoning should come.
"It was too bad in me to talk about my good-luck to that poor ruined
fellow," thought honest John, as, after paying for what he and his
companion had taken, he started off on his long walk to London; "it was
like making a hungry dog look in through the window at a well-filled
larder, when he has not so much as a bone to grind between his jaws.
Well, well, if Sam Soames had my thirty pounds to-day, there would not
be thirty pence of it left by Sunday. He's one of them chaps that no
one can help; hard cash—much or little of it—would be no blessing to
him."
And with this reflection John dismissed the subject from his mind, and
took to whistling again.
The "young lion" was scarcely at all tired by his ten miles' walk to
London. He was puzzled, however, to find his way through its labyrinth
of streets, crossing each other in every direction, and found the noise
and bustle of the mighty city very distracting.
"I've heard of some one who said that he'd rather hear the lark sing
than the mouse squeak," muttered John to himself, "and I'm much of
his mind. I'd think a fortune dearly earned if I'd to go moiling and
toiling all my days in a racket like this. But different folk have
different tastes; maybe there are some who like it, and would rather
see carriages rolling along, than a field of fine wheat bending as the
wind blows across it. I'm not one of that sort—that's all."
John had some trouble in finding Argyll Street, and it was an hour
later than he expected when he reached the bank at last. The young
peasant felt a little shy on entering the large room in which were so
many clerks at their desks.
"Here be a lot of fine gentlemen," thought John, "who have nothing to
do from morning till night but count up money, and shovel out gold. How
tired one would get of the clink of it, and the endless summing and
reckoning! I'd rather by far sow beans!"
John's rough jacket and hob-nailed shoes seemed to himself out of place
in the bank. Anything like transacting business was new to him, and the
"young lion" looked awkward and shy as he advanced, cap in hand, to the
front of one of the desks, behind which stood a clerk, who appeared to
John to be a very fine gentleman indeed.
The clerk inquired what was his business.
"I want to get this here cheque cashed," said John, pulling his
pocket-book from his breast-pocket, and then fumbling in it to find his
valuable paper. It was some little time before he could lay his strong
clumsy fingers upon it, and put it down on the desk.
"Who gave you this?" asked the clerk.
"Justice Burns, it's for thirty pounds; you see my uncle, he left me a
legacy, and—"
The man of business cut the speech of the countryman short.
"This cheque is of no use," he said, pushing it back towards John,
"there is no signature on it."
Carey stared in blank amazement, first at the speaker, then at the
cheque. What the clerk had said was true enough; the gouty Justice in
drawing out the cheque had forgotten to sign his name.
John rubbed his heated forehead, and looked perplexed. "What's to be
done?" said he.
"You must take back the cheque and get it signed, of course," said the
clerk; "as it is, it is of no more use than blank paper." And having
thus summarily dismissed the business, the clerk turned away to attend
to a gentleman who had just entered the office.
"This ben't the First of April, or I should have thought the Justice
had chosen to play me a trick," thought John, as, somewhat mortified
and provoked, he replaced the cheque in his pocket-book, and then
quitted the bank.
"He'd no right to send me on such a fool's errand as this because
he'd a twinge in his gouty foot. I'll tell him my mind when I see him
to-morrow. I'll just go and refresh myself now a bit; for an hour of
walking about this Babel takes more out of a fellow than a day spent in
hedging and ditching. I'll buy the few things I want, and then get home
as fast as my legs will carry me. I shall be ashamed to tell Dick Brace
that I've lost a day's work, and had a twenty miles' walk for my pains;
'twill always be a-coming up as a joke against me."