But this happy case was not that of all the servants. When these watchful men had been entering the gates of the city in the morning, the thoughtless servants were not yet awake. They had sat up late at their feasting and rejoicings, and when the morning sun rose upon them, they
were still in their first deep sleep. The stirring of their fellow-servants moved them a little, and for a while they seemed ready to rise and join them. But their goods were not ready, so they could not go with them; and they might as well, therefore, they thought, wait a little longer and rest themselves, and then follow them to the market. They did not mean to be late, but they saw no reason why they should be so very early.
They slept, therefore, till the sun was high, and then they rose in some confusion, because it was now so late; and they had all their goods to unpack, their stuffs to smooth out, and the dust to shake off from them. Soon they began about every little thing to find fault with one another, because they were secretly angry with themselves. Each one thought that if his neighbour had not persuaded him to stay, he should have been up, and have entered the city with the earliest: so high words
arose between them; and instead of helping one another, and making the best they could of the time which remained, they only hindered one another, and made it later and later before they were ready to begin their trading.
At length, after many hard words and much bad temper, one by one they got away; each as soon as he was ready, and often with his goods all in confusion; every one following his own path, and wandering by himself up the crowded streets of the full town.
Hard work they had to get at all along it when they had passed the gates. All the stream of people seemed now to be setting against them. The idlers jested upon their strange dress; and if they did but try to traffic for their lord, the rude children of the town would gather round them, and hoot, and cry: so that they could not manage to carry on any trade at all.
Then, as I watched them, I saw that some who had been the loudest in talking of what they should do when they were tried, were now the first to give up altogether making any head at all against the crowd of that city. They packed up what goods they might have, and began to think only of looking about them, and following the crowd, and pleasing themselves, like any of the men around them. Then I looked after some of these, and I saw that one of them was led on by the crowd to a place in the town where there was a great show. Outside of it were men in many-coloured dresses, who blew with trumpets, and jested, and cried aloud, and begged all to come in and see the strange sights which were stored within.
Now when the servant came to this place, he watched one and another go in, until at last he also longed to go in and see the sights which were to be gazed on within. So he went to the door, and the
porter asked him for money; but when he drew out his purse, and the porter saw that his money belonged to some strange place, and was quite unlike the coin used in that town, he only laughed at it, and said it was good for nothing there, and bid him “stand back.” So as he turned away, the porter saw the rich bundle on his back, and then he spoke to him in another tone, and he said, “I will let you in, if you like to give me that bundle of goods.” Then for a moment the servant was checked. He thought of his lord and of the reckoning, and he remembered the words, “As good stewards of the manifold grace of God;” and he had almost determined to turn back, and to fight his way to the market-place, and to trade for his lord, let it cost him what it might;—but just at the moment there was a great burst of the showman’s trumpets; and he heard the people shouting for joy within; and so he forgot all but
his great desire, and slipping off the bundle from his shoulders, he put it into the hands of the porter, and passed in, and I saw him no more.