“He is bringing his invention to a point,” replied Walter, “and he will soon be ready to take it to London, and look after a patent for it. This fills his mind at present; but you need not doubt his feeling very much for you all, as soon as he can listen to what I shall tell him.”
“But what will he say to your notion of marrying next week—of your marrying while Adam is not out of his apprenticeship yet?”
“He can only say that Adam is an apprentice, and I am not. You and I may be as glad as we please, between ourselves, that I am a gardener, and not a rope-maker.”
“Ah! you would have had another year to serve, from this time, and then to set up for yourself. But, surely, gardening is a much more difficult business to learn than rope-making. Why should Adam be obliged to spend seven years in learning to twist hemp into ropes, when you learned long ago a great deal about the seasons, and the soils, and the nature of different kinds of plants, and how to manage a vast number of them? I should have thought that it would take more time and pains to learn to produce fine peaches, and such capital vegetables as yours, than to become a good rope-maker.”
“So should I; but all works of tillage have been mixed up together under the name of unskilled labour; and all that belong to manufactures, as skilled labour, which requires apprenticeship; so that the man who grows the finest grapes that care and knowledge ever produced, is held by the law to be a less skilled workman than one who dabs brick-clay into a mould all the summer through. If I were to turn pippin-monger instead of pippin-grower, I should have inquiries in plenty after my seven years of apprenticeship, and should be liable to suffer for not having served them. But I am a gardener, and never was bound to a master, and am now free to turn my hand to any occupation that comes near my own, if my own should fail, which is a sort of security for you, Effie, that it gives me pleasure to think of.”
“Security!” said his father, who had at length found time to come out and inquire into the afflictions of his niece and her family. “It is the notion of young people, who have not seen God’s ways in his works, to talk of security. Of what use is the watchman’s waking, unless the Lord keeps the city?”
“Indeed, uncle,” said Effie, “we want no teaching to-day about change and danger. Yesterday at this time we were looking for my father home from work, and now I much fear——”
“Fear nothing, child. Fear is sinful.”
“O, but, uncle, do you think you yourself could help it if Walter was gone, and you did not know where? Would not you fancy him shut down in that horrible tender? And could you help being afraid that he was miserable, being afraid that he would be ill, being afraid that you would be unhappy for many a long year, for want of him?”
“I dare say you think,” said uncle Christopher, seeing that Effie bit her lip to repress her tears,—“I dare say you think that I am a cruel old man, who has no compassion for what other people are feeling. Worldly people would say——”