"What was all that you said about your father's being a banker and a rich man? Are you asleep already, Jem?"

Jem had been very near it.

"Who? Papa? Oh! yes, he might have been; but you see he chose 'the better part.' I sometimes wonder whether he's ever sorry."

"Jem," said David, "it's not right--to speak in that way, I mean. And as for papa's being sorry--not to-night, at any rate," added David, with a sound that was like a sob in his voice.

"And why not to-night? Ah! I understand. It was through him that old Tim got the victory;" and both the boys were surprised to see him suddenly sit up in bed in the dark; and after a long silence he repeated, as if to himself, "I should think not to-night, indeed!" and then he lay down again.

"Papa has never been sorry--never for a single moment," said David. "He has helped a great many besides old Tim to win the victory. And besides, I dare say, he has had as much real enjoyment in his life as if he had been a rich man like your father. He is not sorry, at any rate, nor mamma."

"Oh! that is all very well to say," interposed Jem; "I dare say he is not sorry that he is a minister, but I say it is a shame that ministers should always be poor men--as they always are!"

"Oh! well. People can't have everything," said David.

"You've got to be very contented, all at once," said Jem, laughing.

"You have said as much about it as ever I have, and more, too. Don't you remember when the Hunters went away to M--, to school, and you and Violet couldn't go? You wanted to go, didn't you?"

"Nonsense, Jem. I never thought of such a thing seriously. Why, it would have taken more than the whole of papa's salary to send us both!"

"But that is just what I said. Why should not papa be able to send you, as well as Ned Hunter's father to send him?"

"It comes to the same thing," said David, loftily. "I know more Latin and Greek, too, than Ned Hunter, though he has been at M--; and as for Violet--people can't have everything."

"And you have grown humble as well as contented, it seems," said Jem; "just as if you didn't care! You'll care when mamma has to send Debby away, and keep Violet at home from school, because she can't get papa a new great coat, and pay Debby's wages, too. You may say what you like, but I wish I were rich; and I mean to be, one of these days."

"But it is all nonsense about Debby, Jem. However, mamma would not wish us to discuss it now, and we had better go to sleep."

But, though there was nothing more said, none of them went to sleep very soon, and they all had a great many serious thoughts as they lay in silence in the dark. The brothers had often had serious thoughts before; but to Francis they came almost for the first time--or rather, for the first time he found it difficult to put them away. He had been brought up very differently from David and Jem. He was the son of a rich man, and the claims of business had left their father little time to devote to the instruction of his children. The claims of society had left as little to his mother--she was dead now--and, except at church on Sundays, he had rarely heard a word to remind him that there was anything in the world of more importance than the getting of wealth and the pursuit of pleasure, till he came to visit the Inglises.

He had been ill before that, and threatened with serious trouble in his eyes, and the doctor had said that he must have change of air, and that he must not be allowed to look at a book for a long time. Mr Inglis had been at his father's house about that time, and had asked him to let the boy go home with him, to make the acquaintance of his young people, and he had been very glad to let him go. Mr Inglis was not Frank's uncle, though he called him so; he was only his father's cousin, and there had never been any intimacy between the families, so Francis had been a stranger to them all before he came to Gourlay. But he soon made friends with them all. The simple, natural way of life in the minister's house suited him well, and his visit had been lengthened out to four months, instead of four weeks, as was at first intended; and now, as he lay thinking, he was saying to himself that he was very sorry to go.

This last night he seemed to see more clearly than ever he had seen before what made the difference between their manner of life here in his uncle's house, and the life they lived at home. It was a difference altogether in favour of their life here, though here they were poor, and at home they were rich. The difference went deeper than outward circ.u.mstances, and must reach beyond them--beyond all the chances and changes time might bring.

And then he thought about all his aunt had said about "the good fight"

and "the whole armour," the great Leader, and the sure victory at last.

But strangely enough, and foolishly enough it seemed to him, his very last thought was about Debby's going away; and before he had satisfactorily computed the number of weeks' wages it would take to make the sum which would probably be enough to purchase an overcoat, he fell asleep, and carried on the computation in his dreams.

The next morning was not a very pleasant one to travel in. It was cloudy and cold, and the ground was covered with snow. Mr Inglis had intended to take Frank on the first stage of his journey--that was to the railway station in D--, a town eleven miles away. But, as Jem had foretold, the weariness which he had scarcely felt when he first came home, was all the worse now because of that, and he had taken cold besides; so David and Jem were to take his place in conveying their cousin on the journey.

The good-byes were all said, and the boys set off. They did not mind the cold, or the snow, or the threatening rain, but were well pleased with the prospect of a few more hours together. The roads were bad, and their progress was slow; but that mattered little, as they had the day before them, and plenty to say to one another to pa.s.s the time. They discussed trees and fruits, and things in general, after the fashion of boys, and then the last stories of hunters and trappers they had read; and in some way which it would not be easy to trace, they came round to Hobab and the battles he might have fought, and then to "the whole armour" and the warfare in which it was intended to aid them who wore it.

"I wish I understood it all better," said Frank. "I suppose the Bible means something when it speaks about the warfare, and the armour, and all that; but then one would not think so, just to see the way people live, and good people too."

"One can't tell by just seeing the outside of people's lives," said David.

"The outside of people's lives!" repeated Frank. "Why, what else can we see?"

"I mean you are thinking of something quite different from mamma's idea of battles, and warfare, and all that. She was not speaking about anything that all the world, or people generally, would admire, or even see."

"But you spoke of your father, David, and I can understand how he in a certain way may be said to be fighting the battles of the Lord. He preaches against sin, and bad people oppose him, and he stands up for his Master; and when he does good to people, wins them over to G.o.d's side, he may be said to make a conquest--to gain a victory, as he did when he rescued poor Tim. I can understand why he should be called a soldier, and how his way of doing things may be called fighting; and that may be the way with ministers generally, I suppose; but as for other people, they ought to be the same, as the Bible says so; but I don't see that they are, for all that. Do you, Jem?"

"It depends on what you mean by fighting," said Jem.

"But whatever it is, it is something that can be seen," said Frank impatiently, "and what I mean is that I don't see it."

"But then the people you know most about mayn't be among the fighting men, even if you were a good judge of fighting," said Jem. "Your eyes mayn't be the best, you know."

"Well, lend me your eyes, then, and don't mind the people I know. Take the people _you_ know, your father's right hand men, who ought to be among the soldiers, if there are any. There is Mr Strong and old Penn, and the man who draws the mill logs. And all the people, women as well as men, ought to be wearing the armour and using the weapons. There is your friend, Miss Bethia, Davie; is she a warrior, too?"

"Aunt Bethia certainly is," said Jem decidedly. "She is not afraid of-- well, of princ.i.p.alities and powers, I tell _you_. Don't she fight great--eh, Davie?"

"Aunt Bethia is a very good woman, and it depends on what you call fighting," said David, dubiously.

"Yes, Miss Bethia is a soldier. And as for old Mr Penn, I've seen him fight very hard to keep awake in meeting," said Jem, laughing.

"It is easy enough to make fun of it, but Aunt Mary was in earnest.

Don't you know about it, Davie?"

"About these people fighting, do you mean? Well, I once heard papa say that Mr Strong's life was for many years a constant fight. And he said, too, that he was using the right weapons, and that he would doubtless win the victory. So you see there is one of them a soldier,"

said David.

"It must be a different kind of warfare from your father's," said Frank.

"I wonder what Mr Strong fights for?"

"But I think he is fighting the very same battle, only in a different way."

"Well," said Frank, "what about it?"

"Oh! I don't know that I can tell much about it. It used to be a very bad neighbourhood where old Strong lives, and the neighbours used to bother him awfully. And that wasn't the worst. He has a very bad temper naturally, and he got into trouble all round when he first lived there. And one day he heard some of them laughing at him and his religion, saying there was no difference between Christians and other people. And they didn't stop there, but scoffed at the name of our Lord, and at the Bible. It all happened down at Hunt's Mills, and they didn't know that Mr Strong was there; and when he rose up from the corner where he had been sitting all the time, and came forward among them, they were astonished, and thought they were going to have great fun. But they didn't that time. Mr Hunt told papa all about it. He just looked at them and said: 'G.o.d forgive you for speaking lightly that blessed name, and G.o.d forgive me for giving you the occasion.' And then he just turned and walked away.

"After that it didn't matter what they said or did to him, he wouldn't take his own part. They say that for more than a year he didn't speak a word to a man in the neighbourhood where he lives; he couldn't trust himself. But he got a chance to do a good turn once in a while, that told better than words. Once he turned some stray cattle out of John Jarvis's grain, and built up the fences when there was no one at Jarvis's house to do it. That wouldn't have been much--any good neighbour would have done as much as that, you know. But it had happened the day before that the Jarvis's boys had left down the bars of his back pasture, and all his young cattle had pa.s.sed most of the night in his own wheat. It was not a place that the boys needed to go to, and it looked very much as if they had done it on purpose. They must have felt mean when they came home and saw old Strong building up their fence."

Then Jem took up the word.

"And once, some of those fellows took off the nut from his wagon, as it was standing at the store door, and the wheel came off just as he was going down the hill by the bridge; and if it hadn't been that his old Jerry is as steady as a rock the old man would have been pitched into the river."

"The village people took that up, and wanted him to prosecute them. But he wouldn't," said David. "It was a regular case of 'turning the other cheek.' Everybody wondered, knowing old Strong's temper."

"And once they sheared old Jerry's mane and tail," said Jem. "And they say old Strong cried like a baby when he saw him. He wouldn't have anything done about it; but he said he'd be even with them some time.

And he was even with one of them. One day when he was in the hayfield, Job Steele came running over to tell him that his little girl had fallen in the barn and broken her arm and hurt her head, and he begged him to let him have Jerry to ride, for the doctor. Then Mr Strong looked him right in the face, and said he, 'No, I can't let you have him. You don't know how to treat dumb beasts. I'll go myself for the doctor.'

And sure enough, he unyoked his oxen from the cart, though it was Sat.u.r.day and looked like rain, and his hay was all ready to be taken in, and went to the pasture for Jerry, and rode to the village himself, and let the doctor have his horse, and walked home."

"And did he know that it was Job Steele who had ill-treated his horse,"

asked Frank.

"He never said so to anybody; and Job never acknowledged it. But other people said so, and Job once told papa that Mr Strong's way of doing 'good for evil,' was the first thing that made him think that there must be something in religion; and Mr Steele is a changed character now."