第 二十一 章 · 第21章

. Strange! for she believed she doted upon him, and certainly she loved

him better than either of her other children. Her version of the matter

was that there had never yet been two parents so self-denying and

devoted to the highest welfare of their children as Theobald and

herself. For Ernest, a very great future—she was certain of it—was in

store. This made severity all the more necessary, so that from the

first he might have been kept pure from every taint of evil. She could

not allow herself the scope for castle building which, we read, was

indulged in by every Jewish matron before the appearance of the

Messiah, for the Messiah had now come, but there was to be a millennium

shortly, certainly not later than 1866, when Ernest would be just about

the right age for it, and a modern Elias would be wanted to herald its

approach. Heaven would bear her witness that she had never shrunk from

the idea of martyrdom for herself and Theobald, nor would she avoid it

for her boy, if his life was required of her in her Redeemer’s service.

Oh, no! If God told her to offer up her first-born, as He had told

Abraham, she would take him up to Pigbury Beacon and plunge the—no,

that she could not do, but it would be unnecessary—some one else might

do that. It was not for nothing that Ernest had been baptised in water

from the Jordan. It had not been her doing, nor yet Theobald’s. They

had not sought it. When water from the sacred stream was wanted for a

sacred infant, the channel had been found through which it was to flow

from far Palestine over land and sea to the door of the house where the

child was lying. Why, it was a miracle! It was! It was! She saw it all

now. The Jordan had left its bed and flowed into her own house. It was

idle to say that this was not a miracle. No miracle was effected

without means of some kind; the difference between the faithful and the

unbeliever consisted in the very fact that the former could see a

miracle where the latter could not. The Jews could see no miracle even

in the raising of Lazarus and the feeding of the five thousand. The

John Pontifexes would see no miracle in this matter of the water from

the Jordan. The essence of a miracle lay not in the fact that means had

been dispensed with, but in the adoption of means to a great end that

had not been available without interference; and no one would suppose

that Dr Jones would have brought the water unless he had been directed.

She would tell this to Theobald, and get him to see it in the . . . and

yet perhaps it would be better not. The insight of women upon matters

of this sort was deeper and more unerring than that of men. It was a

woman and not a man who had been filled most completely with the whole

fulness of the Deity. But why had they not treasured up the water after

it was used? It ought never, never to have been thrown away, but it had

been. Perhaps, however, this was for the best too—they might have been

tempted to set too much store by it, and it might have become a source

of spiritual danger to them—perhaps even of spiritual pride, the very

sin of all others which she most abhorred. As for the channel through

which the Jordan had flowed to Battersby, that mattered not more than

the earth through which the river ran in Palestine itself. Dr Jones was

certainly worldly—very worldly; so, she regretted to feel, had been her

father-in-law, though in a less degree; spiritual, at heart, doubtless,

and becoming more and more spiritual continually as he grew older,

still he was tainted with the world, till a very few hours, probably,

before his death, whereas she and Theobald had given up all for

Christ’s sake. _They_ were not worldly. At least Theobald was not. She

had been, but she was sure she had grown in grace since she had left

off eating things strangled and blood—this was as the washing in Jordan

as against Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus. Her boy should never

touch a strangled fowl nor a black pudding—that, at any rate, she could

see to. He should have a coral from the neighbourhood of Joppa—there

were coral insects on those coasts, so that the thing could easily be

done with a little energy; she would write to Dr Jones about it, etc.

And so on for hours together day after day for years. Truly, Mrs

Theobald loved her child according to her lights with an exceeding

great fondness, but the dreams she had dreamed in sleep were sober

realities in comparison with those she indulged in while awake.

When Ernest was in his second year, Theobald, as I have already said,

began to teach him to read. He began to whip him two days after he had

begun to teach him.

“It was painful,” as he said to Christina, but it was the only thing to

do and it was done. The child was puny, white and sickly, so they sent

continually for the doctor who dosed him with calomel and James’s

powder. All was done in love, anxiety, timidity, stupidity, and

impatience. They were stupid in little things; and he that is stupid in

little will be stupid also in much.

Presently old Mr Pontifex died, and then came the revelation of the

little alteration he had made in his will simultaneously with his

bequest to Ernest. It was rather hard to bear, especially as there was

no way of conveying a bit of their minds to the testator now that he

could no longer hurt them. As regards the boy himself anyone must see

that the bequest would be an unmitigated misfortune to him. To leave

him a small independence was perhaps the greatest injury which one

could inflict upon a young man. It would cripple his energies, and

deaden his desire for active employment. Many a youth was led into evil

courses by the knowledge that on arriving at majority he would come

into a few thousands. They might surely have been trusted to have their

boy’s interests at heart, and must be better judges of those interests

than he, at twenty-one, could be expected to be: besides if Jonadab,

the son of Rechab’s father—or perhaps it might be simpler under the

circumstances to say Rechab at once—if Rechab, then, had left handsome

legacies to his grandchildren—why Jonadab might not have found those

children so easy to deal with, etc. “My dear,” said Theobald, after

having discussed the matter with Christina for the twentieth time, “my

dear, the only thing to guide and console us under misfortunes of this

kind is to take refuge in practical work. I will go and pay a visit to

Mrs Thompson.”

On those days Mrs Thompson would be told that her sins were all washed

white, etc., a little sooner and a little more peremptorily than on

others.