A NEIGHBOUR
THOUGH for many years, Michael Betts had lived in loneliness, his
life had not always been so lonely. As a young man, he had had his
widowed mother to care for, and a brother, some ten years younger
than himself, had shared their home. There had been other children
who had passed away in infancy. Only these two, the eldest and the
youngest, remained, and the mother loved them passionately, if not
wisely.
It was perhaps not strange that between brothers so widely parted by
years, there should be no very close bond of sympathy. But the
distinction between them was more marked than that which mere age
would effect. Their characters were wholly different. The disposition
of the elder brother had always been serious, his behaviour correct,
his words and ways prudent and cautious beyond his years. The bearing
of the other afforded a great contrast. Frank from boyhood was
distinguished by wild spirits; he was restless and reckless in his
ways, bent upon pleasure and regardless of its cost, and disposed to
chaff his grave, prudent brother.
The two could not understand each other. Michael, conscious of his
own rectitude, was keenly alive to his brother's faults, and disposed
to think the very worst of him. He was vexed with his mother when she
persistently found excuses for Frank's failings, and reiterated her
fond belief that he "meant no harm," and would "come right some day."
Whilst she lived to keep peace in the home, there was no open breach
between the brothers. Unhappily, she passed away ere Frank had fully
attained to manhood. His mother's death was a grief to Michael. He
had loved her truly, in spite of a sense of her incapacity and
wrong-headedness on many points, notably on those which concerned her
younger son. Sometimes it had almost seemed as if she loved Frank, in
spite of all his faults, better than the son whose meritoriousness
had ever been apparent.
Yet Michael meant well by his brother when their mother's death left
them together. He had promised her when she lay dying that he would
be as a father to Frank; and he intended to keep that promise. He
would do his duty by Frank; he would care for him and look after his
interests as an elder brother should. To be sure, he expected that
Frank would respond as he should to his fraternal kindness, and show
a fitting sense of what the bond between them entailed upon him. But
such an expectation was most vain. Frank was what he had always been.
Shortly after his mother's death, Michael, who had been saving money
carefully for years, whilst working diligently and acquiring business
experience, was able to take the corner house and open a book-shop on
his own account. He counted on Frank's assistance in working it. He
thought the business would provide a future for his young brother as
well as for himself. But it was a disastrous experiment he was now
undertaking. Frank had little inclination to work steadily as his
brother's assistant. His careless, irregular ways tried Michael's
patience beyond endurance. He reproached his brother bitterly; but
his rebukes only elicited insolence and defiance.
Frank left his brother in anger, and found a situation for himself
elsewhere. He did not keep it long, however. From idle, he fell into
sinful courses. Lower and lower he drifted, till Michael saw him only
when he came to beg for relief from the starvation to which his
profligacy had reduced him. Michael dreaded his appearance. He could
not bear that any of his customers should know that such a
disreputable man was his brother.
But he never refused Frank food or a night's lodging, till after one
of these brief visitations he missed a valuable classic, and was
convinced that his brother had stolen it. Then he vowed that he would
do nothing more for Frank. If his brother dared to come near him
again, thinking to lay thievish hands on his goods, he would give him
in charge. No one could say that he had failed in his duty towards
his brother. No, he had kept his promise to his mother as far as it
was in his power to keep it. He could do no more. Frank must reap as
he had sown.
Michael never had occasion to put his threat into execution. His
brother, perhaps, divined too well what he might expect. However that
might be, Michael saw his face no more, and was thankful not to see
it. As years passed on and he heard no more of Frank, he was able to
persuade himself that his brother was dead. And as this conviction
deepened within him, it became easier and easier to banish from his
mind the thought of his unhappy brother.
His business absorbed his whole attention. It prospered, and year by
year he was able to lay by money. This result he found most
satisfactory. Gradually, but surely, the love of gain became the
chief passion of his soul. His own wants were few and simple, and he
had no one besides himself on whom to spend money, so his savings
grew apace, and he hugged to his heart the knowledge that he was
making a nice little sum. He never asked himself what good the money
was to do, or for whom he was saving it. He forgot that he was
growing old, and that a time must soon come when he would have to
leave all that he possessed. He loved to think that he was growing
rich; never suspecting how miserably poor he was in all that makes
the true wealth of human life.
It was rarely now that Michael gave a thought to his unhappy brother;
but on the evening of the day which had surprised him by bringing
such a quaint little customer to his shop, he found his mind
strangely disposed to revert to his own early days. It was a most
unusual thing for him to speak with a little child. He could not
remember when he had done so before. Had he been asked if he liked
children, he would have answered the question decidedly in the
negative. He certainly detested the boys of the neighbourhood, who
were wont to annoy him by hanging about his shop of an evening, and
laying their careless fingers on his books, and who had very
objectionable ways of retaliating when he reproved them. But a fair,
dainty, blue-eyed, childlike Margery was quite another thing. Her
sweet, rosy face, shaded by drooping curls, rose again and again
before his mental vision, and her childish voice repeated itself in
his ears as he sat patching and mending some of the shabbier of his
books.
And somehow those sweet accents carried his memory back to the days
of his own childhood. He remembered a little sister who had died; he
recalled the bitterness of the tears he had shed as he looked on her
still, marble face, lying in the little coffin; he saw his mother
weeping as though her heart would break; he saw baby Frank looking in
surprise from one to the other, wondering at their tears, but
untouched by any sense of their sorrow. How vividly the scene rose
before him again! His mother's face, the well-worn, shabby furniture,
the very atmosphere of the old home seemed about him for the moment.
Yet how long ago it was! If the little sister had lived, she might
now have been an anxious-looking mother herself, with grown-up
children. And Frank—baby Frank—what had become of him? Dead,
probably,—yes, surely he was dead, and better dead. But Michael
heaved a sigh as he thought of his brother. He had not been so moved
for years. Certainly the visit of that little maiden had exercised a
softening influence upon him. How long it was since he had seen his
brother!
His life altogether seemed long, as he looked back on it. Very, very
old, the little girl had called him. She was wrong there; he was not
so very old. But he was getting old. He could not deny that, and the
thought caused him a throb of pain. For the first time, he felt his
life to be narrow and contracted and unsatisfactory. He rose and
walked up and down the limited space in which it was possible to move
between the piled-up books. He drew aside the curtain which hung over
the little door, and looked up at the stars shining brightly above
the tall houses opposite. And he sighed again. What was making him
feel so unlike himself to-night?
He half hoped that on the following day little Margery might again
make her appearance in his shop. Would she forget her little debt to
him? He hoped not. He did not care about the fourpence so much; but
he did want to see the pretty little creature again. But throughout
the day he looked for her in vain. Nor did she appear on the next,
nor the next. He was conscious of disappointment. On the third day,
however, he had news which concerned her.
A well-known customer entered the shop. But though he knew the man
well as a customer, Michael knew very little of him. He was not
interested in the lives of his customers, except where they touched
his own. He knew this one to be a minister of some kind, and from the
alacrity with which he dropped the theological books he desired, if
their price were at all high, the bookseller imagined that money was
not plentiful with him. The fact that this preacher often asked for
works by Mr. Spurgeon proved nothing, since Michael's experience had
taught him that the writings of that great preacher have a
fascination for every species of religious teacher who tries to open
his lips in public for the edification of his brother man.
"Good day, sir," said Michael, as his customer entered the shop.
"What can I do for you to-day?"
"Good day, Mr. Betts. I really do not know that I want anything in
particular, only, as I was passing close by, I could not resist the
temptation to look in, just to see what you have. Your wares are
always tempting to me."
"I'm glad to hear it, sir. Look round, and welcome. Take your time
over it. There's a new lot of books here that I've purchased lately.
Maybe you'd fancy some of them."
"Thanks, thanks," said the other, turning eagerly towards the books.
He stood for some minutes examining them in silence. Suddenly he
said, "Ah! Here is a book, I see, by Professor Lavers. It is very sad
about him, is it not?"
"What about him, sir?" asked Michael, in surprise.
"What? You have not heard? How strange! And he, a neighbour of yours!"
"He lives in Gower Street, certainly, if that makes him a neighbour
of mine," said Betts grimly; "but what is the matter with him, sir?"
"He is very ill indeed; the doctors think he cannot recover. It is a
sad pity. A scientific man of such ability can ill be spared."
Michael made no reply. He stood dismayed. A curious sensation of pain
smote him. He was not thinking of the loss to science. He was
thinking of a certain little fair-haired, blue-eyed child, who would
soon be fatherless, if this news were true.
"He was taken ill very suddenly, I believe," said the customer; "it
is acute pneumonia. He has not been ill more than three or four days.
Still, I wonder you have not heard, living so near."
"Such neighbourhood does not count for much in London, sir," replied
Michael, rousing himself from his abstraction. "Persons may live next
door to each other for years, and never learn each other's names. I
should know nothing of Professor Lavers if he did not happen to be a
customer of mine."
"I suppose that is so," said the minister thoughtfully. "I suppose
nowhere can one attain such complete isolation as in this London. Its
life must tend to harden human hearts into selfish indifference to
the needs of others. Sad indeed were the life of man, if he were left
to the mercies of his brother man. But it comforts me to think of the
great love of God enfolding the sinful, sorrowful city, and the heart
of God pitying the infinite struggles and woes of humanity. But I
must not linger now. Good day, Mr. Betts."
"Good day," said Michael. He had hardly followed what the other was
saying. It did not seem to him that the love of God in any
perceptible degree brightened the life of man. But what could a man
who was satisfied with himself, and never done anything wrong in his
life, know of the love of God?