"Well, it's a fact. When you break land up it won't _keep_. It goes like
rotten apples: first a bit goes rotten here and then a bit there; and
the rottenness spreads and runs together. And as to _selling_, I tell
you there's something in the land _as knows when you're goin' to sell
it, and loses heart_. I've seen the same thing in 'osses. It takes the
land longer to get used to a new master than it does a 'oss; and there's
some land as never will.
"No, sir, I say again, if you want to make farming _pay_, take a farm on
a big estate, one that's never been broke up and's never likely to be,
one that's been in the same hands for hundreds o' years, one that's
never been shaken up and messed with and slopped all over with lawyer's
ink, and made sour with lawyer's lies. Never mind if the rent's a bit
stiffish. Rent never bothered _me_."
I ventured to dissent from these opinions, for I had given lectures on
Political Economy, and I knew of at least four different theories of
Rent all at variance with Jeremy's--and with one another. Perhaps I
should have succeeded better had I known of only one. But, knowing of
four, I may have become a little confused in my attempts to confute
Farmer Jeremy. Not that this made very much difference. On all questions
relating to the nature of land and its uses Jeremy was a mystic, and
orthodox Political Economy was as futile to his mind as it was to Mr
Ruskin's. Every position I took up was immediately stormed by the
rejoinder, "Ah, well, you're not a farmer, and you don't understand." I
could not help remembering that I had often been overthrown in more
abstruse arguments by the same sort of answer. I might, indeed, have
countered by saying, "Ah, well, Mr Jeremy, you're not an economist, and
_you_ don't understand." But it occurred to me that the reply would be
feeble.
"I tell you," he went on, "that good land _likes_ to be high-rented. It
sort o' keeps it in humour. Land _likes_ to be owned by a gentleman, and
keeps its heart up accordin'. Whenever the rent o' land goes down, the
quality goes down too. I've noticed it again and again."
I tried to indicate that this last statement was an inversion of cause
and effect, but the argument made not the faintest impression on Mr
Jeremy, who merely brushed away a fly that had settled on his nose, and
continued:
"I never spoke to the Dook but once. I met him one morning riding to
hounds with Lady Sybil and Lady Agatha. As soon as he sees me he trots
his horse up to where I was standing and holds out his hand. 'Jeremy,'
says he, 'I want to shake hands with you. You're a splendid specimen of
the British farmer.' 'Thank you, your Grace,' I says; 'and you're a
splendid specimen of the British Dook,' for I was never afraid of
speaking my mind to anyone. At that his Grace bursts out laughin', and
so did Lady Sybil and Lady Agatha too. 'Let me introduce you to my two
daughters,' says he. So he introduces me, and I can tell you I stood up
to 'em like a man, though I did keep my hat in my hand all the time.
'Well, Jeremy,' says he, 'you've got your farm in tip-top condition';
and then he begins talking about putting up some new buildings, as me
and the agent had been talking over before. 'We'll put 'em up next
spring,' says his Grace; 'and remember, Jeremy, that in all that
concerns the development of this farm you have me behind you.' 'I've
never forgotten it, your Grace,' I says, 'and I never shall. And I'm not
the only one who remembers it. _The land_ remembers it too, your Grace,'
I says. 'I hope it does, Jeremy,' says he, 'for I love it.' And I never
see a young lady look prettier than Lady Agatha did when she heard her
father say them words."
I had heard this story so often from Farmer Jeremy, and always with the
same reference to Lady Agatha at the end, that I was familiar with every
word of it. He was growing old, and I believe that in the course of the
year he managed to tell the story a hundred times over. "I was coming
home from market last Saturday," said he, "and a lot of other farmers
was in the same compartment with me. We begins talkin' about the Dook,
and I happened to tell 'em about that time when I met his Grace with
Lady Sybil and Lady Agatha. There was a chap sitting in one corner as
didn't belong to our lot, and as soon as he hears the Dook's name
mentioned he drops his paper and begins listening. Well, I never see
such a rage anywhere as that man got into when I told 'em how I kept my
hat in my hand while talking to the ladies. Regular insultin' is what he
was; and I can tell you I never came nearer giving a man one in the eye
than I did him. I believe I'd ha' done it if there'd been room in the
carriage for him to put up his hands and make a square fight on it. I
don't say as he weren't a plucky chap too; for there wasn't a man in
the carriage as couldn't ha' knocked his head off with the flat of his
hand, if he'd had a mind to. 'Look here, you fellows,' he says, 'you're
a lot of blasted idiots, that's what you are. It's because of the
besotted ignorance of men like you that England has the worst
land-system in the world. Slaverin' and grovellin' before a lot o'
rotten Dooks--why, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves! I'll bet that
Dook o' yours and his two painted gals was mounted on fine horses and
dressed up to the nines.' 'Of course they was,' I says, 'and so they
ought to be.' 'Well,' says he, 'who paid for the horses and the
clothes--and the paint?' 'Here,' I says, jumping up from my seat, 'you
drop the paint, or I'll pitch you out o' that winder.' 'Well, then,'
says he, 'who paid for the horses and the clothes?' 'I neither know nor
care,' says I; 'so long as they was paid for, it's no business of mine
or yourn who paid for 'em.' '_You paid for 'em_, you fool,' says he.
'Oh, indeed,' says I. 'And now, young man, perhaps you'll allow me to
give you a word of advice.' 'Fire away,' says he. 'Well,' I says, 'the
next time your missus has a washin' day, you just wait till she's made
the copper 'ot, and then jump into it and boil yourself!'"
The "chap" in the railway carriage was by no means the only person to
whom Mr Jeremy addressed this drastic advice. It was his usual mode of
clinching an argument when his instincts supported a conclusion to which
his intelligence could not find the way. This method of arriving at
truth was especially useful in regard to politics and theology, in both
of which Mr Jeremy took a lively, or even violent, interest. Needless to
say, his political aversions were of the strongest, and Mr Lloyd George
was the statesman who had to bear the hottest flame of Jeremy's wrath.
More than once I have seen him fling his weekly paper on the floor with
the words, "I wish this 'ere Lloyd George would jump into the copper and
boil hisself"; and on my remarking that I thought this a rather inhuman
suggestion, he would wave his arm round the room, in a manner to
indicate the entire Liberal Party, and say, "I wish the whole lot on
'em would jump into coppers and boil themselves." As to theology, I
seldom dared to address a hint of my heresies to Mr Jeremy. But on my
once saying to another person, in his presence, something to the effect
that I did not believe in eternal damnation, he quickly crossed over to
where I was sitting, and, giving me a rather ugly dig with his powerful
forefinger, said, "Look here! You just jump into the copper and boil
yourself." A wise stupidity was the keynote of Mr Jeremy's life.
Another expression reserved for occasions when great emphasis was
needed, was "a finished specimen." A thing, in Mr Jeremy's eyes,
deserved this title when its general condition was so bad that nothing
worse of its kind could be conceived, and the expression accordingly was
only used after the ordinary resources of descriptive language had given
out. It was applied to persons as well as to things. Mr Lloyd George
was, naturally, "a finished specimen": so was the German Emperor: so was
Dr Crippen: so was a lady of uncertain reputation who "had taken a
cottage" in the neighbourhood. A wet harvest, a badly built hayrick, a
measly pig, a feeble sermon by the curate, were all "finished
specimens." Once when the curate, getting gravelled for lack of matter
at the end of five minutes--for he was preaching _ex tempore_--abruptly
concluded his sermon by promising to complete the subject next week, I
heard Jeremy whisper to his wife, "Well, _he_'s a finished specimen,
that he is." Nothing irritated the good man so much as an unfinished
job, and the fact that a thing was unfinished was precisely what he
meant to express when he called it "a finished specimen." A great deal
of human language, especially philosophical language, seems to be
constructed on the same principle.
Mr Jeremy was a regular church-goer. The Church in his eyes was part of
the established order of Nature, on due observance of which the farmer's
welfare depends, and merely extended into the next world those desirable
results which sound instincts, punctuality, and "putting your back into
it" produced in this. On week-days Mr Jeremy farmed the broad acres of
the "Dook"; on Sundays he farmed Palestine, and occasionally drove a
straight furrow clean across the back of the Universe. To both
operations he applied the same methods, the same instincts, the same
ideas. I confess that I have often smiled with the air of a superior
person when listening to a highly trained Cathedral choir proclaiming to
the strains of great music that "Moab was their washpot"; but when Mr
Jeremy repeated the words in the village church I felt that he spoke the
truth, and I went away with a clearer conception of Moab than I have
ever gained from the works of Kuenen or Cheyne. "Moab," I reflected,
"can be no other than the little field on the hillside, where Jeremy
washes his sheep in the pool behind the willows." Again, I was morally
certain that if Jeremy had lived in the neighbourhood of Edom he would
have "cast out his shoe" upon that country, accurately aiming the
missile at the head of any rascally Edomite who happened to be prowling
about with a rabbit-snare in his pocket. So too when he shouted
"Manasseh is mine"--he always shouted the Psalms--I was sure that
Manasseh really was his, in a tenant-farmer way of speaking, and that
next Thursday he would begin to rip up Manasseh with his great steam
plough, and reap in due course a crop of forty bushels to the acre,
paying the "Dook" a high rent for the privilege. Nor was Jeremy making
any idle boast when he thundered out his further intentions, which were
"to divide Sichem," "to mete out the valley of Succoth," and "to
triumph" over Philistia. All this was Pragmatism of the purest water;
you were sure he would keep his promise to the letter; you were glad for
Sichem and Succoth, which were to be "divided" and "meted out," though
perhaps a little sorry for the Philistines, who were to be "triumphed
over," that a man like Jeremy should have undertaken the business; but
you recognised that no better man for the job could be found anywhere
than he. To be sure, Mr Jeremy, although he would have gladly boiled
the whole Liberal Party in coppers, was much too tender-hearted to wish
that anybody's little ones should be dashed against the stones; but I
believe that in his innermost thought he launched the words against
"them tarnation sparrers" and "that plague o' rats." On the whole, no
one who listened to Mr Jeremy's repetition of these Psalms could doubt
their entire appropriateness as a religious exercise for men such as he,
or refrain from hoping that they would never be expunged from the Book
of Common Prayer until the last British farmer had gone to church for
the last time.
So too with the Creeds. I believed every one of them as recited by Mr
Jeremy, and I found the Athanasian the most convincing of them all. The
Sundays set down for the use of that Creed--and its use was never
omitted in our parish--were the most serious Sundays of the year to Mr
Jeremy, and the vigour of his voice and his attitude, and the fervour of
his participation, made a spectacle to be remembered. I wish William
James might have seen it before he wrote his _Varieties of Religions
Experience_; it would have given him a new chapter. At the very first
words Jeremy joined in like a trained sprinter starting for a race; and
though the clergyman rattled through the clauses as fast as he could
pronounce, or mispronounce, the syllables, the farmer headed him by a
word or two from the very first, gradually increasing his lead as the
race proceeded until towards the end he was a full sentence to the good.
It was evident that to Jeremy's mind, and perhaps to the clergyman's
also, a subtle relation existed between the truth of the Creed and the
speed with which it could be rendered. Long before the end was in sight,
and while Jeremy was still battling with various "incomprehensibles,"
the rest of the competitors had retired from sheer exhaustion; the
children were munching sweets; the lads and lasses were ogling one
another at the back of the church; Mrs Jeremy was staring in front of
her, wondering perhaps if the careless Susan would remember that onion
sauce _always_ went with a leg of mutton on Sundays; while Lady Agatha
and Lady Sybil--I grieve to record this, but my historical conscience
compels me--sat down. As to those of us who remained attentive to what
was going on, our confidence in Catholic Truth gradually took the form
of a certainty that the farmer would come in first and the clergyman be
nowhere. So it always proved. Standing in the pew behind that of Jeremy,
I could see the muscles of his mighty back working up and down beneath
the broadcloth of his Sunday coat; and as I looked from him to the
easily winded gentleman from Pusey House who was running against him in
the chancel, I could not help reflecting how ridiculous, nay, how
unsportsmanlike, it was to allow two men so ill matched to compete for
the same event. This, no doubt, was the first symptom that, in spite of
the standing attitude, I was going to sleep. But before it could happen
I was suddenly brought to my senses by the _fortissimo e prestissimo_ of
Jeremy's conclusion. "He _cannot_ be saved," he roared out, banging his
prayer-book down on the book-rest, with a defiant look around him, as
though the whole Liberal Party were in church. "He _cannot_ be
saved,"--and visions of all sorts of people boiling in coppers filled
the mental eye.
Jeremy, for a farmer, was the most outrageous optimist I have ever met.
He never grumbled, save at politicians, and the worst weather could
hardly disconcert him. "You can always turn a bit o' bad weather to good
account--if you put your back into it. Yes, it's been a _wet_ season, no
doubt, but not what I should call a _bad_ season. It's true we've made
but little hay, and that not good; but the meadows isn't dried up as
they was last year, and there'll be feed for the stock in the open most
of the winter. I bought fifty new head o' stock last Wednesday--bought
'em cheap of a man as got frightened--and they'll be well fattened by
Christmas." Serious setbacks, of course, often occurred; but Jeremy,
unlike most of his kind, was not the man to talk about them. "What I
believe in," he said, "is not only keeping your own heart up, but
helping your neighbours to keep up theirs. I've no patience with all
this 'ere grumbling and growling. Of course, a person has a lot to put
up with in farming; but it doesn't do a person no good to be always
thinking about that. Pleasant thoughts goes a long way in making money.
And I tell you there's money to be made in farming, let folks say what
they will. What farmers want is not for Parliament to help 'em, but for
Parliament to leave 'em alone. That's why I can't stand this 'ere
Liberal Government. Why can't they stop messing wi' things--messing wi'
the land, messing wi' the landlords, messing wi' the tenants, messing
wi' the farm-labourers? Why can't they leave it all alone and stick to
what they understand, if there's anything they _do_ understand, which I
doubt? No, sir; I don't want their laws, good or bad. Give me the custom
of the county, and a good bench o' magistrates, and a cheerful
disposition, and a farmyard full o' muck, and I've got all I want to
make farming _pay_--always provided you put your back into it."
But during the long-continued rain of last summer I could not help
observing that Jeremy, in spite of his fidelity to these principles, was
making an effort to keep up his heart. Not only was his hay ruined, but
the finest crop of wheat he had ever raised was sprouting in the ear.
There was sickness among the sheep and the pigs; and the standing crop
in his great orchard was sold to a middleman for a quarter the usual
price. But Jeremy made no complaint. Only, meeting the clergyman one day
in the road, he said, "Parson, it's high time you put up the prayer for
fine weather." Jeremy had a firm belief in the power of prayer--and
especially of this one.
On the first occasion when this prayer was used in the village church I
was present in my usual place behind Jeremy. As the prayer proceeded it
was evident that the farmer was putting his back into it. I could see
the movement of the deltoid muscles, and I watched a great crease form
itself in the lower portion of his coat and gradually creep upwards
until it formed a straight line from one shoulder-blade to the other.
When the prayer concluded Jeremy said "Amen _and_ Amen!" with the utmost
fervour; and the crease in his coat slowly disappeared. I am afraid I
was more occupied in watching this crease than in recalling the lesson
that was taught to us sinners when it pleased Jehovah to "drown all the
world, except eight persons."
During the next ten days the rain fell with increasing volume and fury:
the ditches were in flood; the roads were watercourses, and much damage
was done on Jeremy's farm. Meeting him at this time, I said in the
course of conversation, perhaps foolishly, "Mr Jeremy, the prayer for
fine weather seems to have done us very little good." For a moment he
looked at me rather angrily, as though suspecting that some lukewarmness
on my part had deprived the prayer of its due effect. Then he checked
himself and seemed to reflect. "No," he said at length, "it's done us no
good at all. But what else can you expect, _with all them gigglin'
wenches at the back of the church_?"
For three miserable weeks the heavens were deaf to our entreaties, and
matters began to look pretty black. A change for the better was
confidently expected with the new moon; and though I have never been
able to discover the origin of the superstition, nor a reason for it, I
found myself as expectant as any of my neighbours--like that other great
philosopher, who didn't believe in ghosts, but was desperately afraid of
them. However, the new moon brought no relief to our sorry plight--and
the superstition lives on in our parish, unimpaired. Ominous rumours
about the end of the world spread from cottage to cottage, and our wits
were busy in discovering the culprit whose misdeeds had precipitated the
coming catastrophe. Most of us were persuaded that it was Tom Mellon the
waggoner, a good workman but an irredeemable drunkard; and Tom, who was
aware of our suspicions, became thoroughly scared. For the first time in
twenty years Tom kept away from the public-house when his wages were
paid, and went to bed sober but terribly depressed on Saturday night. On
Monday morning, Mrs Mellon, whose face for once bore no trace of
bruises, informed our cook that "her master had had a dreadful bad
night. He would keep jumping out o' bed and going to the window, to look
into the sky and _see if anything was up_." Tom had communicated his
fears, when in an early stage of development, to his boon companion,
Charley Stamp the ex-roadman, whose old-age pension went the way of
Tom's wages and swelled the revenues of the public-house by the regular
sum of five shillings per week. These two Arcadians, as they sat over
their cups, concerted a plan, composed mainly of bad language, for
defeating the ends of justice on the Day of Doom; and on the Saturday
night previous to the one last mentioned came home together abominably
intoxicated, waving their hats and roaring out as they went up the
village that they were "ready" for Judgment--"with a tooral-ri-looral,
and a rooral-li-ray." Subsequent events proved that neither of them was
"ready." Tom's courage, as we have seen, went to pieces on hearing it
definitely whispered that the universe was about to be wiped out in
consequence of his bad habits. Charley's downfall was even more sudden.
In the small hours of the very morning after his performance in the
village street it happened that Farmer Jeremy's bull, scenting a cow in
a neighbouring pasture, expressed his sentiments by emitting a loud
bellow. The sound travelled to Charley's cottage, and, descending the
chimney, mingled with his drunken dreams. "Get up, missis," he shouted,
"get up; _the trumpet's sounding_!" and rushing into the garden he began
to howl like a jackal. The howls woke the village, and a score of
terrified souls, myself among them, convinced that "it was come at
last," looked out of their windows--only to find that a lovely morning
was breaking over the hills. Fine weather returned soon after; and I am
sorry to say that with its coming the moral reformation which had begun
so hopefully in Tom and Charley, and spread to several less hardened
sinners in our village, was terminated at a stroke.
* * * * *
It must have been some four or five days before the change came in the
weather that I took advantage of a bright interval in the evening to
walk across the summit of the hill which shades my house from the
setting sun. I pushed on into the upland until the dusk had fallen, and
found myself at last in a deserted quarry--a long familiar spot, where
in old days I used to meet Snarley Bob. There I sat down on the very
heap of stones on which he sat as he talked to me of the stars. In due
time the stars came out, and I wondered in which of them the great
spirit of my old friend had found its abode. I imagined it was Capella;
why I know not, unless it be that Capella was the star to which
Snarley's finger often pointed when he lifted up his voice about the
things on high. This has nothing to do with my story, and I mention it
here only because I find myself wondering at this moment how spirits so
diverse as those of Snarley Bob and Tom Mellon could have breathed the
same atmosphere and drawn their sustenance from the same environment.
I lingered in the quarry pondering my memories until the great
rain-clouds, creeping up from different points of the horizon, had met
in the zenith and every star had disappeared. A sullen rain began to
fall, and black darkness was over the hill.
I turned homewards, reflecting that it might not be easy to find my way
by the sheep-tracks on so dark a night. I remembered that on the summit
of the hill, some two miles from where I was, there stood an isolated
barn surrounded by sheds for the shelter of cattle. From this point the
way down into the village could hardly be missed, and thither
accordingly I turned my steps. With some difficulty I found the barn;
for the ways were wet and in some places impassable, and the night, as I
have said, was very dark.
On nearing the barn I was astonished to notice a gleam of light issuing
from the half-closed door. I approached, and as I did so I was yet more
astonished, and a little scared, to hear the loud and lamentable tones
of a human voice. I listened, and at once recognised the voice as
Jeremy's, though I could not hear what he was saying nor explain to
myself the preternatural solemnity of the tone. It was not a cry of
pain, nor that of a man in need of human help. I drew yet nearer, and it
became plain to me that Jeremy was praying.
Curiosity tempting me on, I crept up to the barn and looked in through
the partly opened door. This is what I saw. Kneeling on the floor
towards the further side of the barn, with a lighted stable-lantern
suspended over his head, was Jeremy. His back was towards me, but I
could see that he had a book in his hand. A glance was sufficient to
show me that I was looking at a man in wrestle with his God. I knew the
signs of Jeremy's earnestness; and they were there--intense,
unmistakable. Never have I witnessed a more solemn spectacle, and, had
not something held me spell-bound to the spot, I should have retreated
in very shame of my intrusion.
At the moment when I first caught sight of his figure Jeremy was silent.
His head was bowed on his chest, his feet were drawn close together,
and his right hand, holding the book--which I saw was the Book of Common
Prayer--drooped on the ground. I noted the head of a steel rat-trap
protruding from the big side-pocket of his coat. I also remember how the
bright nails of his boots, of which the soles were turned towards me,
glittered in the light of the lantern.
Presently Jeremy raised the book, turned over the leaves--for he had
lost the place--slightly readjusted his position, and in a deep and
solemn voice again began to pray. And this was his prayer:
"O Almighty Lord God, who for the sin of man didst once drown
all the world, except eight persons, and afterward of thy great
mercy didst promise never to destroy it so again: we humbly
beseech thee, that although we for our iniquities have worthily
deserved a plague of rain and waters, yet upon our true
repentance thou wilt send us such weather, as that we may
receive the fruits of the earth in due season; and learn both
by thy punishment to amend our lives, and for thy clemency to
give thee praise and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
_Amen._"
It was enough. Quickly and silently as I could I slipped away into the
darkness, filled with a sense of the sacrilege of my intrusion and the
solemnity of the hour. I have listened in my time to many prayers of
many men; I have heard the Almighty flattered, complimented, instructed
in the metaphysics of his own nature, and insulted by the grovelling and
insincere self-depreciation of his own creatures; I have heard him
talked at, and talked about, by cowardly men-pleasers who had no more
religion than a rhinoceros; and I have wondered much at the patience of
heaven with all this detestable eloquence. I have heard also the short
and stumbling prayers of the honest, of the Salvationist kneeling in the
thoroughfare of a town full of sin, of the mother with her arms round
the neck of a dying child; but none even of these have dealt so shrewd a
thrust at my self-satisfaction as did the prayer of Farmer Jeremy. What
strange secrets, I thought, are hidden in the human heart! Verily, the
ways of man, like the ways of God, are past finding out.
Now, it so happened that I had given Jeremy a promise that I would, that
very night, join him at supper and "have a chat." I would gladly have
found an excuse if I could. But it was not easy to excuse oneself to
Jeremy; his discernments were keen. Moreover, I half feared that he
might have discovered my footsteps outside the barn; and I knew that if
he had, the only wise course was to face the situation, tell the truth,
and have it out. It was soon evident, however, that he had discovered
nothing; and I, of course, kept my counsel.
I entered the farm kitchen and found Mrs Jeremy awaiting her husband by
the fire. "Master's late in coming home," she said. "He's gone up the
hill with a lantern, to set traps in the Grey Barn. He says it's full o'
rats. But he ought to have come back half an hour ago."
"He'll be back soon," I answered; and a moment later I heard the ring of
his boots on the stone flags outside.
Entering the room, Jeremy, without greeting me, walked across the floor
and tapped the barometer on the wall. "It's rising," he said. "I thought
it would by the look of the moon last night. Well, given a bit o' fine
weather now, we shall not do so badly after all. The wheat's less
sprouted than I thought it was; just a little down in 'the Guns,' but
none at all in 'Quebec.' Please God, we shall get forty-five to the
acre, up there; and all in tip-top condition."
"How are the root-crops?" I asked.
"Looking splendid; couldn't be better. You see, they're all on the high
ground."
"Did you set your traps?" said Mrs Jeremy.
"I did. But there's too many rats for trappin' to do much good. We must
try this 'ere new poison. That'll cook their gooses for 'em, according
to what I hear."
After supper the conversation turned once more on the weather. "It's
bound to mend," said Jeremy; "there's a rising glass, and the wind's
gone round to the north-west since I went up the hill. Just look out o'
this winder at them clouds drifting across the sky. And they're a lot
higher up than they were this afternoon. And I tell you these 'ere
prayers as we've been puttin' up in church are bound to do _some_ good,
though they mayn't do _all_ the good as we want. I've noticed it again
and again, both wet seasons and droughty."
"The prayer of a righteous man availeth much," said Mrs Jeremy, who,
notwithstanding her mental wanderings during the Athanasian Creed, was a
pious soul.
I was sorry the conversation had taken this turn, being disinclined to
discuss the subject just then. But Jeremy was only too ready to take the
cue.
"Yes," he said; "and the prayer of a sinner is sometimes _almost_ as
good as the prayer of a righteous man; though, mind you, I don't say
it's _quite_ as good. I'm a bit of a sinner myself; but I've had lots of
answers to prayer in my life. _Lots_, I tell you. You see, it's this
way. My belief is, that you've no business to want a thing unless you're
ready to pray for it. Of course, you can't always tell what you ought to
want and what you oughtn't--that's the difficulty. But my plan is to
pray for everything as I wants and then leave the Lord to sort out the
bad from the good. There's a Collect in church as puts it in that way.
Mind you, I wouldn't pray for anything as I _knowed_ were bad. There'd
be no sense in that. And as for fine weather, all points to that being
_good_, and your prayer stands a fair chance of being answered. Of
course, it may be bad for reasons we don't know about; though I don't
think it is _myself_. So it's right to pray for it. Pray for everything
you want--that's what I says; and leave the rest to the Lord."
Jeremy would no doubt have said much more, for he was a great talker
when started on his favourite themes, and this was one of them. But we
were interrupted by a cry from Mrs Jeremy at the other side of the
table. It was simply, "Oh dear!"
Looking up, I saw that she was leaning forward with her face buried in
her hands, sobbing violently.
"Darn my gaiters!" said Jeremy, "I'm nought but a fool. I oughtn't to
ha' talked about them things before my missus. I never do; but
something's made me forget myself to-night. You see, it's reminded her
of our trouble."
I did not understand this last remark. But I asked no question, being
too much occupied in watching the infinite tenderness of the good man as
he sought to comfort his wife. I draw a veil over that. "Now go to bed,
there's a good girl, and think no more about it," was the end of what he
had to say.
Mrs Jeremy retired, the tears standing in her eyes. She shook hands with
me, but didn't speak.
Jeremy resumed his seat, lit his pipe, and began to explain. His voice
trembled and almost broke down with the first sentence.
"You see," he said, waving his hand towards the fire, "it's a childless
hearth.... It hasn't always been. There was one, once--fifteen years
ago. He was six years of age--as bright a little nipper as ever you see.
Oh yes, he said his prayers: said one too many, that he did.... O my
God!... Well, it was this way. It was one Christmas Eve, and a young
lady as we had for his governess had been telling the little nipper all
about Father Christmas--I don't blame _her_; she's never got over it any
more than we have, and never will--... all about Father Christmas, as I
was saying; and he drinks it all in with his wide little eyes, as though
it was Gospel truth. 'I'll tell Father Christmas to bring me something
real nice,' he says. So just before they put him to bed that night he
goes to that open fireplace, where you're sitting now, and pops his head
up the chimney, and calls out, 'Father Christmas, please bring me
to-night a magic lantern, a pair of roller skates, four wax candles, and
a box o' them chocolates with the little nuts inside 'em, for Jesus
Christ sake, Amen.' Then he goes away from the fire, and I says, 'All
right, nipper, I'll bring 'em,' from behind that door, in a voice to
make him believe as Father Christmas was answering. Well, he starts to
go to bed; but just as he reached them stairs in the passage he runs
back, and pops his little head up the chimney again. 'Father Christmas,'
he says, 'don't forget the little nuts in the chocolates. I don't want
none o' them pink 'uns.' And, O my God! he'd hardly spoken the words
when more than half a hundredweight of blazing soot comes slathering
down the chimney and falls right on the top of him just where he stood.
I tell you there never was a thing seen like it since this world began!
The room was filled with black smoke in a second; we were all blinded;
we could neither breathe nor see. We couldn't see him, we couldn't find
him; and we all stumbled up against one another; and the missus fell
insensible on the floor. And him screaming with pain all the time--and I
tell you I couldn't find him, though I rushed like a madman all over the
room and groped everywhere, and put my hands into the very fire! Then I
went too--dropped like a stone. It was all over in a minute. They pulled
the rest of us out in the nick of time: but the poor little nipper was
burned to death...."
Farmer Jeremy rose from his seat and went to the window. He was shaking
all over; but I averted my glance, for it is a terrible thing to see a
strong man in the agony of his soul, and the eyes cannot bear it long.
"The clouds are breaking," he said; "and, please God, I'll cut 'the
Slaughters' to-morrow. But there's one harvest as will never be reaped:
and there's one cloud that will never break. Not till the Resurrection
Morn. Ah me!"
* * * * *
On the lovely afternoon of an autumn Sunday, about a fortnight after
these things, I met Jeremy in the fields, walking the round with his
terrier dog.
"Grand weather for farmers," I cried.
"Grand it is, sir," he answered, "and let us be thankful for it."
"Yes," I said; "it has been long enough in coming, and is all the more
welcome now it has come."
I felt that the words struck the wrong note; or rather they struck none
at all, where a note of music was needed. But I knew not what else to
say. Jeremy with all his reserve was less timid and more affluent than
I.
"Have you never thought, sir," he said, drawing near to me, "what
brought the fine weather?"