“But you’re all doing something,” said Christie earnestly, “and wasn’t our blessed Lord weary when He sat on the well? I might give Him a little weariness, mightn’t I—when I’ve got nothing better?”
To the surprise of everybody, Thomas had replied.
“We’re not doing much, measured by that ell-wand,” said the silent man; “but Titus and Banks and Christie, they’re doing the most.”
Poor Collet Pardue broke down in a confused mixture of thanks and tears, when she heard the propositions of her friends. She was gratefully willing to accept all the offers. Three of her boys were already employed at the cloth-works; one of the younger trio should go to Banks to be brought up a mason. Which would he choose?
Banks looked at the three lads offered him—the noisy Noah, the ungovernable Silas, and the lazy Valentine.
“I’ll have Silas,” he said quietly.
“The worst pickle of the lot!” commented Mrs Tabitha, who made one of the deputation.
“Maybe,” said Banks calmly; “but I see wits there, and I’ll hope for a heart, and with them and the grace of God, which Collet and I shall pray for, we’ll make a man of Silas Pardue yet.”
And if John Banks ever regretted his decision, it was not on a certain winter evening, well into the reign of Elizabeth, when a fine, manly-looking fellow, with a grand forehead wherein “his soul lodged well,” and bright intellectual eyes, came to tell him, the humble mason, that he had been chosen from a dozen candidates for the high post of architect of a new church.
“’Tis your doing,” said the architect, as he wrung the hard hand of the mason. “You made a man of me by your teaching and praying, and never despairing that I should one day be worth the cost.”