Christian life -- Fiction; City and town life -- Fiction; England -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Fiction
One evening there drew nearer the sound of singing and a tambourine.
Little Anthony opened the workshop door and peered out. Some half a
dozen men and women were gathered round the curb, and one was talking.
She spoke of a gentleman named God. He lived far off and very high up.
And all good things came from Him. There was more of it: about the
power and the glory of Him, and how everybody ought to be afraid of Him
and love Him. But little Anthony remembered he had left the door of the
workshop open and so hurried back. They moved on a little later. The
child heard them singing as they passed.
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below.”
The rest of the verse was drowned by the tambourine.
So it was to God that his mother made these frequent excursions,
returning always laden with good things. Had she not explained to him,
as an excuse for not taking him with her, that it was a long way off
and up ever so high? Next year, perhaps, when his legs were sturdier.
He did not tell her of his discovery. Mrs. Plumberry divided children
into two classes: the children who talked and never listened and the
children who listened and kept their thoughts to themselves. But one
day, when his mother took her only bonnet from its wrappings and was
putting it on in front of the fly-blown glass, he plucked at her
sleeve. She turned. He had rolled down his stockings, displaying a pair
of sturdy legs. It was one of his characteristics, even as a child,
that he never wasted words. “Feel ’em,” was all he said.
His mother remembered. It happened to be a fine day, so far as one
could judge beneath the smoke of Millsborough. She sent him to change
into his best clothes, while she finished her own preparations, and
together they set forth. She wondered at his evident excitement. It
was beyond what she had expected.
It was certainly a long way; but the child seemed not to notice it.
They left the din and smoke of Millsborough behind them. They climbed
by slow degrees to a wonderful country. The child longed to take it in
his arms, it was so beautiful. The woman talked at intervals, but the
child did not hear her. At the journey’s end the gate stood open and
they passed in.
And suddenly they came across him, walking in the garden. His mother
was greatly flustered. She was full of apologies, stammering and
repeating herself. She snatched little Anthony’s cap off his head, and
all the while she kept on curtseying, sinking almost to her knees. He
was a very old gentleman dressed in gaiters and a Norfolk jacket. He
wore side whiskers and a big moustache and walked with the aid of a
stick. He patted Anthony on the head and gave him a shilling. He called
Mrs. Strong’nth’arm “Nelly”; and hoped her husband would soon get work.
And then remarking that she knew her way, he lifted his tweed cap and
disappeared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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