BROADER VIEWS
He proved that Man is nothing more
Than educated sod,
Forgetting that the schoolmen's lore
Is foolishness with God.
"Do you know what I mean to do as soon as Cousin Maria will let me?"
Elisabeth asked of Christopher, as the two were walking together--as
they walked not unfrequently--in Badgering Woods.
"No; please tell me."
"I mean to go up to the Slade School, and study there, and learn to be a
great artist."
"It is sometimes a difficult lesson to learn to be great."
"Nevertheless, I mean to learn it." The possibility of failure never
occurred to Elisabeth. "There is so much I want to teach the world, and
I feel I can only do it through my pictures; and I want to begin at
once, for fear I shouldn't get it all in before I die. There is plenty
of time, of course; I'm only twenty-one now, so that gives me forty-nine
years at the least; but forty-nine years will be none too much in which
to teach the world all that I want to teach it."
"And what time shall you reserve for learning all that the world has to
teach you?"
"I never thought of that. I'm afraid I sha'n't have much time for
learning."
"Then I am afraid you won't do much good by teaching."
Elisabeth laughed in all the arrogance of youth. "Yes, I shall; the
things you teach best are the things you know, and not the things you
have learned."
"I am not so sure of that."
"Surely genius does greater things than culture."
"I grant you that culture without genius does no great things; neither,
I think, does genius without culture. Untrained genius is a terrible
waste of power. So many people seem to think that if they have a spark
of genius they can do without culture; while really it is because they
have a spark of genius that they ought to be, and are worthy to be,
cultivated to the highest point."
"Well, anyway--culture or no culture--I mean to set the Thames on fire
some day."
"You do, do you? Well, it is a laudable and not uncommon ambition."
"Yes, I do; and you mustn't look so doubtful on the subject, as it isn't
pretty manners."
"Did I look doubtful? I'm very sorry."
"Horribly so. I know exactly what you will do, you are so shockingly
matter-of-fact. First you will prove to a demonstration that it is
utterly impossible for such an inferior being as a woman to set the
Thames on fire at all. Then--when I've done it and London is
illuminated--you will write to the papers to show that the 'flash-point'
of the river is decidedly too low, or else such an unlooked-for
catastrophe could never have occurred. Then you will get the Government
to take the matter up, and to bring a charge of arson against the New
Woman. And, finally, you will have notices put up all along the banks
from Goring to Greenwich, 'Ladies are requested not to bring
inflammatory articles near the river; the right of setting the Thames on
fire is now--as formerly--reserved specially for men.' And then you will
try to set it on fire yourself."
"A most characteristic programme, I must confess. But now tell me; when
you have set your Thames on fire, and covered yourself with laurels, and
generally turned the world upside down, sha'n't you allow some humble
and devoted beggarman to share your kingdom with you? You might find it
a little dull alone in your glory, as you are such a sociable person."
"Well, if I do, of course I shall let some nice man share it with me."
"I see. You will stoop from your solitary splendour and say to the
devoted beggarman, 'Allow me to offer you the post of King Consort; it
is a mere sinecure, and confers only the semblance and not the reality
of power; but I hope you will accept it, as I have nothing better to
give you, and if you are submissive and obedient I will make you as
comfortable as I can under the circumstances.'"
"Good gracious! I hope I am too wise ever to talk to a man in that way.
No, no, Chris; I shall find some nice man, who has seen through me all
the time and who hasn't been taken in by me, as the world has; and I
shall say to him, 'By the way, here is a small fire and a few laurel
leaves; please warm your hands at the one and wear the others in your
button-hole.' That is the proper way in which a woman should treat
fame--merely as a decoration for the man whom she has chosen."
"O noble judge! O excellent young woman!" exclaimed Christopher. "But
what are some of the wonderful things which you are so anxious to
teach?"
Elisabeth's mood changed at once, and her face grew serious. "I want to
teach people that they were sent into the world to be happy, and not to
be miserable; and that there is no virtue in turning their backs to the
sunshine and choosing to walk in the shade. I want to teach people that
the world is beautiful, and that it is only a superficial view that
finds it common and unclean. I want to teach people that human nature is
good and not evil, and that life is a glorious battlefield and not a
sordid struggle. In short, I want to teach people the dignity of
themselves; and there is no grander lesson."
"Except, perhaps, the unworthiness of themselves," suggested
Christopher.
"No, no, Chris; you are wrong to be so hard and cynical. Can't you
understand how I am longing to help the men and women I see around me,
who are dying for want of joy and beauty in their lives? It is the old
struggle between Hellenism and Hebraism--between happiness and
righteousness. We are sorely in need, here in England to-day, of the
Greek spirit of Pantheism, which found God in life and art and nature,
'as well as in sorrow and renunciation and death."
"But it is in sorrow and renunciation and death that we need Him; and
you, who have always had everything you want, can not understand this:
no more could the Pagans and the Royalists; but the early Christians and
the persecuted Puritans could."
"Puritanism has much to answer for in England," said Elisabeth; "we have
to thank Puritanism for teaching men that only by hurting themselves can
they please their Maker, and that God has given them tastes and hopes
and desires merely in order to mortify the same. And it is all
false--utterly false. The God of the Pagan is surely a more merciful
Being than the God of the Puritan."
"A more indulgent Being, perhaps, but not necessarily a more merciful
one, Elisabeth. I disagree with the Puritans on many points, but I can
not help admitting that their conception of God was a fine one, even
though it erred on the side of severity. The Pagan converted the Godhead
into flesh, remember; but the Puritan exalted manhood into God."
"Still, I never could bear the Puritans," Elisabeth went on; "they
turned the England of Queen Elizabeth--the most glorious England the
world has ever known--into one enormous Nonconformist Conscience; and
England has never been perfectly normal since. Besides, they discovered
that nature, and art, and human affection, which are really revelations
of God, were actually sins against Him. As I said before, I can never
forgive the Puritans for eradicating the beauty from holiness, and for
giving man the spirit of heaviness in place of the garment of praise."
"I wonder if Paganism helped you much when you were poor and ill and
unhappy, and things in general had gone wrong with you. I daresay it was
very nice for the cheerful, prosperous people; but how about those who
had never got what they wanted out of life, and were never likely to get
it?" Christopher, like other people, looked at most matters from his own
individual standpoint; and his own individual standpoint was not at all
a comfortable spot just then.
"The Greeks suffered and died as did the Jews and the Christians,"
replied Elisabeth, "yet they were a joyous and light-hearted race. It is
not sorrow that saddens the world, but rather modern Christianity's
idealization of sorrow. I do not believe we should be half as miserable
as we are if we did not believe that there is virtue in misery, and that
by disowning our mercies and discarding our blessings we are currying
favour in the eyes of the Being, Who, nevertheless, has showered those
mercies and those blessings upon us."
Thus had Alan Tremaine's influence gradually unmoored Elisabeth from the
old faiths in which she had been brought up; and he had done it so
gradually that the girl was quite unconscious of how far she had drifted
from her former anchorage. He was too well-bred ever to be blatant in
his unbelief--he would as soon have thought of attacking a man's family
to his face as of attacking his creed; but subtly and with infinite tact
he endeavoured to prove that to adapt ancient revelations to modern
requirements was merely putting new wine into old bottles and mending
old garments with new cloth; and Elisabeth was as yet too young and
inexperienced to see any fallacy in his carefully prepared arguments.
She had nobody to help her to resist him, poor child! and she was
dazzled with the consciousness of intellectual power which his attitude
of mind appeared to take for granted. Miss Farringdon was cast in too
stern a mould to have any sympathy or patience with the blind gropings
of an undisciplined young soul; and Christopher--who generally
understood and sympathized with all Elisabeth's difficulties and
phases--was so jealous of her obvious attachment to Tremaine, and so
unhappy on account of it, that for the time being the faithful friend
was entirely swallowed up in the irate lover, sighing like one of the
Osierfield furnaces. Of course this was very unfair and tiresome of
him--nobody could deny that; but it is sometimes trying to the
amiability of even the best of men to realize that the purely mundane
and undeserved accident of want of money can shut them off entirely from
ever attaining to the best kind of happiness whereof their natures are
capable--and especially when they know that their natures are capable of
attaining and appreciating a very high standard of happiness indeed. It
may not be right to be unsociable because one is unhappy, but it is very
human and most particularly masculine; and Christopher just then was
both miserable and a man.
There was much about Alan that was very attractive to Elisabeth: he
possessed a certain subtlety of thought and an almost feminine quickness
of perception which appealed powerfully to her imagination. Imagination
was Elisabeth's weak, as well as her strong, point. She was incapable of
seeing people as they really were; but erected a purely imaginary
edifice of character on the foundations of such attributes as her rapid
intuition either rightly or wrongly perceived them to possess. As a
rule, she thought better of her friends than they deserved--or, at any
rate, she recognised in them that ideal which they were capable of
attaining, but whereto they sometimes failed to attain.
Life is apt to be a little hard on the women of Elisabeth's type, who
idealize their fellows until the latter lose all semblance of reality;
for experience, with its inevitable disillusionment, can not fail to put
their ideal lovers and friends far from them, and to hide their
etherealized acquaintances out of their sight; and to give instead, to
the fond, trusting souls, half-hearted lovers, semi-sincere friends, and
acquaintances who care for them only as the world can care. Poor
imaginative women--who dreamed that you had found a perfect knight and a
faithful friend, and then discovered that these were only an ordinary
selfish man and woman after all--life has many more such surprises in
store for you; and the surprises will shock you less and hurt you more
as the years roll on! But though life will have its surprises for you,
death perchance will have none; for when the secrets of all hearts are
opened, and all thwarted desires are made known, it may be that the
ordinary selfish man and woman will stand forth as the perfect knight
and faithful friend that God intended them, and you believed them, and
they tried yet failed to be; and you will be satisfied at last when you
see your beloved ones wake up after His likeness, and will smile as you
say to them, "So it is really you after all."
Although Tremaine might be lacking in his duty toward God, he fulfilled
(in the spirit if not in the letter) his duty toward his neighbour; and
Elisabeth was fairly dazzled by his many schemes for making life easier
and happier to the people who dwelt in the darkness of the Black
Country.
It was while he was thus figuring as her ideal hero that Elisabeth went
to stay with Felicia Herbert, near a manufacturing town in Yorkshire.
Felicia had been once or twice to the Willows, and was well acquainted
with the physical and biographical characteristics of the place; and she
cherished a profound admiration both for Miss Farringdon and Christopher
Thornley. Tremaine she had never met--he had been abroad each time that
she had visited Sedgehill--but she disapproved most heartily of his
influence upon Elisabeth, and of his views as set forth by that young
lady. Felicia had been brought up along extremely strict lines, and in a
spirit of comfortable intolerance of all forms of religion not
absolutely identical with her own; consequently, a man with no form of
religion at all was to her a very terrible monster indeed. On the
Sundays of her early youth she had perused a story treating of an
Unbeliever (always spelled with a capital U), and the punishments that
were meted out to the daughter of light who was unequally yoked with
him; and she was imbued with a strong conviction that these same
punishments were destined to fall upon Elisabeth's head, should
Elisabeth incline favourably to the (at present) hypothetical suit of
the master of the Moat House. Thus it happened that when Elisabeth came
to the Herberts', full of girlish admiration for Alan Tremaine, Felicia
did her best to ripen that admiration into love by abusing Alan in and
out of season, and by endeavouring to prove that an attachment to him
would be a soul-destroyer of the most irreparable completeness.
"It is no use talking to me about his goodness," she said; "nobody is
good who isn't a Christian."
"But he is good," persisted Elisabeth--"most tremendously good. The poor
people simply adore him, he does such a lot for them; and he couldn't
have lovelier thoughts and higher ideals if he were a girl instead of a
man. There must be different ways of goodness, Felicia."
"There are not different ways of goodness; mamma says there are not, and
it is very wicked to believe that there are. I am afraid you are not
half as religious as you were at Fox How."
"Yes, I am; but I have learned that true religion is a state of mind
rather than a code of dogmas."
Felicia looked uncomfortable. "I wish you wouldn't talk like that; I am
sure mamma wouldn't like it--she can not bear anything that borders on
the profane."
"I am not bordering on the profane; I am only saying what I uphold is
true. I can not take things for granted as you do; I have to think them
out for myself; and I have come to the conclusion that what a man is is
of far more importance than what a man believes."
"But you ought not to think things like that, Elisabeth; it isn't right
to do so."
"I can't help thinking it. I am an independent being with a mind of my
own, and I must make up that mind according to what I see going on
around me. What on earth is the good of having an intellect, if you
submit that intellect to the will of another? I wonder how you can take
your ideas all ready-made from your mother," exclaimed Elisabeth, who
just then was taking all hers ready-made from Alan Tremaine.
"Well, I can not argue. I am not clever enough; and, besides, mamma
doesn't like us to argue upon religious subjects--she says it is
unsettling; so I will only say that I know you are wrong, and then we
will let the matter drop and talk about Christopher. How is he?"
"Oh, he is all right, only very horrid. To tell you the truth, I am
getting to dislike Christopher."
"Elisabeth!" Felicia's Madonna-like face became quite sorrowful.
"Well, I am; and so would you, if he was as stand-off to you as he is to
me. I can't think what is wrong with him; but whatever I do, and however
nice I try to be to him, the North Pole is warm and neighbourly compared
with him. I'm sick of him and his unsociable ways!"
"But you and he used to be such friends."
"I know that; and I would be friends now if he would let me. But how can
you be friends with a man who is as reserved as the Great Pyramid and as
uncommunicative as the Sphinx, and who sticks up iron palings all round
himself, like a specimen tree in the park, so that nobody can get near
him? If a man wants a girl to like him he should be nice to her, and not
require an introduction every time they meet."
Felicia sighed: her sweet, placid nature was apt to be overpowered by
Elisabeth's rapid changes of front. "But he used to be so fond of you,"
she expostulated feebly.
Elisabeth shrugged her shoulders. "Oh, I suppose he likes me now, in his
cold, self-satisfied way: it isn't that. What I complain of is that he
doesn't admire me enough, and I do so love to be admired."
"Do you mean he doesn't think you are pretty?" Felicia always had to
have things fully explained to her; excess of imagination could never
lead her astray, whatever it might do to her friend.
"Of course not; I don't see how he could, considering that I'm not:
women don't expect men to admire them for things that they don't
possess," replied Elisabeth, who had still much to learn. "What I mean
is he doesn't realize how clever I am--he despises me just as he used to
despise me when I was a little girl and he was a big boy--and that is
awfully riling when you know you are clever."
"Is it? I would much rather a man liked me than thought I was clever."
"I wouldn't; anybody can like you, but it takes a clever person to
appreciate cleverness. I have studied myself thoroughly, and I have
come to the conclusion that I need appreciation far more than affection:
I'm made like that."
"I don't understand you. To me affection is everything, and I can not
live without it. If people are really fond of me, they can think me as
stupid as they like."
Elisabeth's face grew thoughtful; she was always interested in the
analysis of herself and her friends. "How different we two are! I
couldn't forgive a person for thinking me stupid, even if I knew that
person adored me. To me no amount of affection would make up for the
lack of appreciation. I want to be understood as well as liked, and that
is where Christopher and I come across each other; he never understands
me in the least. Now that is why Mr. Tremaine and I get on so well
together; he understands and appreciates me so thoroughly."
Felicia's pretty month fell into stern lines of disapproval. "I am sure
I should hate Mr. Tremaine if I knew him," she said.
"Oh, no, you wouldn't--you simply couldn't, Felicia, he is so
delightful. And, what is more, he is so frightfully interesting:
whatever he says and does, he always makes you think about him. Now,
however fond you were of Chris--and he really is very good and kind in
some ways--you could never think about him: it would be such dreadfully
uninteresting thinking, if you did."
"I don't know about that; Christopher is very comfortable and homelike,
somehow," replied Felicia.
"So are rice-puddings and flannel petticoats, but you don't occupy your
most exalted moments in meditating upon them."
"Do you know, Elisabeth, I sometimes think that Christopher is in love
with you." Unlike Elisabeth, Felicia never saw what did not exist, and
therefore was able sometimes to perceive what did.
"Good gracious, what an idea! He'd simply roar with laughter at the mere
thought of such a thing! Why, Christopher isn't capable of falling in
love with anybody; he hasn't got it in him, he is so frightfully
matter-of-fact."
Felicia looked dubious. "Then don't you think he will ever marry?"
"Oh, yes, he'll marry fast enough--a sweet, domestic woman, who plays
the piano and does crochet-work; and he will talk to her about the price
of iron and the integrity of the empire, and will think that he is
making love, and she will think so too. And they will both of them go
down to their graves without ever finding out that the life is more than
meat or the body than raiment."
Elisabeth was very hard on Christopher just then, and nothing that
Felicia could say succeeded in softening her. Women are apt to be hard
when they are quite young--and sometimes even later.
Felicia Herbert was the eldest of a large family. Her parents, though
well-to-do, were not rich; and it was the dream of Mrs. Herbert's life
that her daughter's beauty should bring about a great match. She was a
good woman according to her lights, and a most excellent wife and
mother; but if she had a weakness--and who (except, of course, one's
self) is without one?--that weakness was social ambition.
"You will understand, my dear," she said confidentially to Elisabeth,
"that it would be the greatest comfort to Mr. Herbert and myself to see
Felicia married to a God-fearing man; and, of course, if he kept his
own carriage as well we should be all the better satisfied."
"I don't think that money really makes people happy," replied Elisabeth,
strong in the unworldliness of those who have never known what it is to
do without anything that money can buy.
"Of course not, my dear--of course not; nothing but religion can bring
true happiness. Whenever I am tempted to be anxious about my children's
future, I always check myself by saying, 'The Lord will provide; though
I can not sometimes help hoping that the provision will be an ample one
as far as Felicia is concerned, because she is so extremely
nice-looking."
"She is perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Elisabeth enthusiastically; "and
she gets lovelier and lovelier every time I see her. If I were to change
places with all the rich men in the world, I should never do anything
but keep on marrying Felicia."
"Still, she could only marry one of you, my dear. But, between
ourselves, I just want to ask you a few questions about a Mr. Thornley
whom Felicia met at your house. I fancied she was a wee bit interested
in him."
"Interested in Chris! Oh! she couldn't possibly be. No girl could be
interested in Christopher in that way."
"Why not, my dear? Is he so unusually plain?"
"Oh! no; he is very good-looking; but he has a good head for figures and
a poor eye for faces. In short, he is a sensible man, and girls don't
fall in love with sensible men."
"I think you are mistaken there; I do indeed. I have known many
instances of women becoming sincerely attached to sensible men."
"You don't know how overpoweringly sensible Christopher is. He is so
wise that he never makes a joke unless it has some point in it."
"There is no harm in that, my dear. I never see the point of a joke
myself, I admit; but I like to know that there is one."
"And when he goes for a walk with a girl, he never talks nonsense to
her," continued Elisabeth, "but treats her exactly as if she were his
maiden aunt."
"But why should he talk nonsense to her? It is a great waste of time to
talk nonsense; I am not sure that it is not even a sin. Is Mr. Thornley
well off?"
"No. His uncle, Mr. Smallwood, is the general manager of our works; and
Christopher has only his salary as sub-manager, and what his uncle may
leave him. His mother was Mr. Smallwood's sister, and married a
ne'er-do-weel-who left her penniless; at least, that is to say, if he
ever had a mother--which I sometimes doubt, as he understands women so
little."
"Still, I think we can take that for granted," said Mrs. Herbert,
smiling with pride at having seen Elisabeth's little joke, and feeling
quite a wit herself in consequence. One of the secrets of Elisabeth's
popularity was that she had a knack of impressing the people with whom
she talked, not so much with a sense of her cleverness as with a sense
of their own. She not only talked well herself, she made other people
talk well also--a far more excellent gift.
"So," she went on, "if his uncle hadn't adopted him, I suppose Chris
would have starved to death when he was a child; and that would have
been extremely unpleasant for him, poor boy!"
"Ah! that would have been terrible, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Herbert, so
full of pity for Christopher that she was willing to give him anything
short of her firstborn. She was really a kind-hearted woman.
Elisabeth looked out of the window at the group of stunted shrubs with
black-edged leaves which entitled Felicia's home to be called Wood Glen.
"There is one thing to be said in favour of starvation," she said
solemnly, "it would keep one from getting stout, and stoutness is the
cruellest curse of all. I'd rather be dead than stout any day."
"My dear child, you are talking nonsense. What would be the advantage of
being thin if you were not alive?"
"When you come to that, what would be the advantage of being alive if
you weren't thin?" retorted Elisabeth.
"The two cases are not parallel, my dear; you see you couldn't be thin
without being alive, but you could be alive without being thin."
"It is possible; I have come across such cases myself, but I devoutly
trust mine may never be one of them. As the hymn says, I shall always be
'content to fill a little space.'"
"Ah! but I think the hymn doesn't mean it quite in that sense. I believe
the hymn refers rather to the greatness of one's attainments and
possessions than to one's personal bulk."
Elisabeth opened her eyes wide with an expression of childlike
simplicity. "Do you really think so?"
"I do, my dear. You know one must not take poetry too literally; verse
writers are allowed what is termed 'poetic license,' and are rarely, if
ever, quite accurate in their statements. I suppose it would be too
difficult for anybody to get both the truth and the rhyme to fit in, and
so the truth has to be somewhat adapted. But about Mr. Thornley, my
love; you don't think that he and Felicia are at all interested in one
another?"
"Good gracious, no! I'm sure they are not. If they had been, I should
have spotted it and talked about it ages ago."
"I hope you are not given to talk about such things, even if you do
perceive them," said Mrs. Herbert, with reproof in her tone; "talking
scandal is a sad habit."
"But it isn't scandal to say that a man is in love with a woman--in
fact, it is the very opposite. It is much worse scandal never to talk
about a woman in that way, because that means that you think she is
either too old or too ugly to have a lover, and that is the worst
scandal of all. I always feel immensely tickled when I hear women
pluming themselves on the fact that they never get talked about; and I
long to say to them, 'There is nothing to be proud of in that, my dears;
it only means that the world is tacitly calling you stupid old frights.'
Why, I'd rather people found fault with me than did not talk about me at
all."
"Then I am afraid you are not 'content to fill a little space,'" said
Mrs. Herbert severely.
"To tell you the truth I don't think I am," replied Elisabeth, with
engaging frankness; "conceit is my besetting sin and I know it. Not
stately, scornful, dignified pride, but downright, inflated, perky,
puffed-up conceit. I have often remarked upon it to Christopher, and he
has always agreed with me."
"But, my dear, the consciousness of a fault is surely one step toward
its cure."
"Not it," replied Elisabeth, shaking her head; "I've always known I am
conceited, yet I get conceiteder and conceiteder every year. Bless you!
I don't want to 'fill a little space,' and I particularly don't want 'a
heart at leisure from itself'; I think that is such a dull, old-maidish
sort of thing to have--I wouldn't have one for anything. People who have
hearts at leisure from themselves always want to understudy Providence,
you will notice."
Mrs. Herbert looked shocked. "My dear, what do you mean?"
"I mean that really good people, who have no interests of their own, are
too fond of playing the part of Providence to other people. That their
motives are excellent I admit; they are not a bit selfish, and they
interfere with you for your own good; but they successfully accomplish
as much incurable mischief in half an hour as it would take half a dozen
professional mischief-makers at least a year to finish off
satisfactorily. If they can not mind their own business it doesn't
follow that Providence can't either, don't you see?"
Whereupon Felicia entered the room, and the conversation was abruptly
closed; but not before Mrs. Herbert had decided that if Providence had
selected her daughter as the consoler of Christopher's sorrows,
Providence must be gently and patiently reasoned with until another and
more suitable comforter was substituted. She did not, of course, put the
matter to herself thus barely; but this was what her decision
practically amounted to.
But although people might not be talking, as Mrs. Herbert imagined,
about Christopher and Felicia, the tongues of Sedgehill were all agog
on the subject of the evident attachment between Elisabeth Farringdon
and the master of the Moat House.
"I'm afeared as our Miss Elisabeth is keeping company with that Mr.
Tremaine; I am indeed," Mrs. Bateson confided to her crony, Mrs. Hankey.
Mrs. Hankey, as was her wont, groaned both in spirit and in person. "So
I've heard tell, more's the pity! Miss Elisabeth is no favourite of
mine, as you know, being so dark-complexioned as a child, and I never
could abide dark babies. I haven't much to be thankful for, I'm sure,
for the Lord has tried me sore, giving me Hankey as a husband, and such
a poor appetite as I never enjoy a meal from one year's end to another;
but one thing I can boast of, and that is my babies were all fair, with
as clear a skin as you could want to see. Still, I don't wish the young
lady no harm, it not being Christian to do so; and it is sad at her age
to be tied to a husband from which there is no outlet but the grave."
"I don't hold with you there, Mrs. Hankey; it is dull work for the women
who have nobody to order 'em about and find fault with 'em. Why, where's
the good of taking the trouble to do a thing well, if there's no man to
blame you for it afterward? But what I want to see is Miss Elisabeth
married to Master Christopher, them two being made for one another, as
you might say."
"He has a new heart and a nice fresh colour, has Master Christopher;
which is more than his own mother--supposing she was alive--could say
for Mr. Tremaine."
"That is so, Mrs. Hankey. I'm afeared there isn't much religion about
him. He don't even go to church on a Sunday, let alone chapel; though
he is wonderful charitable to the poor, I must admit."
Mrs. Hankey pursed up her mouth. "And what are works without faith, I
should like to know!"
"Quite true--quite true; but maybe the Lord ain't quite as hard on us as
we are on one another, and makes allowances for our bringing-up and
such."
"Maybe," replied Mrs. Hankey, in a tone which implied that she hoped her
friend was mistaken.
"You see," continued Mrs. Bateson, "there's nothing helps you to
understand the ways of the Lord like having children of your own. Why,
afore I was married, I was for whipping every child that was contrairy
till it got good again; but after my Lucy Ellen was born, I found that
her contrairiness made me sorry for her instead of angry with her, and I
knowed as the poor little thing was feeling poorly or else she'd never
have been like that. So instead of punishing her, I just comforted her;
and the more contradictious she got, the more I knowed as she wanted
comfort. And I don't doubt but the Lord knows that the more we kick
against Him the more we need Him; and that He makes allowance
accordingly."
"You seem to have comfortable thoughts about things; I only hope as you
are not encouraging false hopes and crying peace where there is no
peace," remarked Mrs. Hankey severely.
But Mrs. Bateson was not affrighted. "Don't you know how ashamed you
feel when folks think better of you than you deserve? I remember years
ago, when Caleb came a-courting me, I was minded once to throw him over,
because he was full solemn to take a young maid's fancy. And when I was
debating within myself whether I'd throw him over or no, he says to me,
'Kezia, my lass,' he says, 'I'm not afeared as ye'll give me the slip,
for all your saucy ways; other folks may think you're a bit flirty, but
I know you better than they do, and I trust you with all my heart.' Do
you think I could have disappointed him after that, Mrs. Hankey? Not for
the whole world. But I was that ashamed as never was, for even having
thought of such a thing. And if we poor sinful souls feel like that, do
you think the Lord is the One to disappoint folks for thinking better of
Him than He deserves? Not He, Mrs. Hankey; I know Him better than that."
"I only wish I could see things in such a cheerful light as you do."
"It was only after my first baby was born that I began to understand the
Lord's ways a bit. It's wonderful how caring for other folks seems to
bring you nearer to Him--nearer even than class meetings and special
services, though I wouldn't for the world say a word against the means
of grace."
This doctrine was too high for Mrs. Hankey; she could not attain to it,
so she wisely took refuge in a side issue. "It was fortunate for you
your eldest being a girl; if the Lord had thought fit to give me a
daughter instead of three sons, things might have been better with me,"
she said, contentedly moving the burden of personal responsibility from
her own shoulders to her Maker's.
"Don't say that, Mrs. Hankey. Daughters may be more useful in the house,
I must confess, and less mischievous all round; but they can't work as
hard for their living as the sons can when you ain't there to look after
them."
"You don't know what it is to live in a house full of nothing but men,
with not a soul to speak to about all the queer tricks they're at, many
a time I feel like Robinson Crusoe on a desert island among a lot of
savages."
"And I don't blame you," agreed Mrs. Bateson sympathetically; "for my
part I don't know what I should have done when Caleb and the boys were
troublesome if I couldn't have passed remarks on their behaviour to Lucy
Ellen; I missed her something terrible when first she was married for
that simple reason. You see, it takes another woman to understand how
queer a man is."
"It does, Mrs. Bateson; you never spoke a truer word. And then think
what it must be on your death-bed to have the room full of stupid men,
tumbling over one another and upsetting the medicine-bottles and putting
everything in its wrong place. Many a time have I wished for a daughter,
if it was but to close my eyes; but the Lord has seen fit to withhold
His blessings from me, and it is not for me to complain: His ways not
being as our ways, but often quite the reverse."
"That is so; and I wish as He'd seen fit to mate Miss Elisabeth with
Master Christopher, instead of letting her keep company with that Mr.
Tremaine."
Mrs. Hankey shook her head ominously. "Mr. Tremaine is one that has
religious doubts."
"Ah! that's liver," said Mrs. Bateson, her voice softening with pity;
"that comes from eating French kickshaws, and having no mother to see
that he takes a dose of soda and nitre now and then to keep his system
cool. Poor young man!"
"I hear as he goes so far as to deny the existence of a God," continued
Mrs. Hankey.
"All liver!" repeated Mrs. Bateson; "it often takes men like that; when
they begin to doubt the inspiration of the Scriptures you know they
will be all the better for a dose of dandelion tea; but when they go on
to deny the existence of a God, there's nothing for it but chamomile.
And I don't believe as the Lord takes their doubts any more seriously
than their wives take 'em. He knows as well as we do that the poor
things need pity more than blame, and dosing more than converting; for
He gave 'em their livers, and we only have to bear with them and return
thanks to Him for having made ours of a different pattern."
"And what do the women as have doubts need, I should like to know?"
"A husband and children is the best cure for them. Why, when a woman has
a husband and children to look after, and washes at home, she has no
time, bless you! to be teaching the Lord His business; she has enough to
do minding her own."