Happy Ending

Chapter 10

One fine morning, Mr Merton was agreeably surprised by a visit from Mr Barlow, who came accidentally to see him, with a perfect ignorance of all the great events which had so recently happened.
Mr Merton received this worthy man with the sincerest cordiality; but there was such a gloom diffused over all his manners that Mr Barlow began to suspect that all was not right with Tommy, and therefore purposely inquired after him, to give his father an opportunity of speaking. This Mr Merton did not fail to do; and taking Mr Barlow affectionately by the hand, he said, “Oh, my dear Sir, I begin to fear that all my hopes are at an end in that boy, and all your kind endeavours thrown away. He has just behaved in such a manner as shows him to be radically corrupted, and insensible of every principle but pride.” He then related to Mr Barlow every incident of Tommy’s behaviour; making the severest reflections upon his insolence and ingratitude, and blaming his own supineness, that had not earlier checked these boisterous passions, that now burst forth with such a degree of fury that threatened ruin to his hopes.
“Indeed,” answered Mr Barlow, “I am very sorry to hear this account of my little friend; yet I do not see it in quite so serious a light as yourself; and though I cannot deny the dangers that may arise from a character so susceptible of false impressions, and so violent, at the same time, yet I do not think the corruption either so great or so general as you seem to suspect. Do we not see, even in the most trifling habits of body or speech, that a long and continual attention is required, if we would wish to change them, and yet our perseverance is, in the end, generally successful; why, then, should we imagine that those of the mind are less obstinate, or subject to different laws? Or why should we rashly abandon ourselves to despair, from the first experiments that do not succeed according to our wishes?”
“Indeed,” answered Mr Merton, “what you say is perfectly consistent with the general benevolence of your character, and most consolatory to the tenderness of a father. Yet I know too well the general weakness of parents in respect to the faults of their children not to be upon my guard against the delusions of my own mind. And when I consider the abrupt transition of my son into everything that is most inconsistent with goodness,—how lightly, how instantaneously he seems to have forgotten everything he had learned with you,—I cannot help forming the most painful and melancholy presages of the future.”
“Alas, sir,” answered Mr Barlow, “what is the general malady of human nature but this very instability which now appears in your son? Do you imagine that half the vices of men arise from real depravity of heart? On the contrary, I am convinced that human nature is infinitely more weak than wicked, and that the greater part of all bad conduct springs rather from want of firmness than from any settled propensity to evil.”
“Indeed,” replied Mr Merton, “what you say is highly reasonable; nor did I ever expect that a boy so long indulged and spoiled should be exempt from failings. But what particularly hurts me is to see him proceed to such disagreeable extremities without any adequate temptation—extremities that, I fear, imply a defect of goodness and generosity—virtues which I always thought he had possessed in a very great degree.”
“Neither,” answered Mr Barlow, “am I at all convinced that your son is deficient in either. But you are to consider the prevalence of example, and the circle to which you have lately introduced him. If it is so difficult even for persons of a more mature age and experience to resist the impressions of those with whom they constantly associate, how can you expect it from your son? To be armed against the prejudices of the world, and to distinguish real merit from the splendid vices which pass current in what is called society, is one of the most difficult of human sciences. Nor do I know a single character, however excellent, that would not candidly confess he has often made a wrong election, and paid that homage to a brilliant outside which is only due to real merit.”

“You comfort me very much,” said Mr Merton, “but such ungovernable passion, such violence and impetuosity and now, the company being separated, Tommy, took an opportunity of following Mr Barlow, who was walking out; and when he perceived he was alone, he looked at him as if he had some weighty matter to disclose, but was unable to give it utterance. Mr Barlow, therefore, turned towards him with the greatest kindness, and taking him tenderly by the hand, inquired what he wished. “Indeed,” answered Tommy, almost crying, “I am scarcely able to tell you. But I have been a very bad and ungrateful boy, and I am afraid you no longer have the same affection for me.”
Mr Barlow.—If you are sensible of your faults, my little friend, that is a very great step towards amending them. Let me therefore know what it is, the recollection of which distresses you so much; and if it is in my power to assist in making you easy, there is nothing, I am sure, which I shall be inclined to refuse you.
Tommy.—Oh sir! your speaking to me with so much goodness hurts me a great deal more than if you were to be very angry; for when people are angry and passionate, one does not so much mind what they say; but when you speak with so much kindness, it seems to pierce me to the very heart, because I know I have not deserved it.
Mr Barlow.—But if you are sensible of having committed any faults, you may resolve to behave so well for the future that you may deserve everybody’s friendship and esteem; few people are so perfect as not to err sometimes, and if you are convinced of your errors, you will be more cautious how you give way to them a second time.
Tommy.—Indeed, sir, I am very happy to hear you say so. I will, then, tell you everything which lies so heavy upon my mind. You must know then, sir, that although I have lived so long with you, and during all that time you have taken so much pains to improve me in everything, and teach me to act well to everybody, I had no sooner quitted your sight than I became, I think, a worse boy than ever I was before.
Mr Barlow.—But why do you judge so severely of yourself as to think you were become worse than ever. Perhaps you have been a little thoughtless and giddy; and these are faults which I cannot with truth say you were ever free from.
Tommy.—No, sir; what I have been guilty of is infinitely worse than ever. I have always been very giddy and very thoughtless, but I never imagined I could have been the most insolent and ungrateful boy in the world.
Mr Barlow.—You frighten me, my little friend. Is it possible you can have committed actions that deserve so harsh a name?
Tommy.—You shall judge yourself, sir, for, now I have begun, I am determined to tell you all. You know, sir, that when I first came to you, I had a high opinion of myself for being born a gentleman, and a very great contempt for everybody in an inferior station.
Mr Barlow.—I must confess you have always had some tendency to both these follies.
Tommy.—Yes, sir; but you have so often laughed at me upon the subject, and shown me the folly of people’s imagining themselves better than others, without any merit of their own, that I was grown a little wiser. Besides, I have so often observed, that those I despised could do a variety of things which I was ignorant of, while those who are vain of being gentlemen can do nothing useful or ingenious; so that I had begun to be ashamed of my folly. But since I came home I have kept company with a great many fine young gentlemen and ladies, who thought themselves superior to all the rest of the world, and used to despise every one else; and they have made me forget everything I learned before.
Mr Barlow.—Perhaps, then, I was mistaken when I taught you that the greatest merit any person could have is to be good and useful. These fine young gentlemen and ladies may be wiser, and have given you better lessons; if that is the case, you will have great reason to rejoice that you have changed so much for the better.
Tommy.—No, sir, no; I never thought them either good or wise, for they know nothing but how to dress their hair and buckle their shoes; but they persuaded me that it was necessary to be polite, and talked to me so often upon the subject, that I could not help believing them.
Mr Barlow.—I am glad to hear that; it is necessary for everybody to be polite; they therefore, I suppose, instructed you to be more obliging and civil in your manners than ever you were before. Instead of doing you any hurt, this will be the greatest improvement you can receive.
Tommy.—No, sir, quite the contrary. Instead of teaching me to be civil and obliging, they have made me ruder and worse behaved than ever I was before.
Mr Barlow.—If that is the case, I fear these fine young gentlemen and ladies undertook to teach you more than they understood themselves.
Tommy.—Indeed, sir, I am of the same opinion myself. But I did not think so then, and therefore I did whatever I observed them do, and talked in the same manner as I heard them talk. They used to be always laughing at Harry Sandford, and I grew so foolish that I did not choose to keep company with him any longer.
Mr Barlow.—That was a pity, because I am convinced he really loves you. However, it is of no great consequence, for he has employment enough at home; and however ingenious you may be, I do not think that he will learn how to manage his land, or raise food, from your conversation. It will therefore be better for him to converse with farmers, and leave you to the society of gentlemen. Indeed, this I know has always been his taste; and had not your father pressed him very much to accompany you home, he would have liked much better to have avoided the visit. However, I will inform him that you have gained other friends, and advise him for the future to avoid your company.
Tommy.—Oh, sir! I did not think you could be so cruel. I love Harry Sandford better than any other boy in the world; and I shall never be happy till he forgives me all my bad behaviour, and converses with me again as he used to do.
Mr Barlow.—But then, perhaps, you may lose the acquaintance of all those polite young gentlemen and ladies.
Tommy.—I care very little about that, sir. But I fear I have behaved so ill that he never will be able to forgive me, and love me as he did formerly.
Tommy then went on, and repeated with great exactness the story of his insolence and ingratitude, which had so great an effect upon him, that he burst into tears, and cried a considerable time. He then concluded with asking Mr Barlow if he thought Harry would be ever able to forgive him?
Mr Barlow.—I cannot conceal from you, my little friend, that you have acted very ill indeed in this affair. However, if you are really ashamed of all your past conduct, and determined to act better, I do not doubt that so generous and good-natured a boy as Harry is, will forgive you all.
Mr Barlow with his quick …and intelligence ended the bitterness between Harry and Tommy now both friends hugged each other.
One day Tommy was surprised by an unexpected visit from his father, who met him with open arms, and told him that he was now come to take him back to his own house. “I have heard,” said he, “such an account of your present behaviour, that the past is entirely forgotten; and I begin to glory in owning you for a son.” He then embraced him with the transports of an affectionate father, who indulges the strongest sentiments of his heart, but sentiments he had long been forced to restrain.
Tommy returned his father’s caresses with genuine warmth, but with a degree of respect and humility he had once been little accustomed to use. “I will accompany you home, sir,” said he, “with the greatest readiness; for I wish to see my mother, and hope to give her some satisfaction by my future behaviour. You have both had too much to complain of in the past, and I am unworthy of such affectionate parents.” He then turned his face aside and shed a tear of real virtue and gratitude, which he instantly wiped away, as unworthy the composure and fortitude of his new character.
“But, sir,” added he, “I hope you will not object to my detaining you a little longer, while I return my acknowledgments to all the family, and take my leave of Harry.” “Surely,” said Mr Merton, “you can entertain no doubt on that subject; and to give you every opportunity of discharging all your duties to a family to which you owe so much, I intend to take a dinner with Mr Sandford, whom I now see coming home, and then to return with you in the evening.”
At this instant, farmer Sandford approached, and very respectfully saluting Mr Merton, invited him to walk in. But Mr Merton, after returning his civility, drew him aside, as if he had some private business to communicate. When they were alone, he made him every acknowledgment that gratitude could suggest, “but words,” added Mr Merton, “are very insufficient to return the favours I have received, for it is to your excellent family, together with the virtuous Mr Barlow, that I owe the preservation of my son. Let me therefore entreat you to accept of what this pocket-book contains, as a slight proof of my sentiments, and lay it out in whatever manner you please for the advantage of your family.”
Mr Sandford, who was a man both of sense and humour, took the book, and examining the inside, found that it contained bank-notes to the amount of some hundred pounds. He then carefully shut it up again, and, returning it to Mr Merton, told him that he was infinitely obliged to him for the generosity which prompted him to such a princely act; but, as to the present itself, he must not be offended if he declined it. Mr Merton, still more astonished at such disinterestedness, pressed him with every argument he could think of; he desired him to consider the state of his family; his daughters unprovided for, his son himself, with dispositions that might adorn a throne, brought up to labour, and his own advancing age, which demanded ease and respite, and an increase of the conveniences of life.
“And what,” replied the honest farmer, “is it but these conveniences of life that are the ruin of all the nation? When I was a young man, Master Merton (and that is near forty years ago), people in my condition thought of nothing but doing their duty to God and man, and labouring hard; this brought down a blessing upon their heads, and made them thrive in all their worldly concerns. When I was a boy, farmers did not lie droning in bed, as they do now, till six or seven; my father, I believe, was as good a judge of business as any in the neighbourhood, and turned as straight a furrow as any ploughman in the county of Devon; that silver cup which I intend to have the honour of drinking your health out of to-day at dinner—that very cup was won by him at the great ploughing-match near Axminster. Well, my father used to say that a farmer was not worth a farthing that was not in the field by four; and my poor dear mother, too, the best-tempered woman in the world, she always began milking exactly at five; and if a single soul was to be found in bed after four in the summer, you might have heard her from one end of the farm to the other. I would not disparage anybody, or anything, my good sir; but those were times indeed; the women then knew something about the management of a house; it really was quite a pleasure to hear my poor mother lecture the servants; and the men were men indeed. Pray, did you ever hear the story of father’s being at Truro, and throwing the famous Cornish wrestler, squinting Dick the miner?”
Mr Merton began to be convinced that, whatever other qualities good Mr Sandford might have, he did not excel in brevity, and therefore endeavoured in still stronger terms to overcome the delicacy of the farmer, and prevail upon him to accept his present.
But the good farmer pursued his point thus: “Thank you, thank you, my dear sir, a thousand times for your goodwill; but, as to the money, I must beg your pardon if I persist in refusing it. Formerly, sir, as I was saying, we were all happy and healthy, and our affairs prospered, because we never thought about the conveniences of life; now, I hear of nothing else. One neighbour (for I will not mention names) brings his son up to go a-shooting with gentlemen; another sends his to market upon a blood-horse with a plated bridle; and then the girls—the girls; there is fine work indeed!—they must have their hats and feathers and riding habits; their heads as big as bushels, and even their hind-quarters stuck out with cork or pasteboard; but scarcely one of them can milk a cow, or churn, or bake, or do any one thing that is necessary in a family; so that, unless the government will send them all to this new settlement, which I have heard so much of, and bring us a cargo of plain, honest housewives, who have never been at boarding-schools, I cannot conceive how we farmers are to get wives.”
Mr Merton laughed very heartily at this sally, and told him that he would venture to assert it was not so at his house. “Not quite so bad indeed,” said the farmer; “my wife was bred up under a notable mother, and though she must have her tea every afternoon, is, in the main, a very good sort of woman. She has brought her daughters up a little better than usual, but I can assure you she and I have had many a good argument on the subject. Not but she approves their milking, spinning, and making themselves useful, but she would fain have them genteel, Master Merton; all women now are mad after gentility; and, when once gentility begins, there is an end of industry. Now, were they to hear of such a sum as you have generously offered, there would be no peace in the house. My wenches instead of Deb and Kate, would be Miss Deborah and Miss Catherine; in a little time they must be sent to boarding-school to learn French and music, and wriggling about the room; and when they come back, who must boil the pot, or make the pudding, or sweep the house, or serve the pigs? Did you ever hear of Miss Juliana, or Miss Harriet, or Miss Carolina, doing such vulgar things?”
Mr Merton was very much struck with the honest farmer’s method of expressing himself, and could not help internally allowing the truth of his representations; yet he still pressed him to accept his present, and reminded him of the improvement of his farm.
“Thank you, again and again,” replied the farmer; “but the whole generation of the Sandfords have been brought up to labour with their own hands for these hundred years; and during all that time there has not been a dishonest person, a gentleman, or a madman amongst us. And shall I be the first to break the customs of the family, and perhaps bring down a curse on all our heads? What could I have more if I were a lord or a macaroni, as I think you call them? I have plenty of victuals and work, good firing, clothes, warm house, a little for the poor, and, between you and I, something perhaps in a corner to set my children off with if they behave well. Ah! neighbour, neighbour, if you did but know the pleasure of holding plough after a good team of horses, and then going tired to bed, perhaps you’d wish to have been brought up a farmer too. But, in one word, as well as a thousand, I shall never forget the extraordinary kindness of your offer; but if you would not ruin a whole family of innocent people that love you, e’en consent to leave us as we are.”
Mr Merton then seeing the fixed determination of the farmer, and feeling the justice of his coarse but strong morality, was obliged, however reluctantly, to desist; and Mrs Sandford coming to invite them to dinner, he entered the house, and paid his respects to the family.
After the cloth was removed, and Mr Sandford had twice or thrice replenished his silver mug, the only piece of finery in his house, little Harry came running in, with so much alacrity and heedlessness that he tore Miss Deborah’s best apron, and he had nearly precipitated Miss Catherine’s new cap into the fire, for which the young ladies and his mother rebuked him with some acrimony. But Harry, after begging pardon with his usual good-humour, cried, “Father, father, here is the prettiest team of horses, all matched, and of a colour, with new harness, the most complete I ever saw in my life; and they have stopped at our back-door, and the man says they are brought for you!” Farmer Sandford was just then in the middle of his history of the ploughing-match at Axminster; but the relation of his son had such an involuntary effect upon him, that he started up, overset the liquor and the table, and making a hasty apology to Mr Merton, ran out to see these wonderful horses.
Presently he returned, in equal admiration, with his son. “Master Merton,” said he, “I did not think you had been so good a judge of a horse. I suppose they are a new purchase, which you want to have my opinion upon; and I can assure you they are the true Suffolk sorrels—the first breed of working-horses in the kingdom; and these are some of the best of their kind.” “Such as they are,” answered Mr Merton, “they are yours; and I cannot think, after the obligations I am under to your family, that you will do me so great a displeasure as to refuse.”

Mr Sandford stood for some time in mute astonishment; but at length he was beginning the civilest speech he could think of, to refuse so great a present, when Tommy, coming up, took him by the hand, and begged him not to deny to his father and himself the first favour they had ever asked. “Besides,” said he, “this present is less to yourself than to little Harry; and surely, after having lived so long in your family, you will not turn me out with disgrace, as if I had misbehaved.” Here Harry himself interposed, and, considering less the value of the present than the feelings and intentions of the giver, he took his father by the hand, and besought him to oblige Master Merton and his father. “Were it any one else, I would not say a word,” added he; “but I know the generosity of Mr Merton and the goodness of Master Tommy so well, that they will receive more pleasure from giving, than you from taking the horses, though I must confess they are such as would do credit to anybody; and they beat farmer Knowles all to nothing, which have long been reckoned the best team in all the country.”
This last reflection, joined with all that had preceded, overcame the delicacy of Mr Sandford; and he at length consented to order the horses to be led into his stable.
And now Mr Merton, having made the most affectionate acknowledgments to all this worthy and happy family, among whom he did not forget the honest Black, whom he promised to provide for, summoned his son to accompany him home. Tommy arose, and with the sincerest gratitude bade adieu to Harry and all the rest. “I shall not be long without you,” said he to Harry; “to your example I owe most of the little good that I can boast: you have taught me how much better it is to be useful than rich or fine; how much more amiable to be good than to be great. Should I ever be tempted to relapse, even for an instant, into any of my former habits, I will return hither for instruction, and I hope you will again receive me.” Saying this, he shook his friend Harry affectionately by the hand, and, with watery eyes, accompanied his father home.

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