John Home

“ Twisting himself out into the porch, John pushed a dirty thumb against the bell-button of the Corliss home. Instantly sounded the same monotonous response,—“Not at home— Not at home— Not at home.”
“I say! Isn’t it great!” shouted John, cutting a caper delightedly. “Aunt Nan must have had that fixed so as to scare away callers. Wasn’t she cute?”
Mary blushed for her brother, and for the reputation of the house. “It wasn’t cute!” she said hastily. “We shall have to get that bell changed. We aren’t like that, really,” she explained to her visitor. “We love to see people. ”

“ John, rather silent and thoughtful, was sitting in the large armchair, while his mother was laying the cloth for dinner.
"What are you thinking about, John, my lad?" said Mrs. Randal.
"Don't know, mother. Sir Henry Smith was at church this morning, and another gentleman with him, a stranger."
"Ah! Well, I'm glad the family's come back to Carsham. I don't hold with people having a beautiful place like that, and leaving it to stand empty. It's a bad thing for the country, and for themselves too, careering in foreign lands and spending a lot of money as had better be spent at home. Dear me! ”

“ The vicar had gone home with his wife, and there was no one in the dining-room but the desolate old man.
John tried to talk to him, but he found it very difficult. When two lives have run in completely different grooves, the conversation is apt to be strained. The squire had always lived in the country, John Temple always in towns. They spoke a little on politics, and John easily perceived his uncle’s opinions were opposed to his own. ”

“ Arrived at the big door, John pulled the bell, a twisted iron thing whose voice sounded faintly in some remote region. The door was opened, and John saw into the hall, dark and shadowed. He had a glimpse of bowls of roses, of a big straw hat [Pg 206] lying on a table, green chiffon around the crown. A pair of long crinkled gloves lay near it. So, for an instant, John stood, his foot ready to cross the threshold.
“Her ladyship is not at home.” The butler’s bland voice fell like a douche of cold water on John’s heart. ”

“ All that I wish is, that John’s present troubles may teach him more prudence in future—that he may cease to distress his mind about other people’s affairs; that he may give up the fruitless attempt to promote the good of his neighbors and the peace and happiness of the world, by dint of the cudgel; that he may remain quietly at home; gradually get his house into repair; cultivate his rich estate according to his fancy; husband his income—if he thinks proper; bring his unruly children into order—if he can; renew the jovial scenes of ancient prosperity ”

“ He came on an errand down to the earth, and when the errand was done, and well done, He went back home, bearing on His person the marks of His fidelity to the Father's errand. This is John's bit of rich high colouring.
And so we are nearest of kin to God through Jesus. Kinship is always a matter of blood. There is a double kinship, through the blood of inheritance, and the blood of sacrifice. Our inherited kinship of blood has been lost. But His blood of sacrifice has made a new kinship. We had broken the entail of our inheritance clean beyond mending. ”

“ Do you know, John, there are times when I feel very queer—there are indeed. I catched myself a singing "Sweet Home" one night, among those savages in the wilderness. One wants consolation, John, sometimes one does, indeed; and, for my part, I do miss the family prayers and the home-brewed.'
No author has ever done better in portraying the characteristic feeling of the servants' hall; and at the other social extreme, Mr. Disraeli has had more practice than any other novelist. ”

“ Part of this John devoted to building a pretty villa just outside Brisport, and the heart of the proprietor of Beach Terrace leaped within him when he learned that the cottage was at last to be abandoned, and that it would no longer break the symmetry and impair the effect of his row of aristocratic mansions.
And there in their snug new home, sitting out on the lawn in the summer-time, and on either side of the fire in the winter, that worthy old couple continued for many years to live as innocently and as happily as two children. ”

“ And so ends John's first great paragraph. It is so tremendous in its simplicity that, Greek-like, men stumble over its simple tremendousness. Away back in the beginning God revealed Himself in making a home for man, and in bringing the man, made in His own image, to his home. And then when the damp unwholesome darkness came stealing in swamping the home and man He came Himself, flooding in the soft clear pure light of His presence, to free man from the darkness and woo him out into the light. ”

“ When John returns from Jerusalem to his home we lose even the dim sight of him which our imagination has supplied. During the silent years that follow we have two thoughts of him,—as a fisherman of Galilee, and as one waiting for the coming of the Messiah. His parents' only thought of him is a life of honest toil, a comfort in their old age, a sharer in their prosperity, and an heir to their home and what they would [Pg 47] leave behind. ”

“ John now began to spend all his leisure hours at the Bell. He used to be fond of his children: but when he could not come home in quiet, and play with the little ones, while his wife dressed him a bit of hot supper, he grew in time not to come home at all. He who has once taken to drink can seldom be said to be guilty of one sin only; John's heart became hardened. His affection for his family was lost in self-indulgence. Patience and submission on the part of the wife, might have won much upon a man of John's temper ”

“ The first scene in which we find John as one of the favored three is in the house of mourning. It was the home of Jairus in Capernaum. He was a ruler of the synagogue. "He had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying." He hastened to Jesus, fell at His feet, worshiped Him, and besought Him saying, "Come and lay Thy hands on her that she may be healed; and she shall live." ”

“ If you can bring here a man who can drink a whole cellar full of wine at one sitting then you shall have the Princess and part of the kingdom, just as promised; but if you cannot you shall be sent home with a good drubbing to keep you quiet.”
When John heard that he made a wry face. He did not know where he could find a man who could drink a whole cellar full of wine at one sitting.
He went out from the castle, and suddenly he remembered the old gray man who had given him the golden goose. If the old man had helped him once perhaps he might again. ”

“ But the small retired village where he had spent his whole life lay quite out of the world's track, in the quietest of valleys, sheltered among chalk hills and beech woods, ten miles at least from the nearest railway station. If the people in John's village wanted to go far from home they walked, or else they travelled in the carrier's cart which passed twice a week along the valley on its way to and from London. ”

“ And John, like most men of his simple and generous character, could never get on without a clever woman to manage his affairs and keep his home comfortable.
Mrs. Randal's only doubt was caused by the long waiting. That did not seem to her quite fair to Mary, or quite wise for her son. If it had been only the one question of John's working and saving for her, she never would have consented to it; she would have been sure to get on somehow; they could have managed to live all together in the old house, she thought, for she and Polly would never quarrel. ”

“ John listened very quietly.
"And you'd stay here all alone by yourself, would you?" he said.
"Yes, my dear. I couldn't leave the old home, so don't worry about your mother. I should be lost among strangers. With a young man like you it's a different thing. I expect Colonel Maxwell thinks you're thrown away at Markwood, and he's not far wrong."
"But supposing I chose to stop at Markwood—there'd still be the thousand pound. What should we do with that, mother—build a new house?"
"I don't know," hesitated Mrs. Randal. "The old one's good enough for me. ”

“ Unfortunately, in such a time the best and bravest men are apt to be among the first to go, while those who stay at home are more likely to be of the less worthy. Prince John, who stayed at home, so proved himself. First, when King Richard was away fighting, and his mother, Queen Eleanor, was regent—that is to say, was ruling the land for him until he returned—John lived in England like a prince, and a very bad prince at that. ”

“ I wonder if John—disposed by nature and too often by education to hold such niceties of custom as trifles and cheap—suspects what a blow is dealt to his wife's ideals when he begins to show, either that he respects her less than of old, or that he is less truly a gentleman than his careful conservation of elegant proprieties during their courtship led her to imagine. ”

“ Bland gravely. "And London town was not built in a day, and is not likely to disappear in one. Come, my dear. We will take John's little girl home, Jemima; she shall be warmed and fed. I will then hire Dobson's trap and drive her over to Markwood. You can give us the pleasure of your company, if you feel so inclined." ”

“ John returned, in a thoughtful tone. "You got a lot, one way or another, out of your meeting and Sunday-school up at home, and—and this is a dull town. It is full of sets and [Pg 183] a lot of silly pride, drawing the line at this and that. Take my trade, for instance. Do you know a brick mason is sort o' looked down on by the fool gangs that go in for style and show? Up your way everything is more on a level. One man is as good as another. That is one thing I like about religion. In the backwoods, at least, it does away with a lot of stuck-up ideas. ”

“ John was a mild man, but he was human, and after a long day's work to come home tired, hungry, and hopeful, to find a chaotic house, an empty table, and a cross wife was not exactly conducive to repose of mind or manner. ”

“ He thought of the strange scene that met his view on his return to his home after spending the evening hours as usual with a neighbour, smoking and conversing on the topics of the day, for John prided [87] himself that his figure had never darkened the doorway of the wretched tavern that was his wife's continual resort.
"T' lass knows all about t' inside o' t' beastly plaace, and 'at's enoogh for me," he would say in reply to any invitation from its many frequenters to join them in their social evenings. He never went nearer than when compelled. ”

“ When all was ready for the departure, the aunt said: "John, here are the two little turkeys that you have liked so well all summer. You may take them with you. They will help you to forget that you are alone when your father is away at his work"; and she handed him a small covered basket. Then the wagon containing their few belongings moved away from the place that for nearly five years they had called their home.
As they wended their way along the thoroughfare, they saw men at work in the fields. ”

“ John—being of the masculine gender according to a decree of Nature, and, therefore, irresponsible for the slow pace at which his wits move—may not be able at once to analyze the odd heartache he feels in surveying the apartments fitted up by the upholsterer—or to tell you why they become no longer a tri-syllabled word, but "our rooms," within a day after wife and daughters have [16] taken possession of them. ”

“ For John himself was one of seven in his father's home, and whoever married John must go there to live, to be only a daughter in a mother-in-law's house, and take a daughter's share of the brunt of everything. "And nothing to be got except a living, and it was a poor living the McDonald farm gave beside the McIntosh," the McIntosh sisters said. And, moreover: "The saint did not live that could get on with John McDonald's mother. ”

“ Soon after Ed came to live in the family, he paid a visit to a neighboring town; and while there, he stole from a store a case of plug tobacco. This he stealthily brought to his sister's new home, confiding his secret to no one except John; and by generous promises he persuaded John to say nothing about the matter. At this time John was in his thirteenth year. He still keenly felt that something was dreadfully missing in his life; so he turned to Ed, hoping to find that something in his companionship. ”

“ He raised his head, and turned stiff eyes and gibbering mouth on her; then, with one chill finger pointing at John, fell back dully and heavily.
They buried him with many honours by the Society of Italia's Sons. John took possession of the shop when they returned home, and found the money hidden in the chimney corner. ”

“ It had only his name ‘Antonio’ engraven on it, but that was sufficient for John’s heart; and there was no one else to care for the poor sailor who rested in that humble grave. But precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. However humble may be [55] the Christian’s lot on earth, or obscure his last resting-place, he has a happy home in heaven. A few moments in that blessed world will make us forget all the sorrows of a long life of trouble.
John, or Captain John as he is now called, still sails in the ‘Sally,’ and has as much work as he can do. ”