Father Bearne, S.J.
Heroes must be more than driftwood
Floating on a waveless tide.
For right is right, since God
is God;
And right the day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,
To falter would be sin.
Father Faber.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course,
I have kept the
Faith.
St. Paul.
* * * *
*
35
troll cel’ er y new’ fan gled thatch
chink’ ing as par’ a gus im mense’
sauce’ pan de mol’ ish ing sa’
vor y pat’ terns ag’ gra va ting
There was a cuckoo clock hanging in Tom Turner’s
cottage. When it struck one, Tom’s wife
laid the baby in the cradle, and took a saucepan off
the fire, from which came a very savory smell.
“If father doesn’t come soon,” she
observed, “the apple dumplings will be too much
done.”
“There he is!” cried the little boy; “he
is coming around by the wood; and now he’s going
over the bridge. O father! make haste, and have
some apple dumpling.”
“Tom,” said his wife, as he came near,
“art tired to-day?”
“Uncommon tired,” said Tom, as he threw
himself on the bench, in the shadow of the thatch.
“Has anything gone wrong?” asked his wife;
“what’s the matter?”
“Matter!” repeated Tom; “is anything
the matter? The matter is this, mother, that
I’m a miserable, hard-worked slave;” and
he clapped his hands upon his knees and uttered in
a deep voice, which frightened the children—“a
miserable slave!”
“Bless us!” said the wife, but could not
make out what he meant.
“A miserable, ill-used slave,” continued
Tom, “and always have been.”
“Always have been?” said his wife:
“why, father, I thought thou used to say, at
the election time, that thou wast a free-born Briton.”
“Women have no business with politics,”
said Tom, getting up rather sulkily. Whether
it was the force of habit, or the smell of the dinner,
that made him do it, has not been ascertained; but
it is certain that he walked into the house, ate plenty
of pork and greens, and then took a tolerable share
in demolishing the apple dumpling.
When the little children were gone out to play, Tom’s
wife said to him, “I hope thou and thy master
haven’t had words to-day.”
“We’ve had no words,” said Tom,
impatiently; “but I’m sick of being at
another man’s beck and call. It’s,
‘Tom, do this,’ and ‘Tom do that,’
and nothing but work, work, work, from Monday morning
till Saturday night. I was thinking as I walked
over to Squire Morton’s to ask for the turnip
seed for master,—I was thinking, Sally,
that I am nothing but a poor workingman after all.
In short, I’m a slave; and my spirit won’t
stand it.”
So saying, Tom flung himself out at the cottage door,
and his wife thought he was going back to his work
as usual; but she was mistaken. He walked to
the wood, and there, when he came to the border of
a little tinkling stream, he sat down and began to
brood over his grievances.
