Part 4 (1/2)
”_You shall never drive me again_.”
”_You shall never drive me again_.”
The dean at last called to him. ”What do you mean by thus repeating my words?”
”I am trying to find out what _you_ meant,” said Henry.
”What don't you know?” cried his enlightened cousin. ”Richard is turned away; he is never to get upon our coach-box again, never to drive any of us more.”
”And was it pleasure to drive us, cousin? I am sure I have often pitied him. It rained sometimes very hard when he was on the box; and sometimes Lady Clementina has kept him a whole hour at the door all in the cold and snow. Was that pleasure?”
”No,” replied young William.
”Was it honour, cousin?”
”No,” exclaimed his cousin with a contemptuous smile.
”Then why did my uncle say to him, as a punishment, 'he should never'”--
”Come hither, child,” said the dean, ”and let me instruct you; your father's negligence has been inexcusable. There are in society,”
continued the dean, ”rich and poor; the poor are born to serve the rich.”
”And what are the rich born for?”
”To be served by the poor.”
”But suppose the poor would not serve them?”
”Then they must starve.”
”And so poor people are permitted to live only upon condition that they wait upon the rich?”
”Is that a hard condition; or if it were, they will be rewarded in a better world than this?”
”Is there a better world than this?”
”Is it possible you do not know there is?”
”I heard my father once say something about a world to come; but he stopped short, and said I was too young to understand what he meant.”
”The world to come,” returned the dean, ”is where we shall go after death; and there no distinction will be made between rich and poor--all persons there will be equal.”
”Aye, now I see what makes it a better world than this. But cannot this world try to be as good as that?”
”In respect to placing all persons on a level, it is utterly impossible.
G.o.d has ordained it otherwise.”
”How! has G.o.d ordained a distinction to be made, and will not make any Himself?”