NEWS.
I REMEMBER so well one particular Sunday evening. It is not surprising
that I should remember that Sunday evening, for it came just before a
great event in our lives.
We had been to Church twice as usual, Grannie and I. Mother never
would go in the morning. She said she had too much to do—though really
it was not she who did the work. Father lay in bed late, and Asaph
followed his example. Grannie and I always got up particularly early on
Sunday morning, that we might have everything straight in time for the
Service. Grannie always gave father a good cold dinner on Sunday. She
had been a servant in a rich gentleman's family when she was young, and
she used to say that if the gentleman and his family always had cold
Sunday dinners, for the sake of saving Sunday work to their servants,
she didn't see why we shouldn't do the same, for our own sake. We were
not like the neighbours in this, and father sometimes grumbled a little
in a good-tempered way. But he had been brought up to it from boyhood,
and the dinners were always so nice that he could not say much. The
only things ever spoilt were the potatoes and greens, which mother used
to have in charge to cook, as they of course had to be hot. I fancy she
often went out for a gossip with the neighbours, and forgot them. If
mother would have gone to Church, grannie would have stayed at home, or
made me stay at home, to do what was needed. But grannie always said
she would not consent to have two kept away from God's House, where one
was enough. And grannie could be very firm, when once she had made up
her mind.
So we had been to Church in the morning, and then we had all had a nice
dinner of beautiful cold pie, good enough for the Lord Mayor's table,
and a sort of cold custardy pudding with jam and pastry round. It
looked grand, and father was very fond of it, but it did not cost much
money, though it did cost a deal of time and trouble in the making.
Grannie never grudged time or trouble, however.
In the afternoon we had been to Church again, and father and Asaph with
us. Father was a very respectable-looking man in his Sunday suit, and
Asaph was such a pretty boy. He looked more like ten than twelve years
old, though. Mother would not go with us, for she had toothache. She
was a good deal given to toothache, but I think it came oftenest on a
Sunday.
The sermon that afternoon was about Temptation. I often thought after,
how strange it was that Mr. Scott should have preached it just then.
"Lead us not into temptation" was the text. Mr. Scott spoke a great
deal about the meaning of the word Temptation. He said it had two
quite different meanings—one was, enticing to evil, and the other was,
testing or trying. He said that God never "tempted" any man in the
first sense—enticing to do wrong. But he said also that God very often
tempted us in the second sense—trying our faith, testing our strength,
putting a pull on the rope, as it were, to show how heavy a weight it
could bear.
Then Mr. Scott talked about different ways in which God "tempts"
people—sometimes by sending sorrow; sometimes by giving pain; sometimes
by putting them into difficult circumstances; sometimes, and Mr. Scott
made a good deal of this, by letting them have all they most like and
wish for. I think that part of the sermon struck me most. It seemed
so strange to think of happiness being temptation. But I saw grannie
nodding her head with a pleased look, so I was sure he must be right.
Mr. Scott was a good loving-hearted old man, and he was what is called
an able preacher. Everybody in the place loved him, for he was a friend
to everybody—so far, at least, as people would let him be.
I could not make out whether father was listening to the sermon. He
never did as a rule, but used to settle himself into his corner and
fall into a half-doze. Sometimes grannie would poke him gently to rouse
him, and he would give a great start and make believe to pay attention,
but it never lasted long.
This day, however, he really did listen. For in the evening, when we
had had our tea, and father and grannie and I were sitting outside
the door, as we often did of a summer evening, with the pond in front
glistening, and the ducks swimming to and fro, father said—
"I didn't hold with Mr. Scott this afternoon. If good times are a
temptation, they're a rare sort to most folks. I think it's trouble
that makes one go wrong. I shouldn't mind having a little more of the
other, for my part."
"Times aren't bad with us, Miles," said grannie.
"Maybe not, but I shouldn't mind 'em being better," said father. "I
shouldn't mind a bit more of holiday now and then—and to take things
easily and have less to do."
It was not at all astonishing that father should have made these
remarks just before what was coming, for he very often did make them. A
week seldom passed without his saying such things.
"I shouldn't wonder if a time of ease and idleness was one of the
sharpest temptations God ever sends," grannie said quietly.
Father said, "Now, mother!" in a protesting sort of way.
"I shouldn't," she said, quite firm, and looking him in the face.
"Satan has a deal better chance with idle folks than with busy ones,
Miles."
"Ah, so you've told me many a time," said father. "And maybe you're
right. I don't say but what you are. I'm not an idle sort of fellow
myself, by any manner of means. But I don't say I wouldn't like more
ease. And as for calling pleasure and riches and that sort, temptation,
I don't see it—I don't really see it."
"No," said grannie. "There's many a thing a man can't see, till God
gives him sight."
"And you think you've longer sight than me, mother?" says he.
She looked up, with a smile which I thought quite beautiful—looked up,
not at him, nor at the trees, but away and above and beyond, as it were.
"Yes," she said; "I've longer sight than you, my dear. I've sight to
see up and up into heaven itself, and you haven't. It makes a deal of
difference."
"Bless me, mother, don't talk like that," says father, in a sort of
hurry. "It sounds as if you was going to die this very night."
"And if I was, I'm ready," said she. "It wouldn't be grief to me to
hear the chariot wheels coming near."
But I was sitting close by, and I turned and said, "Grannie, please
don't want to go just yet."
"No," she said, "I'm willing to wait."
"Well, you go beyond common folks, somehow," father said. "There ain't
many that care to talk about dying as cool as you do."
"No," she said. "And I couldn't either, if death was to me what it is
to many a one, a plunge into the outer darkness, away from the smile of
God. That would be awful."
"Well, well, we needn't talk about it now," father said, fidgeting.
"You're the best woman that ever lived, though you don't think yourself
so. But all the world can't be like you."
And he got up, and hummed a tune, and plucked a bit of sweet-william,
and walked about; so grannie could not say any more.
The next morning broke like other mornings, and we began the day as
usual. Father went to his work, and Asaph to school, which he was
nearly done with. This was washing morning, so I was very busy. Mother
said her tooth ached still, and she did not seem to think she could
do anything. Pain always upset her, and she cried over it half the
morning, and went out in the garden and chatted with Mrs. Dickenson
most of the other half.
Mrs. Dickenson was our left-hand neighbour, a cleanly thrifty sort of
body, but a great talker. She never could resist a gossip, though she
worked hard between whiles. Grannie did not like her very much. She had
only one child.
In the middle of the day father came back. That was quite unexpected.
He always took his dinner with him, and ate it at the works. Grannie
used to put it up for him nicely in a piece of paper, with a clean red
handkerchief outside. Sometimes it was only bread and cheese, but more
often she managed for him to have a slice of cold meat too.
This Monday, instead of staying away as usual, he came home. Our
first thought was that he must be ill; but he was walking fast and
looking quite red in the face, so it did not seem like illness. Then
we fancied that perhaps he had got into trouble and been turned off;
but no, he looked too pleased. I had never seen father look so pleased
and delighted before. He came hurrying up to us, as we waited at the
cottage door, for mother had called us all together in a fright, to see
what was wrong, the moment she caught sight of father walking along the
road. He hurried up, as I say, and seized Asaph, and gave him a sort of
twirl round, like a man in such spirits that he scarce knew what to do
with himself. And then he said—
"Guess what's happened?"
"I know," mother said. "You are going to have higher wages."
Father chuckled, and said, "No."
"It's a half-holiday at the works," said grannie.
"No, it isn't. I got leave to run round for five minutes, that's all."
"Then what has happened?" cried mother, and we all chimed in. Grannie
was the quietest, and I think she looked a little anxious.
"You want to know, don't you?" says father, chucking Asaph under the
chin; "don't you?" and he chucked me too. "Well, I'll tell you. I'm to
have five thousand pounds!"
Grannie looked as if she fancied him gone mad. Mother shrieked and
clapped her hands, and Asaph copied her.
"Five thousand pounds!" father said again.
"Who's given it to you, my dear?" asked grannie.
"Nobody. It's left to me in a will. Old Andrew Morison is dead, and he
has been storing up his money for years, and he quarrelled with his
son just at last, and willed it all away to me. Think of that! Five
thousand pounds, Sue! Think of that! Five thousand pounds, mother!"
"It's the temptation," said grannie very low, and I heard her sigh.
"It's just lovely," cried mother. "Why, I can have a silk dress."
"Six, if you like," said father. "And Phœbe, too."
I don't know what I said. I felt all in a maze.
"Miles," said grannie, in a trembling voice, and she laid her hand on
his arm. "It's a solemn charge for you. Don't you think we ought just
to kneel down, and thank God, and ask Him to teach us how to spend it?
It'll do us no manner of good without His blessing alongside."
"So you can, mother," said he, all in a hurry, giving her a kiss. "So
you can. I'm due back at the works, and mustn't wait. We'll talk it
over in the evening, by-and-by. And Sue shall have her silk dress as
soon as ever she likes. It makes a man feel all dazed to think of! Five
thousand pounds!"
And he was gone. Mother ran away to tell the neighbours, and grannie
took me upstairs into the little room which she and I had together. She
didn't make but a short prayer, only it was one which I never could
forget.