Part 35 (2/2)
”And I am thankful that, although my head was turned then, only my leg has been turned since. My folly was cut off with my offending member, and my ambition was buried with it.”
The company let Job talk in this way a good while. It was refres.h.i.+ng to hear him; and he delighted to be garrulous. There was not a happier heart present than his; and its simple philosophy and genial humor flowed out and mingled in such a sunny, babbling brook, that no one desired it should be checked.
But at length Job himself refused to talk any more.
”I'm pumped dry,” said he. ”If you want anything more from me, Father Brighthopes will have to _prime_ me. I haven't another joke that isn't musty; and now, I say, we'll have a regular-built speech from the old patriarch. Silence!” cried Job, tapping his wooden leg; ”attention, every one! Father Brighthopes, we wait to hear from you.”
The old clergyman, having sat down upon the gra.s.s, was so tangled up in the children, who clung to his neck and arms, that he could not arise to respond.
”Georgie,” said Mrs. Royden, in a tone of gentle reproach, ”you shouldn't lie upon Father Brighthopes. Get down, Willie. Lizzie, you are too big to be hanging around his neck.”
”She is crowning him with a wreath of flowers,” murmured Hepsy, who was comfortably seated in the midst of the group.
The poor girl's health was much improved; there was a faint flush on her cheeks; but, although in good spirits, she had scarcely spoken before since dinner, having been absorbed in weaving the wreath for the old man's venerable and beloved head.
At length he was crowned, the children released him, and he got up, radiant and beautiful, with his young and hopeful spirit s.h.i.+ning through his glorious old face.
We wish there had been a reporter on the spot. That speech would well be worth preserving, word for word. But we are able to give only a meager outline of it, very imperfect, and without regard to the order in which the sentiments--like so many waves of liquid light--rippled upon the hearts of his hearers.
x.x.x.
THE OLD CLERGYMAN'S FAREWELL.
The speaker was about to bid farewell, he said, to all those kind friends. (Sensation.) He would leave them, and be soon forgotten. (Cries of ”No, no! never!” from old and young. Job smites his wooden leg, and exclaims, with enthusiasm, ”Not that, by a long thread!”)
”Well,” continues Father Brighthopes, with suffused features, ”I thank you. I hope you will remember me, as I shall remember you. G.o.d has been very good to me, in giving me friends, all my life long.”
”You deserve them, if anybody does,” whispers Job, loud enough to be heard by the entire audience.
He rubs his hands as if he meant it.
”Let me give you a little hint about getting and keeping friends,” adds the clergyman, smiling around upon the old people in the chairs, and the young people on the gra.s.s or standing up. ”I thank Brother Job for suggesting the thought.”
”Hear, hear!” says Mr. Royden, pulling Willie away from the speaker's legs, and silencing Georgie, who is inclined to blow his gra.s.s ”squawker.”
”My friends have generally been of the right kind,” proceeds the old man. ”If you wish to have your friends of the right kind,”--glancing at the younger portion of the audience,--”I'll tell you how to go to work.
”Be always ready to lend a helping hand to those who need a.s.sistance. Do so with a hearty good will, not feeling as though you were throwing something away; for, although you get no material return,--which should be the last thing to expect,--you will find in the end that you have been exercising your own capacities for happiness, which grow with their use. Do good for the sake of good, and you will see that the bread thus cast upon the waters comes right back to feed your own hungry souls.
”Be ready to sacrifice all externals to friends.h.i.+p, but maintain your integrity. Give the glittering bubbles of the stream and the current will still be yours, clear and strong as ever. What I mean is, abandon circ.u.mstances and outside comforts for the sake of those you love, but never desert a principle to follow any man or set of men. If you do, few friends will be obtained, and they will not be firmly attached; while many who would soon have come round to you will be lost forever. But plant yourself on the rock of principle; and, however men may shun it at first, it shall in the end prove a magnet to draw all true souls to your standard. Royal hearts shall then be yours. They can rely on you, and you on them; so there will be no falling off, when the wind s.h.i.+fts to the northeast. Truth is the sun which holds friends in their orbits, like revolving planets, by the power of its magnetism. If the sun forsake its place in the heavens, and go chasing after the bright tail of some gay comet, what will become of the planets? Let the sun be true to itself, and even the comet comes around in time.”
The old man looks at Chester with a smile which asks, ”Is it not so?”
”Your philosophy is excellent for men of courage, like yourself,” says Chester. ”But few can bear to be hated all their lives by the ma.s.s of their fellow-men, as many have been, for the sake of the truth.”
<script>