CHAPTER VII.

Thinking over it.

WHILE his mother was putting on her bonnet before setting out on her errand, John Carey had finished the slender meal which appeared to leave him more hungry than before. He had watched the widow as she had taken his father's staff from the corner to stay her feeble steps, and it had then struck John, for the first time, how much his mother had aged since his illness, how pale and weary she looked.

"Stay, dear mother," John had cried, with a feeling of self-reproach; "you look so tired, I can't bear to see it. Wait, and we'll find some one else to send."

But the widow's only reply had been a faint smile, as she had left the cottage on her errand for her son.

"My mother has been half-killing herself for me, ungrateful dog that I am," muttered John, his self-reproach growing stronger and stronger. "Why, what can she have been living on all these six weeks, while I've been lying like a log in my bed? I can see well enough in her face what she's been a-suffering for me, without grudging, without complaining, bearing with all my ill temper, nursing me night after night! And what kind of a return do I make for it all? Did I not say to mother this very morning that I wanted to speak to Dick Brace about our little piece of business? She only sighed—I could see she was vexed; but I let her be vexed rather, than give up what I'd set my heart on.

"I've sometimes thought," continued John Carey, still muttering to himself, "I've sometimes thought that if I ever get well again—and now it's like as I may—I'd turn to God, serve Him as my parents have served Him, and begin what mother calls a pilgrim's life in good earnest. But if I did so—ah! The first steps are those as be so hard to take! If I did so—I must honour and obey my mother, as the Bible tells me I should; I must give up this pleasant plan of starting in business with Brace, I must give up the 'Jolly Ploughboys.' 'Twould be a hard pull—it would!"

John rubbed his chin; thinking wearied him, but he could not throw the subject off his mind.

"I might give up Dick Brace and the business, but that would not be the worst of it. Dinah Dealtry!" thought John. "She would not look at a mere day-labourer—she would not live in a cottage like this with my mother!"

He glanced with something like discontent around him at the humble home in which he had been born.

"Dinah has as good as told me that she'd ha' nothing to say to a man who could not offer her a house of her own. If she wouldn't choose to live with mother, mother wouldn't care to live with her; them two could never get on together, they've such different notions and ways."

John heaved a sigh of perplexity and vexation.

"It seems as if I must choose between the two, for I can't have both—that's clear; and I must choose between the two paths also; I know well enough which is the right one, but—but—how thinking does make one's head ache—and one's heart too for the matter of that!"

There are many who, like John Carey, are quite convinced that the pilgrim's path is the right one, the only path which can end in peace; many who are almost persuaded to try it, and who yet shrink back from the sacrifice of what conscience tells them that they must leave behind, if they decide on following the Lord fully in their daily walk through life. It was from this hesitation, from this indecision, so dangerous to the soul, that our Lord would warn His servants when He spoke those solemn words: "If thy hand offend thee (cause to offend) cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell." * Things dear as a hand or an eye must be given up through God's helping Grace, if they keep us back from the narrow way which leads unto life eternal.

* Mark ix. 43.

John Carey thought long, and thought sadly; his brain grew weary, his mind confused, till at length he could do no more than simply lift up his heart to God, and ask for His Spirit to guide him. The once strong, self-willed man was becoming more like the little child who knows his own weakness, and turns to a parent for help and support.

John's solitude was suddenly broken by the sound of tramping footsteps without, and then a loud rap from some one's knuckles on the outer door of the cottage. The latch was lifted, and Dick Brace entered with a quick, bustling air. He threw down a newly-killed pigeon on the table, and greeted John in a loud hearty tone, such as had not been heard for many weeks in that sick-room.

"Ha! Old fellow, glad to see you about again, though," he added with an oath, "you look like one who's had to swim hard for life—they've cropt your mane, and not left much of the 'young lion' about you. I've brought a pigeon I've shot with a new gun I've been trying—no, it's not worth talking about," he added, with a blustering awkwardness of manner, as John seemed about to thank him for the bird.

And Brace seated himself opposite to the invalid, looking fidgety and somewhat embarrassed, as John might have perceived, had he not been too busy with his own thoughts to notice the manner of his companion.

"You are just the man as I was a-wanting to see," said young Carey, his pale face flushing with the effort of speaking; "I've something to say to ye, Dick, and I'd better out with it at once. You see, I don't want to deal unhandsome by you—but about that partnership we meant to set up—"

"Of course that affair went to smash when you were robbed of your tin," interrupted Dick Brace; "one can't set up in business with only a shovel, a spade, and a hammer!"

"But I was not robbed," began Carey, when again his companion cut him short.

"Besides, I've been thinking," said Dick, "that two landlords would be one too many for the 'Jolly Ploughboys'—a landlady would be quite another thing; so," he added, with an awkward little laugh, "I'm going to enter into partnership for life, and I've found Dinah Dealtry quite willing to set up in business with me."

John's flushed face turned very pale; this was the only sign of emotion which he gave. He let not a word escape that might betray his secret to Dick, who, having told his tale, soon afterwards took his leave.

When Widow Carey came home, full of thankful joy, with the money, she only thought her son unusually silent and grave—she believed that this was because he was weary, but she did wonder not a little that his appetite should have so suddenly left him.

When Mrs. Carey heard afterwards from the baker of Dick's engagement to Dinah, the mother guessed what it had been that had cast a gloom over her son. She never mentioned the girl's name to John, and it never once passed his lips. The young man felt that his prayer for guidance had been answered in wisdom and goodness, but he could not feel thankful then for the blighting of earthly hopes.

But a time was coming when John Carey could not only submit, but rejoice that he had been kept from the path that he had wished to pursue; when he could be grateful from the bottom of his heart for the blows which had nearly cost him his life, for the sickness which had wasted his strength, the disappointment which had wounded his heart.

This was when, about a year afterwards, he brought a bright, happy young bride to his home, and saw his mother's eyes beaming with pleasure almost as great as his own; for Jane was the girl of all others whom the pious widow would have chosen to dwell with her as the wife of her son.

"You'll give us your blessing, mother, won't you?" asked John.

The widow took the strong hand which was held out to her, joined it to Jane's, and pressed both to her happy heart.

"Oh! My children," she cried, "may God—your father's God—give you both grace to go on as you have begun, walking hand in hand, as pilgrims to a better home—cheering each other, and helping each other on the way! Never forget that all earth can give is nothing without God's blessing; that blessing gives peace and hope in this life, to be followed by perfect bliss with Him in whose presence is fulness of joy, and in whose right hand are pleasures for evermore!"

AN HEIR OF HEAVEN

OR,

A CHRISTIAN IN PRIVILEGE.