Five thousand pounds

by Agnes Giberne

And yet they were not altogether dreary. For it had been with me as Mr. Scott said,—the very fact that I had not grannie to look to had made me look more to God. I suppose that if she had lived I should just have gone on leaning upon her, instead of leaning upon God. I did feel this Christmas that I had got on in the twelve months past,—that I seemed to know Christ more as my own Saviour, and that I cared more for doing His will, and that prayer was more of a needs-be in my life, or at least that I had learnt it to be so, and that my Bible was more dear to me. And it was not so hard, as once it had been, to keep from jealousy of Asaph and from impatience with others.

So Christmas came and passed away, and after Christmas the weather became fine and dry, and father and mother both seemed better in health. Father sat less indoors with his ale beside him; but I was afraid things were not really any more as they should have been. He found his way to the public-house oftener than he had ever been used to do; and sometimes he came home with a look in his face which I had seen, and shrunk from, many a time in other men.

[CHAPTER XIV.]

CHRISTMAS.

CHRISTMAS bills came dropping in thick and fast that year. I had not looked for so many; neither, I am sure, had father and mother. It is so easy to order in a lot of things, each costing little enough by itself, without in the least knowing how much they will come to altogether.

Father began to get vexed, and to say, "What! another!" and a black look would come into his face. And sometimes he would stamp his foot and say, "Here's more of your extravagance, Sue! You'll ruin us all at this rate." And when mother said, "Why, Miles, what's a few shillings to us now? You've plenty of money!" he made answer. "Oh, have I though? I know better!" So I could see things were not all going straight.

From that time father made a sudden change in his way of speaking. Instead of always saying, as he had been used to do of late, "There's money enough,—never fear!" or "Do as you like,—thank goodness, I can afford it!" he twisted right round the other way, and was for ever repeating, "Can't afford this;" and "Can't afford that;" till mother declared we might just as well never have had the five thousand pounds at all. Not that I mean to say we really began even then to be careful. Father wouldn't have any difference made at dinner, for instance. He was never content without the best of everything there. And it seemed to me that whatever he wanted he got, and whatever mother wanted she got too,—only he said often that he could not afford things.

As for all the bills they were put into a drawer and just left alone there, as if they might be expected to pay themselves. But this of course could not go on. By-and-by they began to come in a second time, and father was spoken to by one tradesman and another in a way that he did not find pleasant. So, though he had begun of late to dislike any sort of work, and to find everything a trouble, except smoking and lounging about, he did at last actually look through the whole pile, and find out what they all came to, added up together.

Neither he nor mother had had before then any notion of how the prices of small things mount up. Mother was always saying, "Oh, it's only a shilling;" or, "It's only a half-crown;" or, "What's five shillings out of four hundred pounds?" And father and she had had no sort of steady plan in their spending, but had just got anything here and there as they felt inclined.

But four hundred a year will not buy everything,—no, nor four thousand either. And it seems to me that the question of being poor or rich don't so much hang on what a man has, as on what a man wants. He that has one hundred a year of money, and has wants that can be satisfied on ninety a year, is rich; and he that has five thousand a year, with wants that can only be satisfied on six thousand, is poor. I think we were poorer in our new home than we had been in the little cottage.