THERE was an aunt and uncle. Mr. Joseph Newt, of Moor End Lane, Millsborough, was Mrs. Strong'nth'arm's only surviving brother. He was married to a woman older than himself. She had been a barmaid, but after her marriage had "got religion," as they say up North.
They were not much to boast of. Mr. Newt was a dog-fancier; and according to his own account an atheist, whether from conviction or mere love of sport his friends had never been able to decide. Earnest young ministers of all denominations generally commenced their career in Millsborough by attempting his conversion, much encouraged during the earlier stages of the contest by Mr. Newt's predisposition in all matters towards what he called a "waiting game." The "knock-out" blow had not yet been delivered. His wife had long since abandoned him to Satan. The only thing, as far as she could see, was to let him enjoy as much peace and comfort in this world as circumstances would permit. In Anthony John's eyes the inevitable doom awaiting him gave to his uncle an interest and importance that Mr. Newt's somewhat insignificant personality might otherwise have failed to inspire. The child had heard about hell. A most unpleasant place where wicked people went to when they died. But his uncle, with his twinkling eyes and his merry laugh, was not his idea of a bad man.
"Is uncle very, very wicked?" he once demanded of his aunt.
"No; he's not wicked," replied his aunt, assuming a judicial tone. "Better than nine men out of ten that I've ever come across."
"Then why has he got to go to hell?"
"He needn't, if he didn't want to," replied his aunt. "That's the awful thing about it. If he'd only believe, he could be saved."
"Believe what?" inquired Anthony John.
"Oh, I haven't got time to go into all that now," replied his aunt. She was having trouble with the kitchen stove. "Believe what he's told."
"Who told him?"
"Everybody," explained his aunt. "I've told him myself till I'm sick and tired of it. Don't ask so many questions. You're getting as bad as he is."
It worried him, the thought of his uncle going to hell. Why couldn't he believe this thing, whatever it was, that everybody else believed?
It was an evening or two later. His aunt had gone to chapel. His uncle was smoking his pipe beside the kitchen fire, old Simon, the bob-tailed sheep-dog, looking up at him with adoring eyes. It seemed just the opportunity for a heart-to-heart talk.
He insinuated his hand into his uncle's grimy paw.
"Why don't you believe?" he asked.
His uncle turned on him his little twinkling eyes.
"Believe what?" he counter-questioned.
"What everybody believes," the child answered.
The little man shook his head.
"Don't you believe them," he answered. "They don't believe any more than I believe. They just say it because they think they're going to get something out of it."
The little man reached forward for the poker and gently stirred the fire.
"If they believed all they say that they believe," he continued, "this world would be a very different place to what it is. That's what I always tell them, and that's what they're never able to answer and never will be."
He laid down the poker and turned again to the child.
"You'll hear it all in good time, my lad," he said. "'Love your neighbour as yourself.' 'Do unto others as you would they should do unto you.' 'Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor.' That's what their God tells them. Do you see them doing it?"
The little man laughed a merry, good-tempered laugh.
"Why, old Simon has got more sense than they have." He stooped and patted the shaggy head resting upon his knee. "He knows it wouldn't be any good, just looking at me as though he loved me, and then not doing what I told him."
He refilled his pipe and lighted it.
"I'll believe," he added, "when I see them believing."
Anthony John liked visiting the tumble-down cottage in Moor End Lane. His mother was nervous of the consequences. But Mrs. Plumberry's view was that those who talked the loudest are not always the most dangerous.
"The little man's got plenty of horse sense," so Mrs. Plumberry argued, "and what Emma Newt don't know about heaven and how to get there, isn't worth trying to find out, so far as I can judge. Between the two of them he isn't likely to get any harm even if he doesn't get much good. Anyhow, he gets a square meal."
The dogs were the chief attraction to Anthony John. He had never been let to play in the street with the other children of the neighbourhood. It was in the dismantled railway carriage at the bottom of his uncle's garden that he first tasted play. His uncle had taken him in and introduced him. There was first and foremost old Simon, the bob-tailed sheep-dog. The others came and went, but old Simon was not for sale. The next oldest inhabitant of the railway carriage was a smooth-coated retriever bitch. She had constituted herself old Simon's chief assistant, always prepared to help him on the many occasions when riot had to be suppressed. It was wonderful how both dogs knew the exact moment when fighting in play turned to fighting in anger. Then not a moment was to be lost. Bess would stand ready, but she never interfered unless Simon gave a peculiar low bark that meant he wanted her. He had been instructed not to call her in if he could possibly do without her.
"Never invite a woman to take part in a row you can manage by yourself," his master had confided to him. "Once in, they never know when to stop."
On the day of Anthony John's first visit Bess was in a good mood to receive strangers. Her four puppies had just reached the fighting stage. She was absurdly proud of them and welcomed an audience. They fell upon Anthony John with one accord. His uncle was watching out of a corner of his eye. But the child only laughed and hit back at them. There were terriers of all sorts, bred rather for brain and muscle than for points: their purchasers being generally the tenants of lonely farms upon the moors who, wanting them as watchdogs and to keep down the rats, preferred smartness to pedigree. Mr. Newt's pride was in his bull pups, for which he had a special clientèle among neighbouring miners. He kept these apart in a railed off corner of the carriage, and once or twice a week, instead of feeding them separately, he would throw a big meaty bone into their midst, and then, leaning over the iron rail, watch the fight. The dog that most often secured the bone, leaving the others hungry, would be specially marked out for favour. His uncle, going in among them, would pat and praise him; and for him henceforward would be reserved the choicest food and the chiefest care.
The dogs soon got to know him and would welcome him with a joyous rush. The child would go down on all fours and would be one of them, and together they would roll and tumble in the straw. It was jolly to feel their soft paws pressing against his body, their cold damp noses pushed against his hands and face. There were mimic fights when they would tug his hair and bite his toes, and he would pull their silky ears and grab them by their hair. And, oh! the shouting and the barking and the growling and the laughing!
Life was fine in the long low railway carriage where one gave free play to one's limbs and lungs and none were afraid.
And sometimes for no reason the glorious gambol would suddenly blaze up into anger. The bite would sting, and in the growl there would be menace. The child would spring up with a savage cry and go for his foe with clenched fists and snarling mouth, and the whole pack would be fighting one another senselessly and in real earnest. Then in an instant old Simon would be among them. He never talked. The shaggy head would move so swiftly that none knew where to expect it, and old Simon would be standing with a space around him faced by a circle of fierce eyes. But, generally speaking, none cared to break into that space. The child would hate old Simon for his interference and would punch at him viciously, trying to get across his huge body to the dog he wanted to tear and mangle. But feint and dodge as he might, it was always old Simon's rump that was towards him, and at that he could punch as hard as he liked.
Five minutes later they would all be friends again, licking one another's wounds. Old Simon would lie blinking his wistful, dreamy eyes.
It had been a slack year. Many of the mills had had to close down. Added to this there came a strike among the miners and distress grew daily. Mrs. Newt took the opportunity to buy a secondhand tombstone. It had been ordered by one of the pumpmen for his mother, but when the strike came the stonemason suggested payment on account, and as this was not forthcoming he had put the stone aside. Unfortunately for him he had already carved as far as "Sacred to the Memory of Mildred," which was not a common name in Millsborough. It happened, however, to be Mrs. Newt's, though on her conversion she had dropped it as savouring too much of worldliness, employing instead her second name, which was Emily. Hearing of the incident, Mrs. Newt called upon the stonemason and, taking full advantage of the man's dilemma, had secured the stone for about one-third of its value. She had had the rest of the lettering completed, leaving to be filled in only the date of her death. It was an imposing-looking stone and Mrs. Newt was proud of it. She would often go and gaze at it where it stood in an out-of-the-way corner of the stonemason's yard; and one day she took Anthony to see it. Her only anxiety now was about her grave. There was one particular site near to a willow tree that she much desired. It belonged to a baker who had secured it some years before on learning that he was suffering from an intermittent heart. The unemployment among the weavers, added to the strike of the miners, was making it difficult for him to collect his money, and Mrs. Newt was hopeful that an offer of ready cash at the right moment might induce him to sell.
"It's a sad world," she confided to Anthony John as she stood affectionately regarding the stone on which the verse of a hymn had been carved implying that Mildred Emily Newt had departed for realms of endless bliss. "Can't say as I shall be sorry to leave it."
It promised to be a hard winter for the poor of Millsborough. The coal strike had ended only to make way for trouble in the steel works. Somewhere the other side of the world the crops had failed. Bread rose in price each week; and there were pinched and savage faces in the streets.
His uncle had gone up to the moors to try and sell a terrier. His aunt sat knitting by the kitchen fire. Little Anthony had come in to warm himself before returning home. It was cold in the railway carriage. There were not enough of them there now to keep it warm. He was sitting with his knee clasped in his hands.
"Why doesn't God stop it?" he demanded suddenly. His knowledge had advanced since the day he had thought Sir William Coomber was God.
"Stop what?" inquired his aunt continuing her knitting.
"The strike. Why doesn't He put everything all right? Can't He?"
"Of course He could," explained his aunt. "If He wanted to."
"Why don't He want to? Doesn't He want everybody to be happy?"
It appeared He did, but there were difficulties in the way. Men and women were wicked—were born wicked: that was the trouble.
"But why were we born wicked?" persisted the child. "Didn't God make us?"
"Of course He made us. God made everything."
"Why didn't He make us good?"
It seemed He had made us good. Adam and Eve were both quite good, in the beginning. If only they had remained good—hadn't disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit we might all of us have been good and happy to this day.
"He was the first man, wasn't he—Adam?" demanded the child.
"Yes. God made him out of the earth. And saw that he was good."
"How long ago would that be?" he asked.
His aunt was not sure of the exact date. Along time ago.
"A hundred years?"
Longer than that. Thousands and thousands of years ago.
"Why couldn't Adam have said he was sorry and God have forgiven him?"
"It was too late," explained his aunt. "You see, he'd done it."
"What made him eat it? If he was a good man and God had told him not to?"
It was explained to him that the Devil had tempted Adam—or rather Eve. It seemed unimportant so far as their unfortunate descendants were concerned.
"But why did God let the Devil tempt him—or her, whichever it was. Can't God do everything? Why didn't He kill the Devil?"
Mrs. Newt regarded her knitting with dismay. While talking to Anthony John she had lost count of her stitches. Added to which it was time for Anthony John to go home. His mother would be getting anxious.
His aunt, though visiting was not much in her line, dropped in on his mother a day or two later. Mrs. Plumberry happened to have looked in for a gossip and a cup of tea the same afternoon. His aunt felt sure that Anthony John would be helpful to his father in the workshop.
In the evening his mother informed him that she and his father had decided to give to him the opportunity of learning whatever there was to be learnt about such things as God and sin and the everlasting soul of man. She didn't put it in these words, but that was the impression she conveyed. On the very next Sunday that was he should go to chapel; and there kind ladies and gentlemen who understood these matters, perhaps even better than his aunt herself, would answer all his questions and make all things plain to him.
They were most kind and sympathetic to him at the Sunday school. His aunt had prepared them for him, and they welcomed him as promising material. There was one young man in particular with an æsthetic face and long black hair that he had a habit of combing with his hand; and a plain young woman with wonderfully kind eyes, who in the middle of a hymn suddenly caught him up and hugged him. But they didn't really help him. They assured him that God loved us and wanted us all to be good and happy. But they didn't explain to him why God had overlooked the devil. He had never said a word to Adam about the devil—had never so much as warned him. It seemed to Anthony John that the serpent had taken God as much by surprise as he had Adam and Eve. It seemed unfair to Anthony John that the whole consequences of the unforseen catastrophe should have been visited on Adam and Eve; and even more unfair that he himself, Anthony John, coming into the world thousands of years later, and who, as far as he could see, had had nothing whatever to do with the business, should be deemed, for all practical purposes, as an accomplice before the act. It was not that he argued it thus to himself. All he was conscious of was a vague resentful feeling that it wasn't fair. When his mother had sent him out on his first errand she had warned him of bad boys who would try to take his money away from him, as a result of which he had kept a sharp look-out and, seeing a couple of boys who looked as though they might be bad, he had taken the precaution of walking close behind a policeman. It seemed to him that Adam hadn't been given a dog's chance.
They told him that, later on, God was sorry for us and had put things right by letting His only Son die for us. It was a beautiful story they told him about this Jesus, the Son of God. He wondered who had suggested the idea, and had decided that it must have been the little lad Jesus who had first thought of it and had persuaded God to let Him do it. Somehow he convinced himself that he would have done just the same. Looking down from heaven on the poor people below, and thinking of their all going to hell, he would have felt so sorry for them.
But the more he thought about it all the more he couldn't understand why God instead of merely turning Satan out of heaven, hadn't finished him off then and there. He might have known he would be up to mischief.
At first his teachers had encouraged him to ask them questions, but later on they changed their minds. They told him he would understand all these things better as he grew up. Meanwhile he mustn't think, but listen and believe.