CHAPTER VIII.

MR. SIMON'S ATTEMPT.

The next day the sun shone brilliantly upon the snow as Thomas walked to the counting-house. He was full of pleasant thoughts, crossed and shadowed by a few of a different kind. He was not naturally deceitful, and the sense of having a secret which must get him into trouble if it were discovered, and discovered it must be some day, could not fail to give him uneasiness notwithstanding the satisfaction which the romance of the secrecy of a love affair afforded him. Nothing, however, as it seemed to him, could be done, for he was never ready to do anything to which he was neither led nor driven. He could not generate action, or, rather, he had never yet begun to generate action.

As soon as he reached Bagot Street, he tapped at the glass door, and was admitted to Mr. Boxall's room. He found him with a look of anxiety upon a face not used to express that emotion.

"I hope Miss Mary--" Thomas began, with a little hesitation.

"She's very ill," said her father, "very ill, indeed. It was enough to be the death of her. Excessively imprudent."

Now Mary had been as much to blame, if there was any blame at all, for the present results of the Christmas morning, as Thomas; but he had still generosity enough left not to say so to her father.

"I am very sorry," he said. "We were caught in the snow, and lost our way."

"Yes, yes, I know. I oughtn't to be too hard upon young people," returned Mr. Boxall, remembering, perhaps, that he had his share of the blame in leaving them so much to themselves.

"I only hope she may get through it. But she's in a bad way. She was quite delirious last night."

Thomas was really concerned for a moment, and looked so. Mr. Boxall saw it, and spoke more kindly.

"I trust, however, that there is not any immediate danger. It's no use you coming to see her. She can't see anybody but the doctor."

This was a relief to Thomas. But it was rather alarming to find that Mr. Boxall clearly expected him to want to go to see her.

"I am very sorry," he said again; and that was all he could find to say.

"Well, well," returned his master, accepting the words as if they had been an apology. "We must do our work, anyhow. Business is the first thing, you know."

Thomas took this as a dismissal, and retired to the outer office, in a mood considerably different from that which Mr. Boxall attributed to him.

A clerk's duty is a hard one, and this ought to be acknowledged. Neither has he any personal interest in the result of the special labor to which he is for the time devoted, nor can this labor have much interest of its own beyond what comes of getting things square, and the sense of satisfaction which springs from activity, and the success of completion. And it is not often that a young man is fortunate enough to have a master who will not only appreciate his endeavors, but will let him know that he does appreciate them. There are reasons for the latter fact beyond disposition and temperament. The genial employer has so often found that a strange process comes into operation in young and old, which turns the honey of praise into the poison of self-conceit, rendering those to whom it is given disagreeable, and ere long insufferable, that he learns to be very chary in the administration of the said honey, lest subordinates think themselves indispensable, and even neglect the very virtues which earned them the praise. A man must do his duty, if he would be a free man, whether he likes it or not, and whether it is appreciated or not. But if he can regard it as the will of God, the work not fallen upon him by chance, but _given_ him to do, understanding that every thing well done belongs to His kingdom, and every thing ill done to the kingdom of darkness, surely even the irksomeness of his work will be no longer insuperable. But Thomas had never been taught this. He did not know that his day's work had anything to do with the saving of his soul. Poor Mr. Simon gave him of what he had, like his namesake at the gate of the temple, but all he had served only to make a man creep; it could not make him stand up and walk. "A servant with this clause,"--that is the clause, "_for thy sake_,"--wrote George Herbert:

"A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine; Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, Makes that and the action fine."

But Mr. Simon could not understand the half of this, and nothing at all of the essential sacredness of the work which God would not give a man to do if it were not sacred. Hence Thomas regarded his work only as drudgery; considered it beneath him; judged himself fitter for the army, and had hankerings after gold lace. He dabbled with the fancy that there was a mistake somewhere in the arrangement of mundane affairs, a serious one, for was he not fitted by nature to move in some showy orbit, instead of being doomed to rise in Highbury, shine in Bagot Street, and set yet again in Highbury? And so, although he did not absolutely neglect his work, for he hated to be found fault with, he just did it, not entering into it with any spirit; and as he was clever enough, things went on with tolerable smoothness.

That same evening, when he went home from his German lesson of a quarter of an hour, and his interview with Lucy of an hour and a quarter, he found Mr. Simon with his mother. Thomas would have left the room; for his conscience now made him wish to avoid Mr. Simon--who had pressed him so hard, with the stamp of religion that the place was painful, although the impression was fast disappearing.

"Thomas," said his mother, with even more than her usual solemnity, "Thomas, come here. We want to have some conversation with you."

"I have not had my tea yet, mother."

"You can have your tea afterward. I wish you to come here now."

Thomas obeyed, and threw himself with some attempt at nonchalance into a chair.

"Thomas, my friend," began Mr. Simon, with a tone--how am I to describe it? I could easily, if I chose to use a contemptuous word, but I do not wish to intrude on the region of the comic satirist, and must therefore use a periphrase--with the tone which corresponds to the long face some religions people assume the moment the conversation turns toward sacred things, and in which a certain element of the ludicrous, because affected, goes far to destroy the solemnity, "I am uneasy about you. Do not think me interfering, for I watch for your soul as one that must give an account. I have to give an account of you, for at one time you were the most promising seal of my ministry. But your zeal has grown cold; you are unfaithful to your first love; and when the Lord cometh as a thief in the night, you will be to him as one of the lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, my poor friend. He will spue you out of his mouth. And I may be to blame for this, though at present I know not how. Ah, Thomas! Thomas! Do not let me have shame of you at his appearing. The years are fleeting fast, and although he delay his coming, yet he _will_ come; and he will slay his enemies with the two-edged sword that proceedeth out of his mouth."

Foolish as Mr. Simon was, he was better than Mr. Potter, if Mr. Kitely's account of him was correct; for he was in earnest, and acted upon his belief. But he knew nothing of human nature, and as Thomas grew older, days, even hours, had widened the gulf between them, till his poor feeble influences could no longer reach across it, save as unpleasant reminders of something that had been. Happy is the youth of whom a sensible, good clergyman has a firm hold--a firm human hold, I mean--not a priestly one, such as Mr. Simon's. But if the clergyman be feeble and foolish, the worst of it is, that the youth will transfer his growing contempt for the clergyman to the religion of which he is such a poor representative. I know another clergyman--perhaps my readers may know him too--who, instead of lecturing Thomas through the medium of a long string of Scripture phrases, which he would have had far too much reverence to use after such a fashion, would have taken him by the shoulder, and said, "Tom, my boy, you've got something on your mind. I hope it's nothing wrong. But whatever it is, mind you come to me if I can be of any use to you."

To such a man there would have been a chance of Tom's making a clean breast of it--not yet, though--not before he got into deep water. But Mr. Simon had not the shadow of a chance of making him confess. How could Thomas tell such a man that he was in love with one beautiful girl, and had foolishly got himself into a scrape with another?

By this direct attack upon him in the presence of his mother, the man had lost the last remnant of his influence over him, and, in fact, made him feel as if he should like to punch his head, if it were not that he could not bear to hurt the meek little sheep. He did not know that Mr. Simon had been rather a bruiser at college--small and meek as he was--only that was before his conversion. If he had cared to defend himself from such an attack, which I am certain he would not have doubled fist to do, Thomas could not have stood one minute before him.

"Why do you not speak, Thomas?" said his mother, gently.

"What do you want me to say, mother?" asked Thomas in return, with rising anger. He never could resist except his temper came to his aid.

"Say what you ought to say," returned Mrs. Worboise, more severely.

"What ought I to say, Mr. Simon?" said Thomas, with a tone of mock submission, not so marked, however, that Mr. Simon, who was not sensitive, detected it.

"Say, my young friend, that you will carry the matter to the throne of grace, and ask the aid--"

But I would rather not record sacred words which, whatever they might mean in Mr. Simon's use of them, mean so little in relation to my story.

Thomas, however, was not yet so much of a hypocrite as his training had hitherto tended to make him, and again he sat silent for a few moments, during which his mother and her friend sat silent likewise, giving him time for reflection. Then he spoke, anxious to get rid of the whole unpleasant affair.

"I will promise to think of what you have said, Mr. Simon."

"Yes, Thomas, but _how_ will you think of it?" said his mother.

Mr. Simon, however, glad to have gained so much of a concession, spoke more genially. He would not drive the matter further at present.

"Do, dear friend; and may He guide you into the truth. Remember, Thomas, the world and the things of this world are passing away. You are a child no longer, and are herewith called upon to take your part, for God or against him--"

And so on, till Thomas grew weary as well as annoyed.

"Will you tell me what fault you have to find with me?" he said at last. "I am regular at the Sunday-school, I am sure."

"Yes, that we must allow, and heartily," answered Mr. Simon, turning to Mrs. Worboise as if to give her the initiative, for he thought her rather hard with her son; "only I would just suggest to you, Mr. Thomas--I don't ask you the question, but I would have you ask yourself--whether your energy is equal to what it has been? Take care lest, while you teach others, you yourself should be a castaway. Remember that nothing but faith in the merits--"

Thus started again, he went on, till Thomas was forced loose from all sympathy with things so unmercifully driven upon him, and vowed in his heart that he would stand it no longer.

Still speaking, Mr. Simon rose to take his leave. Thomas, naturally polite, and anxious to get out of the scrutiny of those cold blue eyes of his mother, went to open the door for him, and closed it behind him with a sigh of satisfaction. Then he had his tea and went to his own room, feeling wrong, and yet knowing quite well that he was going on to be and to do wrong. Saintship like his mother's and Mr. Simon's was out of his reach.

Perhaps it was. But there were other things essential to saintship that were within his reach--and equally essential to the manliness of a gentleman, which he would have been considerably annoyed to be told that he was in much danger of falling short of, if he did not in some way or other mend his ways, and take heed to his goings.

The next morning mother and pastor held a long and, my reader will believe, a dreary consultation over the state of Thomas. I will not afflict him with a recital of what was said and resaid a dozen times before they parted. If Mr. Worboise had overheard it, he would have laughed, not heartily, but with a perfection of contempt, for he despised all these things, and would have despised better things, too, if he had known them.

The sole result was that his mother watched Thomas with yet greater assiduity; and Thomas began to feel that her eyes were never off him, and to dislike them because he feared them. He felt them behind his back. They haunted him in Bagot Street. Happy with Lucy, even there those eyes followed him, as if searching to find out his secret; and a vague fear kept growing upon him that the discovery was at hand. Hence he became more and more cunning to conceal his visits. He dreaded what questions those questioning eyes might set the tongue asking. For he had not yet learned to lie. He prevaricated, no doubt; but lying may be a step yet further on the downward road.

One good thing only came out of it all: he grew more and more in love with Lucy. He almost loved her.