Part 25 (2/2)
It was now, as has been said, early summer. The little family party were sitting at breakfast the day before the intended trip to the sea, when Walter remarked to his brother, ”What do you say, Amos, to our taking our ponies to the sea with us? It would do them good, and it would be capital fun to have some good gallops along the sands.”
Amos turned red, and did not answer. Walter repeated his question. His brother then replied, but with evident reluctance, ”The fact is, I have sold Prince.”
”Sold Prince!” exclaimed his brother and sister.
”My dear Amos,” said his father, ”what can have induced you to sell Prince? Surely you are imposing too great a burden on yourself. I remember now that I have not seen you riding lately. I am very sorry that you should have thought of such a thing. Why didn't you come to me?”
”My dear father,” said Amos earnestly, and with a bright smile, ”you have quite enough to do with your time and money just now, so I have not troubled you about the matter. I have a little scheme of my own which is a bit of a secret, and it needs a little self-denial to carry it out.
I want the money more than I want Prince just now. I have found a capital master for him, who will treat him kindly; and by-and-by I shall be able to get him back again, perhaps. At any rate, will you be content to trust me in the matter, dear father?”
”Trust you, my dear boy!” exclaimed the squire; ”indeed I ought, and will, for you thoroughly deserve my trust; only it grieves me to think that you should have parted with your favourite pony.”
”Oh, never mind that, father,” replied Amos cheerily, ”it will be all right. Thank you so much for your kind confidence; what I have done will do me no harm.”
The conversation then pa.s.sed on to other subjects, but Walter was clearly a little uneasy in his mind. ”Amos,” he cried, when his father had left the breakfast-table for a few minutes to speak to a tenant who wanted an early word with him, ”are you going into business soon?”
”Business, Walter! Not that I know of. What sort of business do you mean?”
”Oh, into the b.u.t.ter, cheese, and bacon line.”
”I don't understand you.”
”Don't you? Well, it seems to me that sundry pounds of b.u.t.ter which have not spread themselves lately on your bread or toast, as they ought to have done, are intended to turn up somewhere one of these days.”
The effect of this little speech on Amos was manifestly very disconcerting; he turned red, looked confused, then with knitted brows gazed at the window. Walter, sorry to have given him pain, was just about to make some further remark, when his eyes fell on the hands of Miss Huntingdon, which were crossed on the table. Nodding his head profoundly towards his aunt, he dashed off at once into another subject, and his brother soon recovered his equanimity.
That afternoon, Walter, with his sister leaning on his arm, came and seated himself by his aunt, who had taken her needlework to the summer- house. Amos did not join them, being busily engaged in preparations for the morrow's journey. ”And now, auntie,” said Walter, ”here are two very docile and attentive scholars come for a promised lesson on moral courage.”
”Oh, but I have not promised them a lesson,” said Miss Huntingdon, laughing.
”No, auntie, perhaps not; but your hands have,--these hands, which were crossed at breakfast, they have promised the lesson.”
”Well, dear boy, that is true in a measure, but I hardly know how to begin. I have nothing to rebuke or find fault with in you, unless it was just a little want of consideration in your dealing with Amos; but I am sure you meant no unkindness.”
”Certainly not, auntie, not a bit of it. But now I don't quite understand about Amos and his leaving off taking b.u.t.ter. It has something to do with that selling of his pony, I'm sure. Perhaps you can explain it, and give us a lesson of moral courage from it, ill.u.s.trated by historical examples.”
”I will try, dear boy. The fact is--and I am under no promise of secrecy in the matter; for while Amos is not one to sound a trumpet before him to proclaim his good deeds, he has no wish to hide them, as though he were half-ashamed of them--the fact is that Amos wishes to save every penny just now, in order to be perfectly free to carry out anything he may see it right to undertake in this scheme of his for bringing back your dear mother once more amongst us. Every farthing spent on himself he grudges, and he would not for the world draw on your father; so he has not only sold his pony, but has also given up taking b.u.t.ter at meals, having made me promise, as I am housekeeper and hold the purse, to give him in money the worth of the b.u.t.ter he would eat, that he may put it to this special fund for his cherished scheme. And I have gladly consented to his wish. It is but a small matter, and he knows it, but it is through small things that great good is brought about. As Martin Tupper says, 'Trifles light as air are levers in the building up of character.' This self-denial on the part of dear Amos brings out and heightens the n.o.bility of his character; and when the occasion for such self-denial shall have pa.s.sed away, it will leave him far advanced on the upward and heavenward road.”
”He's a brick, every inch of him,” said Walter, in a voice half-choked with tears; ”and much more than a brick too--he's a great square block of marble, or Scotch granite, as fine a one as ever Freemason tapped with a trowel--there. And now, auntie, for the historical examples.”
”My first,” said Miss Huntingdon, ”is that of a very remarkable man-- John Wesley, the father of the Methodists. An order having been made by the House of Lords in his day for the commissioners of excise to write to all persons whom they might have reason to suspect of having plate without having paid the duty on it, the accountant-general for household plate sent to Mr Wesley a copy of the order, with a letter stating that hitherto he had neglected to make entry of his plate, and demanding that he should do it immediately. Mr Wesley replied:--'Sir, I have two silver tea-spoons at London, and two at Bristol. This is all the plate I have at present; and I shall not buy any more while so many around me want bread.--Your obedient servant, John Wesley.'
”My next example is that of an equally remarkable man, Oberlin, the French pastor of Ban-de-la-Roche, a wild mountainous district between Alsace and Lorraine, where, single-handed, and in the midst of extraordinary difficulties and privations, he was privileged to work wonders amongst a most ignorant and poverty-stricken people. The knowledge of several pious and excellent inst.i.tutions had reached the secluded valley where Oberlin was stationed before it was received by the rest of France. No sooner had he learned that there were Christians who left their homes to convey to the benighted heathen the promises of the gospel, than he parted with all his plate, with the exception of one silver spoon, and contributed the proceeds of the sale to mission work, expressing at the same time his regret that he was unable to send more.
That one silver spoon he afterwards bequeathed as a legacy to the Church Missionary Society.
”I have yet another example of the same kind to bring forward. It is that of a most earnest and devoted American missionary, Reverend George Bowen of Bombay. This good man was once an infidel. His father was a rich man; but when he himself was converted, he gave up friends, country, and fortune, and consecrated himself and his whole life to the service of Christ among the heathen. For many years he lived in a miserable hut in the native bazaar, among its sadly degraded population.
Yet he was a man of deep learning and refined manners, who had travelled much, and knew some dozen languages. After spending about a year in India, he was led to believe that his influence would be greater if he were not in the receipt of a salary from a missionary society; so for thirty years past he has received none. For some years he earned his livelihood by giving an hour daily to private tuition; for a still longer time he has trusted to the Lord to supply his need without such occupation, and has always had enough and to spare.
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