“You couldn’t do better, old friend,” replied Horace; “you would be showing then your colours, and doing real work for the Master—better far than you could if you settled down.”
“Well, I think so too, sir; and you must know that I’ve begun to do a bit for the Lord already, though in a poor sort of way. I used to sell smuggled goods on the sly, and bad songs and bad books, but I’ve dropped all that now. You may look my van through, drawers and cupboards and all, every corner of it, and you’ll not find a scrap of the bad sort now. Eh! How some of my old customers do stare, and how some on ’em do jeer, when I tells ’em as I’ve done selling the old things as they delight in. But it don’t matter. I’ve made up my mind, and they’re beginning to find that out. They call me an old humbug, and tell me as Sally and I shall end our days in the Union. But I ain’t afeard; it ain’t the likes of them as can send me there, and I know I’m safe in the Lord’s hands.”
“That’s very true,” said Horace; “you’ll be taken good care of while you are in the path of duty, and you will have many a noble opportunity of helping on the good cause as you go from place to place. Many will get a word from you which they might not be in the way of hearing otherwise, and the very fact of such a change in the hearts and lives of your wife and yourself must tell on the consciences of many who see what you are now and know what you were in times past.”
“I believe you sir,” said the old man. “Now, there’s one who’s been touched already - Jim Grimes, who keeps ‘The Old Fighting-Cocks’ at Bridgepath. He were mightily surprised at first when he seed as I’d given up my old ways; he wouldn’t believe as it were the true thing, and he were for chaffing me out of it. But he found out after a bit as I was real. ’Tain’t for me to boast—it were the Lord’s doings, not mine—but when he came to be persuaded as I had taken to the better way in earnest, he couldn’t make it out at first; but now he has come to set his feet on the right road, too, I trust, and this has made me think as there’s work for the Lord for me to do in a quiet way without giving up the van—in a quiet way, I say, sir, for I don’t want to be put in a ‘mag.’”
“Put in a ‘mug,’ old friend!” exclaimed Horace, in amused surprise; “what can you mean? Is it slang for putting you in prison? Why should any one put you in prison for such a work as you are purposing to carry on? If any one tries to get you into trouble, come or send to me; they shan’t interfere with you.”
“Nay, nay, sir,” replied Ruby Grigg, with a laugh. “Thank you kindly for what you say; but you’ve not got hold of my meaning. What I’m driving at is this: I don’t want people to put me in a ‘mag,’—mag’s short for ‘magazine,’—one of them monthly or weekly papers as is full of pictures, and serves as town-crier to all the good deeds as is being done.”
“Ah, I understand you now,” said Horace, smiling in return; “you want to work quietly for Christ in the shade, and not to be made a public character of.”
“That’s just it, sir; I wouldn’t be put in a ‘mag’ for all the world. I’ve knowed many a good man spoilt by being put in a ‘mag.’ It blows ’em up with pride; and then them as don’t get put in the ‘mag’ is fit to burst with envy and jealousy.”
“I believe, my friend,” said Horace, “that there may be a great deal of truth in what you say. A good man’s usefulness may be injured by his being dragged into public notice; for no sin needs such watchfulness on the part of Christians, especially those at the beginning of their course, as pride. There is too much of this trumpeting in our day; it spoils the simplicity and reality of many a character.”
“I’ve seen it, sir,” replied Reuben. “I used to laugh at it formerly, but I grieve over it now. At any rate I’m sure, sir, as you won’t put me in a ‘mag.’ I don’t want to see myself in a couple of picturs, one with me and my van as they was, and t’other with the likeness of Mister Reuben Gregson in a brand new suit of clothes and a white choker, looking for all the world like a regular parson. ’Twouldn’t do me no good. I just want to do a little work in a quiet way—to jog along, telling how the Lord has done great things for me, and just to mix up a few Bibles, and Testaments, and tracts as I’m selling my goods. And I don’t want no reward here, and no notice, leastways no public notice. I’ve had more reward nor I deserve already; and if I make a few kind friends, such as yourself and the colonel maybe, I’d rather do it, Mr Horace, in a quiet way, and then I shall feel as I’m doing the work for the Lord himself out and out.”