Part 17 (1/2)
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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d,” 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 G.o.d, 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.”
CHAPTER VIII
GREATER THAN OUR HEARTS
The world is weary of new tracks of thought That lead to nought-- Sick of quack remedies prescribed in vain For mortal pain, Yet still above them all one Figure stands With outstretched Hands.
”Cousin Maria, do you like Alan Tremaine?” asked Elisabeth, not long after her return from Yorks.h.i.+re.
”Like him, my dear? I neither like nor dislike persons with whom I have as little in common as I have with Mr. Tremaine. But he strikes me as a young man of parts, and his manners are admirable.”
”I wasn't thinking about his manners, I was thinking about his views,”
said the girl, walking across the room and looking through the window at the valley smiling in the light of the summer morning; ”don't you think they are very broad and enlightened?”
”I daresay they are. Young persons of superior intelligence are frequently dazzled by their own brilliance at first, and consider that they were sent into the world specially to confute the law and the prophets. As they grow older they learn better.”
Elisabeth began playing with the blind-cord. ”I think he is awfully clever,” she remarked.
”My dear, how often must I beg you not to use that word _awfully_, except in its correct sense? Remember that we hold the English tongue in trust--it belongs to the nation and not to us--and we have no more right to profane England's language by the introduction of coined words and slang expressions than we have to disendow her inst.i.tutions or to pollute her rivers.”
”All right; I'll try not to forget again. But you really do think Alan is clever, don't you?”
”He is undoubtedly intelligent, and possesses the knack of appearing even more intelligent than he is; but at present he has not learned his own limitations.”