(with the omission, however, of the fatted
calf). But the prodigal did not return. Next day there was the same
hope, but fainter. Still, the prodigal Reuben did not return. Whereupon
the parson thought it his duty to write to Brother Johns, advising him
of the escape of Reuben,--"he having stolen away in the night, tying
together and much draggling Mrs. Brummem's pair of company sheets, (no
other being out of wash,) and myself following after vainly, the best
portion of a day, much, perturbed in spirit, in my chaise. I duly
instructed my parishioners to report him, if found, which has not been
the case. I trust that in the paternal home, if he has made his way
thither, he may be taught to open his 'ear to discipline,' and 'return
from iniquity.' Job xxxvi. 10."

The good parson was a type of not a few retired country ministers in
New England forty years ago: a heavy-minded, right-meaning man; utterly
inaccessible to any of the graces of life; no bird ever sang in his ear;
no flower ever bloomed for his eye; a man to whom life was only a
serious spiritual toil, and all human joys a vanity to be spurned;
preaching tediously long sermons, and counting the fatigue of the
listeners a fitting oblation to spiritual truth; staggering through life
with a great burden of theologies on his back, which it was his constant
struggle to pack into smaller and smaller compass,--not so much, we
fear, for the relief of others as of himself. Let us hope that the
burden--like that of Christian in the "Pilgrim's Progress"--slipped away
before he entered the Celestial Presence, and left him free to enjoy and
admire, more than he found time to do on earth, the beauty of that
blessed angel in the higher courts whose name is Charity.

XXV.

Reuben, meantime, pushed boldly down the open road, until broad sunlight
warned him to a safer path across the fields. He had been too much of a
rambler during those long Saturday afternoons at Ashfield, to have any
dread of a tramp through swamp-land or briers. "Who cared for wet feet
or a scratch? Who cared for a rough scramble through the bush, or a wade
(if it came to that) through ever so big a brook? Who cared for old
Brummem and his white-faced nag?" In fact, he had the pleasure of seeing
the parson's venerable chaise lumbering along the public road at a safe
distance away, an hour before noon; and he half wished he were near
enough to give the jolly old nag a good switching across the flanks. He