Children of clergy -- Fiction; Christian fiction; Fathers and daughters -- Fiction; Scotland -- Fiction
"I understand you, then, to indicate, that the chief distinction would lie
in the quality of the work; that whatever he did, he would do in such a
thorough manner, that over the whole of what he turned out, as you would
say, the perfection of the work would be a striking characteristic. Is that
it?"
"That is what I do mean, grannie."
"And that is just the conclusion I had come to myself."
"_I_ should like to say just one word to it, grannie, so be you won't cut
up crusty," said the blind man.
"If you are fair, I sha'n't be crusty, Mr. Evans. At least, I hope not,"
said Marion.
"Well, it's this: Mr. Jarvis he say as how the jiner-work done by Jesus
Christ would be better done than e'er another man's,--tip-top fashion,--and
there would lie the differ. Now, it do seem to me as I've got no call to
come to that 'ere conclusion. You been tellin' on us, grannie, I donno how
long now, as how Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and that he come to do
the works of God,--down here like, afore our faces, that we might see God
at work, by way of. Now, I ha' nothin' to say agin that: it may be, or it
mayn't be--I can't tell. But if that be the way on it, then I don't see
how Mr. Jarvis can be right; the two don't curryspond,--not by no means.
For the works o' God--there ain't one on'em as I can see downright well
managed--tip-top jiner's work, as I may say; leastways,--Now stop a
bit, grannie; don't trip a man up, and then say as he fell over his own
dog,--leastways, I don't say about the moon an' the stars an' that; I
dessay the sun he do get up the werry moment he's called of a mornin',
an' the moon when she ought to for her night-work,--I ain't no 'stronomer
strawnry, and I ain't heerd no complaints about _them_; but I do say as
how, down here, we ha' got most uncommon bad weather more'n at times; and
the walnuts they turns out, every now an' then, full o' mere dirt; an' the
oranges awful. There 'ain't been a good crop o' hay, they tells me, for
many's the year. An' i' furren parts, what wi' earthquakes an' wolcanies
an' lions an' tigers, an' savages as eats their wisiters, an' chimley-pots
blowin' about, an' ships goin' down, an' fathers o' families choked an'
drownded an' burnt i' coal-pits by the hundred,--it do seem to me that if
his jinerin' hadn't been tip-top, it would ha' been but like the rest on
it. There, grannie! Mind, I mean no offence; an' I don't doubt you ha' got
somethink i' your weskit pocket as 'll turn it all topsy-turvy in a moment.
Anyhow, I won't purtend to nothink, and that's how it look to me."
"I admit," said Marion, "that the objection is a reasonable one. But why do
you put it, Mr. Evans, in such a triumphant way, as if you were rejoiced
to think it admitted of no answer, and believed the world would be ever so
much better off if the storms and the tigers had it all their own way, and
there were no God to look after things."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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