CHAPTER V

THE GARDENER'S LESSON

OLD Jonathan's home was a picture worth studying. It consisted of two small rooms, one over the other, in the little round house which stood at the entrance to Oaklands. Its name, "The Lodge," seemed given in irony. Passers-by often wondered why such a crazy old tenement should be allowed to remain on the boundary of so fine an estate; for it was more like a battered old pepper-pot than anything else, with its rounded roof and sides, and its cracked slates, which often, parting company in a high gale, left holes for the wind and rain to enter, thus making the resemblance more painfully exact.

Yet the old man loved his dilapidated cottage, and could never have felt at home in a new lodge, though faultless it might be within and without. How tenderly he would twine the tendrils of the vine still higher each year, and encourage the merciful ivy to creep up and up, to cover all defects, and shield the cracked walls from rude blasts, which sometimes threatened to shake them down!

"Let us crumble away together," was old Jonathan's speech to the proprietor of Oaklands whenever there was any talk of a new house. "It would break my heart, dear master, to have a stone of her touched. Let be, let be. Don't ye touch a stone till I am gone. One of the many mansions in glory will be my new home. I don't want any other till I go there."

And so Jonathan always had his own way, for his kind-hearted employer could not resist such pathetic pleading.

The aged pilgrim and his house were indeed a match for each other; and as he went in and out through the rustic porch day after day, the tender green tints of vine and Virginian creeper deepened and crimsoned, and grew golden with happy autumn tints, until they fluttered away on the wings of a wintry wind.

Robin often crossed the threshold, and the ideas of order and neatness which he found so useful in after life were chiefly gained from his observations in the old man's home. For here was a place for everything, and everything in its place. All was neatly arranged and scrupulously clean; and on the round table in the window was the great Bible that had belonged to Jonathan's mother, with the silver-rimmed spectacles beside it.

There was a small lean-to room behind, which was full of gardening pots and tools; also boxes with divisions, to keep the bulb roots and flower seeds separate. Knots of bass and twine hung from the wall, for tying up stray branches, and a great pair of scissors sat astride on a nail above. There were also bunches of dried and sweet-smelling herbs, of which Jonathan well knew the properties. His practical knowledge of simple remedies he was often called upon to use on behalf of his humble neighbours, who all looked up to him as an authority on most matters.

The villagers wondered how he could live there all alone from year to year, doing everything for himself. Only a few of the oldest inhabitants remembered the sad story he brought with him of the fever-stricken town he had fled from, a widower and childless. His Maggie would never grow old. She had gone away to the better land with her two little ones, just at the beginning of the life-journey which both husband and wife had thought would be such a long one together. Not many knew why he brushed away the tear that was ready to fall on the golden-haired child he would take upon his knee, as the little ones crowded round the porch of his house on their way home from school. There were three locks of hair in the old Bible, and sprigs of rosemary and lavender beside them. They were laid upon the page that told of a happy spring-time: "My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away." (Cant. ii. 10-13).

Those withered tokens were the old man's only "in memoriam." But they kept his heart tender and child-loving as now and then he touched them reverently, and thought how long it was since his loved ones had gone to dwell in the presence of the King.

It was in spring-time his great life-sorrow had touched him; yet he always seemed to love that season best. Keenly alive to the beauties of Nature, he would study her ways minutely in trees and flowers, birds and insects. The fruit trees in spring were as a poem to the aged man in their lovely blossoming.

One day Robin found him looking lovingly at some pale almond flowers flushed with faint pink. He was reading a lesson from their delicate petals.

"Isn't it beautiful?" said Jonathan as he bent the blossom-laden branch towards Robin. "Aaron's rod must have looked like that, my boy, when it brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms. What a wonderful lesson for the Christian heart!"

"I don't remember about that, Mr. Jonathan. Is it in the Bible?"

"Ay, that it is; and you may read it for yourself, my lad, when you get home. Find out the 17th chapter of Numbers, and there you will get the whole account. There were twelve rods laid before the Lord, but only one was chosen—the one that belonged to the priest. Christ is our Priest, and He is the Ark of Safety, where we, as lost and guilty sinners, may hide ourselves and be safe in Him; then He decks us in His robe of righteousness, which is far more beautiful than these lovely perishing flowers, and we not only blossom, but bear fruit."

"But what is meant by 'bearing fruit,' Mr. Jonathan?"

"Well, my boy, I think kind words and looks, and struggles against sin, are fruits that God likes to see in us. When we give up doing what we like, and try to please God and everybody around us, I think He smiles and says, 'There is fruit, pleasant fruit on that tree.' But we must keep the branch inside the Ark; there the east wind of sin can never blight its fair promise. Out of that shelter, the blossoms must fall and perish, and there will be no fruit. 'Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.'

"'They who in appointed duty Live most secretly with God, Shall come forth in fullest beauty, Blossoming like Aaron's rod. Plants can flourish in the dark, If within the Golden Ark.'"

Robin never forgot that lesson, learned among the fragrant trees. The old man was delighted to have so interested a listener beside him, as day after day he sought to open Nature's book before the boy in the light of God's revelation. The fig tree and the vine each had their instructive story as the work of cutting and pruning or dressing went on.

"Even the thorny bramble in the wood puts us to shame," said Robin's kind teacher, one September day; "for, look! How glad it makes the children as it offers its ripe blackberries to them as they pass. Can we do as much as that poor prickly thing? Or is it only thorns we have to offer?"

Jonathan's teaching was all given by parable and allegory, and Robin was only one of the many who benefited by it. The children of his beloved master shared in its happy influence as they played beside him or worked in their garden plots. Every opportunity was turned into a golden one, and much seed sown that for the time seemed trampled down, but which was destined hereafter to spring up and have its blossoming and fruitage in hearts that would bless the friend who had sown and watered with such loving careful patience.

The good man connected everything around him in some way with God's truth; and this it was that made his lessons so real and living. The children of Oaklands could never read about the wearied Saviour and the woman of Samaria without recalling the moss-grown well in the corner of the garden, with its rusty chain and buckets, where Jonathan had told that sweet story of old as he filled his water-cans.

The water of life, that in its freshness slakes all thirst for ever, had its earthly illustration in the dark depths of their own spring-fed well, and it was a life-long association.

But my readers will like to hear how it happened that Robin was able to be with his kind friend and teacher so constantly. After that sunny day of primrose gathering in the wood, the master of Oaklands had a long conversation with Jonathan about Robin.

The under gardener had been suddenly dismissed the previous week, and as the place was now vacant, there was an opportunity for saying a good word for the widow's son.

"I would like to find someone trustworthy, who would grow up under my eye and take my place when I am gone," the old man had said. "I am not so young as I once was, and the rheumatics, especially in winter, tell me the old tree must come down some day. But as in the forest I never mark a tree for felling without first planting a sapling beside it, so I would now like to find one of a good stock who will grow up faithful to your service, sir, when these hands can no longer work for you and yours."

Jonathan's advice was taken, and Robin duly installed in his new post. What a big man he felt the first time he put his week's wages into his mother's hand! He was to be the bread-winner of the family now, and mother could afford to pay a smaller boy to fetch and carry the clothes from the various houses. At church the following Sunday, who felt happier or more elated than Robin, dressed in the new suit given him by his master? Ah! how many good things grew out of Corrie's happy Christmas! It had certainly turned a bright page in the history of Robin's life.

Jonathan's words awakened many new thoughts in the boy's heart as day by day he listened to them in the garden at Oaklands. But Robin's youthful inexperience made some of the things uttered by his wise teacher hard to be understood, and roused doubts and questions which had not existed before.

One day he had been hearing much about the inborn corruption of the human heart, described in Scripture as "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Robin remembered more than once having paused on the threshold of the lodge on hearing the prayer of faith being poured forth within; and he thought it strange that such agonising pleadings against sin should have such a prominent place in his friend's petition.

Jonathan seemed perfect in the boy's eyes; good, kind, generous, and a never-failing friend. There might be wicked people in the world; but it would be easy to keep separate from them. Could not Robin look with complacent satisfaction on his own life? Was he not a good son and loving brother, taking home his earnings on Saturday night with a punctuality that never failed? The public-house, with its crowd of idlers going in and out, had no attraction for him, thanks to the earnest and careful training of his good mother. He knew that not a more sober industrious lad could be found in the whole parish than he was.

But he had yet to learn that he carried the world in his heart, and that it was on this battlefield that he must war against its trinity of evil, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life." Robin began to think old Jonathan was over-conscientious in the discharge of duty, and over-strict about little faults.

Why had he spoken so sharply to him that very day about the watering of a few plants? "I did not mean to forget them," ought to have been a sufficient plea to justify him. Was forgetting a sin? A slip in the memory was surely to be excused. Why should Jonathan say the narrow path was thickly hedged with thorns, ready to prick on the right hand and on the left? It seemed such an easy thing to be a Christian!

What did old Jonathan mean by the east wind of sin coming to nip the early buds? Robin found the answer to his questions in a bitter and most painful experience.