“Well, papa, and it is a settler for us boys to have our fun spoiled. As to the working-men—oh, they are used to it.”
Sir John stared at him for a full minute. “If I thought you said that from your heart, Mr. Harry, I’d order you from my presence. No son of mine shall get into the habit of making unfeeling speeches, even in jest.”
Sir John meant it. We saw that Harry’s words had really vexed him. John broke the silence.
“Papa, if I should live to be ever in your place,” he said, in his quiet voice, that somehow always had a tone of thoughtfulness in it, even when at play with the rest of us at old Frost’s, “I shall make a point of paying my labourers’ wages in full this wintry time, just the same as though they worked. It is not their fault that they are idle.”
Sir John started at him now. “What d’ye mean by ‘if you live,’ lad?”
John considered. The words had slipped from him without any special thought at all. People use such figures of speech. It was odd though, when we came to remember it a long while afterwards, that he should have said it just that one day.
“I recollect a frost that lasted fourteen weeks, boys,” said Sir John. “That was in 1814. They held a fair on the Thames, we heard, and roasted an ox whole on it. Get a frost to last all that time, and you’d soon tire of paying wages for nothing, John.”
“But, father, what else could I do—or ought I to do? I could not let them starve—or break up their poor homes by going into the workhouse. I should fear that some time, in return, God might break up mine.”
Sir John smiled. John was so very earnest always when he took up a serious matter. Letting the question drop, Sir John lowered his spectacles, and went out with his newspaper. Presently we saw him going round to the farm-yard in his great-coat and beaver gaiters. John sat down near the fire and took up a book he was fond of—“Sintram.”