Janet's Love and Service

by Margaret M. Robertson

While, he admired the farms, he did not hesitate to comment severely on the want of enterprise shown by the farmers, who seemed to be content “to putter along” as their fathers had done, with little desire to avail themselves of the many inventions and discoveries which modern science and art had placed at the disposal of the farmer. In Merleville, every man who owned ten, or even five acres of level land, had an interest in sowing and mowing machines, to say nothing of other improvements, that could be made available on hill or meadow. If the strength and patience so freely expended among the stony New England hills, could but be applied to the fertile valley of the Saint Lawrence, what a garden it might become! And the Yankee farmer grew a little contemptuous of the contented acquiescence of Canadians to the order of affairs established by their fathers.

One afternoon he and Will went together to the top of the mountain toward the western end. They had a fair day for a fair sight, and when Mr Snow looked down on the scene, bounded by the blue hills beyond both rivers, all other thoughts gave place to feelings of wondering admiration. Above was a sky, whose tender blue was made more lovely by the snowy clouds that sailed now and then majestically across it, to break into flakes of silver near the far horizon.

Beneath lay the valley, clothed in the numberless shades of verdure with which June loves to deck the earth in this northern climate. There were no waste places, no wilderness, no arid stretches of sand or stone. Far as the eye could reach, extended fields, and groves, and gardens, scattered through with clusters of cottages, or solitary farm-houses.

Up through the stillness of the summer air, came stealing the faint sound of a distant bell, seeming to deepen the silence round them.

“I suppose the land that Moses saw from Pisgah, must have been like this,” said Mr Snow, as he gazed.

“Yes, the Promised Land was a land of hills, and valleys, and brooks of water,” said Will softly, never moving his eyes from the wonderful picture. Could they ever gaze enough? Could they ever weary themselves of the sight? The shadows grew long; the clouds, that had made the beauty of the summer sky, followed each other toward the west, and rose in pinnacles of gold, and amber, and amethyst; and then they rose to go.

“I wouldn’t have missed that now, for considerable,” said Mr Snow, coming back with an effort to the realisation of the fact that this was part of the sightseeing that he had set himself. “No, I wouldn’t have missed it for considerable more than that miserable team’ll cost,” added he, as he came in sight of the carriage, on whose uncomfortable seat the drowsy driver had been slumbering all the afternoon. Will smiled, and made no answer. He was not a vain lad, but it is just possible that there passed through his mind a doubt whether the enjoyment of his friend had been as real, as high, or as intense, as his had been all the afternoon. To Will’s imagination, the valley lay in the gloom of its primeval forests, peopled by heroes of a race now passed away. He was one of them. He fought in their battles, triumphed in their victories, panted in the eagerness of the chase. In imagination, he saw the forest fall under the peaceful weapons of the pale face; then wondered westward to die the dreary death of the last of a stricken race. Then his thoughts come down to the present, and on into the future, in a vague dream, which was half a prayer, for the hastening of the time when the lovely valley should smile in moral and spiritual beauty too. And coming back to actual life, with an effort—a sense of pain, he said to himself, that the enjoyment of his friend had been not so high and pure as his.

But Will was mistaken. In the thoughts of his friend, that summer afternoon, patent machines, remunerative labour, plans of supply and demand, of profit and loss, found no place. He passed the pleasant hour on that green hill-side, seeing in that lovely valley, stretched out before them, a very land of Beulah. Looking over the blue line of the Ottawa, as over the river of Death, into a land visible and clear to the eye of faith, he saw sights, and heard sounds, and enjoyed communion, which, as yet, lay far in the future, as to the experience of the lad by his side; and coming back to actual life, gave no sign of the Divine Companionship, save that which afterward, was to be seen in a life, growing liker every day to the Divine Exemplar.

Will thought, as they went home together, that a new light beamed, now and then, over the keen but kindly face, and that the grave eyes of his friend had the look of one who saw something beyond the beauty of the pleasant fields, growing dim now in the gathering darkness; and the lad’s heart grew full and tender as it dawned upon him, how this was a token of the shining of God’s face upon his servant, and he longed for a glimpse of that which his friend’s eyes saw. A word might have won for him a glimpse of the happiness; but Will was shy, and the word was not spoken; and, all unconscious of his longing, his friend sat with the smile on his lips, and the light in his eye, no thought further from him than that any experience of his should be of value to another. And so they fell quite into silence, till they neared the streets where the lighted lamps were burning dim in the fading daylight.

That night, in the course of his wanderings up and down, Mr Snow, paused, as he often did, before a portrait of the minister. It was a portrait taken when the minister had been a much younger man than Mr Snow had ever known him. It had belonged to a friend in Scotland, and had been sent to Arthur, at his death, about a year ago. The likeness had been striking, and to Janet, the sight of it had been a great pleasure and surprise. She was never weary of looking at it, and even Mr Snow, who had never known the minister but as a grey-haired man, was strangely fascinated by the beauty of the grave smile that he remembered so well on his face. That night he stood leaning on the back of a chair, and gazing at it, while the conversation flowed on as usual around him. In a little, Rose came and stood beside him.