“They should educate themselves, sir,” bawled Mr. Wrigley; “that is, if they’ve the minds to carry it, which I doubt.
“That’s to flout your God, sir,” said my father. “Our heavenly Father is not so partial as you would have Him to be. One baby’s very much like another when it first blinks its little eyes at this strange world. Take a little prince from Buckingham Palace and bring him up in the gutter and a gutter-snipe he’ll be, blue blood or no blue blood; take a beggar’s brat and plant it in Buckingham Palace and ’twill make in time a very passable Prince.”
“And when are the working-classes to find time for education, sir, even if what you say’s true, which may be or may not be?” asked Mr. Wrigley as one who puts a poser.
“They’ll have to find time before they begin to work,” said my father stoutly. “Boys and girls of ten years of age ought to be at school and not in a mill. The manufacturers of this Riding are building up their fortunes on the life’s blood of tender and helpless children, and their little voices ascend to heaven and will yet be heard by their Father there.”
Yes, my father said that, and the walls of Holly Grove did not fall and bury him alive. I quaked in my chair. Mr. Wrigley grew purple in his wrath and was evidently rallying all his forces for a crushing rejoinder when fortunately Mrs. Wrigley sailed into the room with Mary and the two girls in her train. Mrs. Wrigley cast her keen glance at her husband.
“I believe you’ve been arguing, John. It’s that horrid gin. It’s a strange thing a man can’t take spirits without wanting to argue. And you lost your temper, too. I heard you from the bedroom. That temper of yours will be your undoing, John, You must pray against it, mustn’t he, Mr. Holmes?”
“Oh Lord!” muttered Mr. Wrigley, feebly, mopping his brow with a large silk handkerchief.
“Now we’ll go in to tea. John, you’ll take Ruth; Abel, look after Mrs. Haigh; Jim must look after himself, for I want Miriam to sit by me.”
Now I was mighty pleased and proud to see that from the first Mrs. Wrigley had taken a great fancy to my dear sweetheart. Perhaps it was her strange and sad story that had touched her heart; perhaps the mother’s heart in her breast yearned over the orphaned girl; or belike it was a way Miriam had of soft and yielding deference to those older than herself.
Now, no one would thank me to tell in full the story of that evening’s service. Matthey Haley surpassed himself. He had listened, I thought, with some impatience to my father’s discourse, which he based, somewhat unfeelingly I thought, on the cryptic saying of Ecclesiastes: “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof.” I was in a chastened mood, and listened meekly enough even to Matthey’s ranting, which usually jarred upon my feelings. But I was learning be-times that most difficult of all lessons: to be indulgent of the weaknesses of others; to all their faults a little blind; to all their virtues very kind. And though, to be sure, Matthey, when in full blast, did rave and roar as though indeed his God was “either talking, or he was pursuing, or he wag on a journey, or peradventure he slept and must be awaked;” yet I doubt not his God, as he conceived him, a sort of magnified man to be flattered, cajoled, and entreated, was to Matthey a very real Being, and Matthey’s religion to him a very real and living thing.