“now as christian was walking solitarily by himself, he espied one afar off come crossing over the field to meet him; and their hap was to meet just as they were crossing the way of each other. the gentleman’s name that met him was mr. worldly wiseman.”—pilgrim’s progress.
the bright morning dawned upon holyby, the storm had spent itself during the night, and nothing remained to mark that it had been but the greater freshness of the air, clearness of the sky, and the heavy moisture on the grass that sparkled in the sun.
as the young pilgrim sat under an elm-tree, eating the crust which served him for a breakfast, and meditating on the events and the resolutions of the last day, farmer joyce came riding along the road, mounted on a heavy horse which often did service in the plough, and drew up as he reached the boy.
“i say, mark dowley,” he called in a loud, hearty voice, “you are just the lad i was looking for!”
“did you want me?” said mark, raising his eyes.
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“do you know mr. ewart?” cried the farmer; and on mark’s shaking his head, continued, “why, he was talking to me about you yesterday—a clergyman, a tall man with a stoop—he who is tutor to lord fontonore.”
“oh, yes!” cried mark, springing up, “but i did not know his name. what could he be saying of me?”
“he stopped at my farm on his drive home yesterday, and asked me if i knew a lad called mark dowley, and what sort of character he bore. says i,” continued the farmer, with a broad smile on his jovial face, “i know nothing against that boy in particular, but he comes of a precious bad lot!”
“and what did he reply?” cried mark, eagerly.
“oh, a great deal that i can’t undertake to repeat, about taking you out of temptation, and putting you in an honest way; so the upshot of it is that i agreed to give you a chance, and employ you myself to take care of my sheep, to see if anything respectable can be made of you.”
“how good in him—how kind!” exclaimed mark.
“it seems that you got round him—that you found his weak side, young rogue! you had been talking to him of piety and repentance, and wanting to get to heaven. but i’ll give you a word of advice, my man, better than twenty sermons. you see i’m thriving and prosperous enough, and well respected, though i should not say so, and i never wronged a man in my life. if
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you would be the same, just mind what i say, keep the commandments, do your duty, work hard, owe nothing, and steer clear of the gin-shop, and depend upon it you’ll be happy now, and be sure of heaven at the last.”
“mr. ewart said that by faith—”
“faith!” exclaimed the farmer, not very reverently; “don’t trouble yourself with things quite above you—things which you cannot understand. it is all very well for a parson like him—a very worthy man in his way, i believe, but with many odd, fanciful notions. my religion is a very simple one, suited to a plain man like me; i do what is right, and i expect to be rewarded; i go on in a straightforward, honest, industrious way, and i feel safer than any talking and canting can make one. now you mind what you have heard, mark dowley, and come up to my farm in an hour or two. i hope i’ll have a good account to give of you to the parson; and the young lord, he too seemed to take quite an interest in you.”
“did he?” said mark, somewhat surprised.
“yes, it’s odd enough, with such riches as he has, one would have thought that he had something else to think of than a beggar boy. why, he has as many thousands a-year as there are sheaves in that field!”
“he had a splendid carriage and horses.”
“carriage! he might have ten for the matter of that. they say he has the finest estate in the county of york;
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but i can’t stay here idling all day,” added the farmer; “you come up to my place as i said, and remember all you’ve heard to-day. i have promised to give you a trial; but mark me, my lad, if i catch you at any of your old practices, that moment you leave my service. so, honesty is the best policy, as the good old proverb says.” with that he struck his horse with the cudgel which he carried in his hand, and went off at a slow, heavy trot.
“there is a great deal of sense in what he has said,” thought mark, as he turned in the direction of anne’s cottage to tell her of his new engagement. “‘keep the commandments, work hard, and steer clear of the gin-shop, and you’ll be sure of heaven at the last!’ these are very plain directions any way, and i’m resolved to follow them from this hour. some of my difficulties seem clearing away; by watching the sheep all the day long i shall be kept from a good many of my temptations. i shall have less of the company of my brothers, i shall earn my bread in an honest way, and yet have plenty of time for thought. ‘keep the commandments,’ let me think what they are;” and he went over the ten in his mind, as he learned them from his bible. “i think that i may manage to keep them pretty strictly, but there are words in the word of god which will come to my thoughts. a new commandment i give you, that ye love one another: and, he that hateth his
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brother is a murderer;—how can i love those who dislike me?—’tis impossible; i don’t believe that any one could.”
the first thing that met the eyes of mark on his entering the cottage put all his good resolutions to flight. jack and ben were seated on the brick floor, busy in patching up a small broken box, and as they wanted something to cut up for a lid, they had torn off the cover from his beautiful bible, and thrown the book itself under the table! mark darted forward with an oath—alas! his lips had been too long accustomed to such language for the habit of using it to be easily broken, though he never swore except when taken by surprise, as in this instance. he snatched up first the cover, and then the book, and with fiery indignation flashing in his eyes, exclaimed, “i’ll teach you how to treat my bible so!”
“your bible!” exclaimed ben, with a mocking laugh; “mark thinks it no harm to steal a good book, but it’s desperate wicked to pull off its cover!”
“oh, that’s what the parson was teaching him!” cried jack. provoked beyond endurance, mark struck him.
“so it’s that you’re after!” exclaimed jack, springing up like a wild cat, and repaying the blow with interest. he was but little younger than mark, and of much stronger make, therefore at least his match in a struggle. the boys were at once engaged in fierce
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fight, while ben sat looking on at the unholy strife, laughing, and shouting, and clapping his hands, and hallooing to jack to “give it him!”
“what are you about there, you bad boys?” exclaimed ann, running from the inner room at the noise of the scuffle. jack had always been her favourite son, and without waiting to know who had the right in the dispute, she grasped mark by the hair, threw him violently back, and, giving him a blow with her clenched hand, cried, “get away with you, sneaking coward that you are, to fight a boy younger than yourself!”
“you always take his part, but he’ll live to be your torment yet!” exclaimed mark, forgetting all else in the blind fury of his passion.
“he’ll do better than you, with all your canting,” cried ann. the words in a moment recalled mark to himself; what had he been doing? what had he been saying? he, the pilgrim to heaven; he, the servant of god! with a bitterness of spirit more painful than any wrong which could have been inflicted upon him by another, he took up the bible which had been dropped in the struggle, and left the cottage without uttering a word.
herding sheep.
mortifying were mark’s reflections through that day, as he sat tending his sheep. “keep the commandments!” he sadly murmured to himself; “how many have i broken in five minutes! i took god’s name in vain—a terrible sin. it is written, above all things
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swear not. i did not honour my mother, i spoke insolently to her. i broke the sixth commandment by hating my brother; i struck him; i felt as though i could have knocked him down and trampled upon him! how can i reach heaven by keeping the commandments? i could as well get up to those clouds by climbing a tree. well, but i’ll try once again, and not give up
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yet. there is no one to provoke me, no one to tempt me here; i can be righteous at least when i am by myself.”
so mark sat long, and read in his bible, mended it as well as he could, and thought of mr. ewart and his words. presently his mind turned to lord fontonore, the fair, bright-haired boy who possessed so much wealth, who was placed in a position so different from his own.
“he must be a happy boy indeed!” thought mark, “with food in abundance, every want supplied, not knowing what it is to wish for a pleasure and not have it at once supplied. he must be out of the way of temptation too, always under the eye of that kind, holy man, who never would give a rough word, i am sure, but would always be leading him right. it is very hard that there are such differences in the world, that good things are so very unevenly divided. i wish that i had but one quarter of his wealth; he could spare it, no doubt, and never feel the loss.” without thinking what he was doing, mark turned over a leaf of the bible which lay open upon his knee. thou shalt not covet, were the first words that met his gaze; mark sighed heavily, and closed the book.
“so, even when i am alone, i am sinning still; coveting, repining, murmuring against god’s will, with no more power to stand upright for one hour than this weed which i have plucked up by the roots. and yet the soul that sinneth it shall die. i cannot get rid of these
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terrible words. i will not think on this subject any more, it only makes me more wretched than i was. oh! i never knew, till i tried it to-day, how hard, how impossible it is to be righteous before a holy god!”
so, tempted to banish the thought of religion altogether from his mind, because he felt the law to be too holy to be kept unbroken, yet dreading the punishment for breaking it, mark tried to turn his attention to other things. he watched the sheep as they grazed, plucked wild-flowers and examined them, and amused himself as best he might.
the day was very hot, there was little shade in the field, and mark grew heated and thirsty. he wished that there were a stream running through the meadow, his mouth felt so parched and dry.
on one side of the field there was a brick wall, dividing it from the garden belonging to farmer joyce. on the top of this grew a bunch of wild wall-flower, and mark, who was particularly fond of flowers, amused himself by devising means to reach it. there was a small tree growing not very far from the spot, by climbing which, and swinging himself over on the wall, he thought that he might succeed in obtaining the prize. it would be difficult, but mark rather liked difficulties of this sort, and anything at that time seemed pleasanter than thinking.
after one or two unsuccessful attempts, the boy found
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himself perched upon the wall; but the flower within his reach was forgotten. he looked down from his height on the garden below, with its long lines of fruit-bushes, now stripped and bare, beds of onions, rows of beans, broad tracts of potatoes, all the picture of neatness and order. but what most attracted the eye of the boy was a splendid peach-tree, growing on the wall just below him, its boughs loaded with rich tempting fruit. one large peach, the deep red of whose downy covering showed it to be so ripe that one might wonder that it did not fall from the branch by its own weight, lay just within reach of his hand. the sight of that fruit, that delicious fruit, made mark feel more thirsty than ever. he should have turned away, he should have sprung from the wall; but he lingered and looked, and looking desired, then stretched out his hand to grasp. alas for his resolutions! alas for his pilgrim zeal! could so small a temptation have power to overcome them?
yet let the disadvantages of mark’s education be remembered: he had been brought up with those to whom robbing an orchard seemed rather a diversion than a sin. his first ardour for virtue had been chilled by failure; and who that has tried what he vainly attempted does not know the effect of that chill? with a hesitating hand mark plucked the ripe peach; he did not recollect that it was a similar sin which once
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plunged the whole earth into misery—that it was tasting forbidden fruit which brought sin and death into the world. he raised it to his lips, when a sudden shout from the field almost caused him to drop from the wall.
“holloa there, you young thief! are you at it already? robbing me the very first day! come down, or i’ll bring you to the ground with a vengeance!” it was the angry voice of the farmer.
mark dropped from his height much faster than he had mounted, and stood before his employer with his face flushed to crimson, and too much ashamed to lift up his eyes.
“get you gone,” continued the farmer, “for a hypocrite and a rogue; you need try none of your canting on me. not one hour longer shall you remain in my employ; you’re on the high road to the gallows.”
mark turned away in silence, with an almost bursting heart, and feelings that bordered on despair. with what an account of himself was he to return to his home, to meet the scoffs and jests which he had too well deserved? what discredit would his conduct bring on his religion! how his profane companions would triumph in his fall! the kind and pitying clergyman would regard him as a hypocrite—would feel disappointed in him. bitter was the thought. all his firm resolves had snapped like thread in the flame, and his hopes of winning heaven had vanished.
