A new idea seemed to strike the man. “But did ye no get some bawbees wi’ yer wife?”
“No,” said Edward, “not a bawbee! But, though poor in cash, she brought me a dowry worth more than all the money ever coined!”
“Trash, man, trash! Fat could be better than siller till a puir man?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. She brought me a remarkably sound and healthy body,—strong bones, and a casket well filled with genuine common sense, or rather a mind far superior to that usually possessed by the majority of her sex. Now that’s what I call better than money. And I can tell you also, that if young men were to look out for such wives, they would be able to lead their lives to much better purpose than they now do. Your tap-rooms, and dram-shops, and public-houses, would then have fewer and far less eager customers. And, if I am not much mistaken, there would be many more happy homes and happy families, especially amongst the poor; instead of the miserable, heart-sickening, disease-engendering hovels, which are a curse and a stain upon our so-called civilisation.”
“Ye’ll be a temperance man, then, are ye?”
“Yes; I’m temperate enough. And if wives would look more to their husbands’ comfort, as well as to the interests of their own families, there would be far more temperance men, as you call them, than there are now. I’m not a member of the Temperance Society; nevertheless I am in favour of everything that would make people more sober and diligent, and tend to man’s good, both here and hereafter.”
“But,” continued the man, “are ye satisfied that ye got nae help in the way I hinted?”
“None whatever!”
“But far did ye learn the wrightin’ (carpentering), the paintin’, and the glazin’?”
“At my ain fireside, where everything good should be learnt. My teachers were,—first, ‘Necessity,’ and, secondly, another teacher, of whom you may not have heard, called Will.”