At last the Justice was ready to see John Carey in the study. The young countryman, as he trod the Turkey-carpet of that luxurious room, looked with mingled pity and contempt on the owner of so much wealth, bolstered up with cushions, and swathed in flannels, with the peevishness of suffering written upon his red bloated face. John could not help thinking of the cheerful patience of his own father during sickness, and the thankful pleasure with which he had received every little comfort, as a direct gift from his God.
"What's this you want—your uncle's legacy? I don't know why he should have bothered me with a petty matter like this," said the Justice peevishly, when John had explained his business.
"Thirty pounds—is that the sum? Yes, I remember; I was writing out a cheque for it last night when I was taken so ill that I could scarcely hold the pen in my fingers."
The Justice looked as if it were a labour and pain to him now to open the desk before him with his swollen gouty hands, and he had hardly taken out the cheque when his servant ushered in the doctor.
"There—go, they'll cash it for you in Argyll Street; I can't be plagued with business," said the Justice hastily, motioning to John to quit his presence.
Young Carey hurriedly put the cheque into his pocket-book and left the house, feeling that he would not change places with that wretched Dives, who lived but for self, even if there were no danger of the "place of torment" succeeding the state of luxury of him who fared sumptuously every day.
"I'm thirsty, and I've a long trudge before me," said John to himself. "I'll just step into the little inn yonder, and refresh myself with a tumbler of beer."
John found in the "White Hart," Sam Soames, a man with whom he had but a slight acquaintance, "the less the better," as Mrs. Carey often had said. No one who looked at Sam as he sat with his elbows rubbing through his sleeves, with his battered hat, dirty shirt, and poverty-stricken aspect, would have guessed that he was a skilled workman, who could win two guineas a week. Sam had earned a great deal of money in his time, but as fast as he made it, the gold seemed to slip through his fingers. It might be said of him in the forcible language of Scripture, "he earneth wages to put into a bag with holes." *
* Haggai i. 6.
Never had John's father, through all his long sickness, when he had no power to earn a shilling, known the actual want which was staring in the face of this man, who had no one to blame but himself that he was not one of the most thriving workmen in the town where he lived. Money had come—and had gone—a blessing was not upon it!