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Not infidelity, nor active opposition, nor ignorance, but indifference, cold, heartless indifference in those who may go to church, stand up at prayer, hear or sleep, read or dream, agree with everything the minister says, yet verily believe nothing, and are therefore neither roused by fear nor gladdened by hope, but live on, day by day, buying and selling, eating and drinking, respectable, it may be, and respected, as good farmers, decent tradesmen, honest shopkeepers, but to spiritual things in their living reality and momentous importance indifferent!
Once again they did not trouble to speak, but merely pushing fire-pieces against the luckless shopkeepers' heads waited in silence. Immediately the men broke down anew and began whining more explanations. It was true there were no right feet, they said. The right feet were over there in a neighbour's shop. That shop had all the right feet; they had only left feet. This seemed strange humour.
Relieved and thankful though Miss Virginia felt, and confident, too, that she and Charlotte would now get on very well together, she still had something on her mind. The feeling that she was concealing something from her sister weighed upon her, but not so heavily as her sense of obligation to the shopkeepers.
But the mayor would not assent either to that. Old Mr. Bolton was the owner of the house, and if there was a nuisance to be complained of, it was he that must complain. The mayor during these days was much tried. The steady married people of the borough, the shopkeepers and their wives, the doctors and lawyers and clergymen, were in favour of Mr. and Mrs. Bolton.
Small shopkeepers who had never supposed that they would be called upon to labor for the defense of their freedom and country, found themselves with a barrel of pork upon their heads and a policeman with a loaded musket by their side proceeding up country for an indefinite period. A school teacher was missing, and was found to have gone up with a case of ammunition.
Then, unless the tide turned, he would throw up the sponge. Chook, amazed and delighted with the idea, had volunteered to disguise himself as a snob, and help to give the shop a busy look; and Waxy Collins jumped at the chance of getting his boots mended for the bare trouble of walking in and pretending to read the newspaper. The other shopkeepers were staggered.
The British have the nickname of "a nation of shopkeepers" fastened on them; yet they were and are the greatest benefactors of the human race, carrying the blessings of civilization to half the peoples of the globe. Commerce has done more for the peace of the world than all the preaching, praying, and prophesying taken together.
Should Apia ever choose a coat of arms, I have a motto ready: "Enter Rumour painted full of tongues." The majority of the natives do extremely little; the majority of the whites are merchants with some four mails in the month, shopkeepers with some ten or twenty customers a day, and gossip is the common resource of all.
He has laid a tax upon the people of Ireland of seventeen shillings at least in the pound; a tax I say, not only upon lands, but interest-money, goods, manufactures, the hire of handicraftsmen, labourers, and servants. Shopkeepers look to yourselves.
Of course, the rascally shopkeepers can cheat these poor wretches to any extent they please with perfect impunity. Mr. told me of a visit Renty paid him, which was not a little curious in some of its particulars. You know none of the slaves are allowed the use of fire arms; but Renty put up a petition to be allowed Mr. K 's gun, which it seems that gentleman left behind him.
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