{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8552/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8552","id":"gutenberg_8552","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8552","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian fiction","Neighborhoods -- Scotland -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al\nHaines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEABOARD PARISH\n\nBY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D.\n\nVOL. II.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS OF VOL. II.\n\n\n    I. ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING\n   II. NICEBOOTS\n  III. THE BLACKSMITH\n   IV. THE LIFE-BOAT\n    V. MR. PERCIVALE\n   VI. THE SHADOW OF DEATH\n  VII. AT THE FARM\n VIII. THE KEEVE\n   IX. THE WALK TO CHURCH\n    X. THE OLD CASTLE\n   XI. JOE AND HIS TROUBLE\n  XII. A SMALL ADVENTURE\n XIII. THE HARVEST\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING.\n\n\nIn the evening we met in Connie's room, as usual, to have our talk. And\nthis is what came out of it.\n\nThe window was open. The sun was in the west. We sat a little aside out\nof the course of his radiance, and let him look full into the room.\nOnly Wynnie sat back in a dark corner, as if she would get out of his\nway. Below him the sea lay bluer than you could believe even when you\nsaw it--blue with a delicate yet deep silky blue, the exquisiteness of\nwhich was thrown up by the brilliant white lines of its lapping on the\nhigh coast, to the northward. We had just sat down, when Dora broke out\nwith--\n\n\"I saw Niceboots at church. He did stare at you, papa, as if he had\nnever heard a sermon before.\"\n\n\"I daresay he never heard such a sermon before!\" said Connie, with the\nperfect confidence of inexperience and partiality--not to say\nignorance, seeing she had not heard the sermon herself.\n\nHere Wynnie spoke from her dark corner, apparently forcing herself to\nspeak, and thereby giving what seemed an unpleasant tone to what she\nsaid.\n\n\"Well, papa, I don't know what to think. You are always telling us to\ntrust in Him; but how can we, if we are not good?\"\n\n\"The first good thing you can do is to look up to him. That is the\nbeginning of trust in him, and the most sensible thing that it is\npossible for us to do. That is faith.\"\n\n\"But it's no use sometimes.\"\n\n\"How do you know that?\"\n\n\"Because you--I mean I--can't feel good, or care about it at all.\"\n\n\"But is that any ground for saying that it is no use--that he does not\nheed you? that he disregards the look cast up to him? that, till the\nheart goes with the will, he who made himself strong to be the helper\nof the weak, who pities most those who are most destitute--and who so\ndestitute as those who do not love what they want to love--except,\nindeed, those who don't want to love?--that, till you are well on\ntowards all right by earnestly seeking it, he won't help you? You are\nto judge him from yourself, are you?--forgetting that all the misery in\nyou is just because you have not got his grand presence with you?\"\n\nI spoke so earnestly as to be somewhat incoherent in words. But my\nreader will understand. Wynnie was silent. Connie, as if partly to help\nher sister, followed on the same side.\n\n\"I don't know exactly how to say what I mean, papa, but I wish I could\nget this lovely afternoon, all full of sunshine and blue, into unity\nwith all that you teach us about Jesus Christ. I wish this beautiful\nday came in with my thought of him, like the frame--gold and red and\nblue--that you have to that picture of him at home. Why doesn't it?\"\n\n\"Just because you have not enough of faith in him, my dear. You do not\nknow him well enough yet. You do not yet believe that he means you all\ngladness, heartily, honestly, thoroughly.\"\n\n\"And no suffering, papa?\"\n\n\"I did not say that, my dear. There you are on your couch and can't\nmove. But he does mean you such gladness, such a full sunny air and\nblue sea of blessedness that this suffering shall count for little in\nit; nay more, shall be taken in for part, and, like the rocks that\ninterfere with the roll of the sea, flash out the white that glorifies\nand intensifies the whole--to pass away by and by, I trust, none the\nless. What a chance you have, my Connie, of believing in him, of\noffering upon his altar!\"\n\n\"But,\" said my wife, \"are not these feelings in a great measure\ndependent upon the state of one's health? I find it so different when\nthe sunshine is inside me as well as outside me.\"\n\n\"Not a doubt of it, my dear. But that is only the more reason for\nrising above all that. From the way some people speak of physical\ndifficulties--I don't mean you, wife--you would think that they were\nnot merely the inevitable which they are, but the insurmountable which\nthey are not. That they are physical and not spiritual is not only a\ngreat consolation, but a strong argument for overcoming them. For all\nthat is physical is put, or is in the process of being put, under the\nfeet of the spiritual. Do not mistake me. I do not say you can make\nyourself feel merry or happy when you are in a physical condition which\nis contrary to such mental condition. But you can withdraw from it--not\nall at once; but by practice and effort you can learn to withdraw from\nit, refusing to allow your judgments and actions to be ruled by it. You\ncan climb up out of the fogs, and sit quiet in the sunlight on the\nhillside of faith. You cannot be merry down below in the fog, for there\nis the fog; but you can every now and then fly with the dove-wings of\nthe soul up into the clear, to remind yourself that all this passes\naway, is but an accident, and that the sun shines always, although it\nmay not at any given moment be shining on you. 'What does that matter?'\nyou will learn to say. 'It is enough for me to know that the sun does\nshine, and that this is only a weary fog that is round about me for the\nmoment. I shall come out into the light beyond presently.' This is\nfaith--faith in God, who is the light, and is all in all. I believe\nthat the most glorious instances of calmness in suffering are thus\nachieved; that the sufferers really do not suffer what one of us would\nif thrown into their physical condition without the refuge of their\nspiritual condition as well; for they have taken refuge in the inner\nchamber. Out of the spring of their life a power goes forth that\nquenches the flames of the furnace of their suffering, so far at least\nthat it does not touch the deep life, cannot make them miserable, does\nnot drive them from the possession of their soul in patience, which is\nthe divine citadel of the suffering. Do you understand me, Connie?\"\n\n\"I do, papa. I think perfectly.\"\n\n\"Still less, then, is the fact that the difficulty is physical to be\nused as an excuse for giving way to ill-temper, and, in fact, leaving\nourselves to be tossed and shaken by every tremble of our nerves. That\nis as if a man should give himself into the hands and will and caprice\nof an organ-grinder, to work upon him, not with the music of the\nspheres, but with the wretched growling of the streets.\"\n\n\"But,\" said Wynnie, \"I have heard you yourself, papa, make excuse for\npeople's ill-temper on this very ground, that they were out of health.\nIndeed,\" she went on, half-crying, \"I have heard you do so for myself,\nwhen you did not know that I was within hearing.\"\n\n\"Yes, my dear, most assuredly. It is no fiction, but a real difference\nthat lies between excusing ourselves and excusing other people. No\ndoubt the same excuse is just for ourselves that is just for other\npeople. But we can do something to put ourselves right upon a higher\nprinciple, and therefore we should not waste our time in excusing, or\neven in condemning ourselves, but make haste up the hill. Where we\ncannot work--that is, in the life of another--we have time to make all\nthe excuse we can. Nay more; it is only justice there. We are not bound\nto insist on our own rights, even of excuse; the wisest thing often is\nto forego them. But we are bound by heaven, earth, and hell to give\nthem to other people. And, besides, what a comfort to ourselves to be\nable to say, 'It is true So-and-so was cross to-day. But it wasn't in\nthe least that he wasn't friendly, or didn't like me; it was only that\nhe had eaten something that hadn't agreed with him. I could see it in\nhis eye. He had one of his headaches.' Thus, you see, justice to our\nneighbour, and comfort to ourselves, is one and the same thing. But it\nwould be a sad thing to have to think that when we found ourselves in\nthe same ungracious condition, from whatever cause, we had only to\nsubmit to it, saying, 'It is a law of nature,' as even those who talk\nmost about laws will not do, when those laws come between them and\ntheir own comfort. They are ready enough then to call in the aid of\nhigher laws, which, so far from being contradictory, overrule the lower\nto get things into something like habitable, endurable condition. It\nmay be a law of nature; but what has the Law of the Spirit of Life to\n_propound anent_ it? as the Scotch lawyers would say.\"\n\nA little pause followed, during which I hope some of us were thinking.\nThat Wynnie, at least, was, her next question made evident.\n\n\"What you say about a law of nature and a law of the Spirit makes me\nthink again how that walking on the water has always been a puzzle to\nme.\"\n\n\"It could hardly be other, seeing that we cannot possibly understand\nit,\" I answered.\n\n\"But I find it so hard to believe. Can't you say something, papa, to\nhelp me to believe it?\"\n\n\"I think if you admit what goes before, you will find there is nothing\nagainst reason in the story.\"\n\n\"Tell me, please, what you mean.\"\n\n\"If all things were made by Jesus, the Word of God, would it be\nreasonable that the water that he had created should be able to drown\nhim?\"\n\n\"It might drown his body.\"\n\n\"It would if he had not the power over it still, to prevent it from\nlaying hold of him. But just think for a moment. God is a Spirit.\nSpirit is greater than matter. Spirit makes matter. Think what it was\nfor a human body to have such a divine creative power dwelling in it as\nthat which dwelt in the human form of Jesus! What power, and influence,\nand utter rule that spirit must have over the body in which it dwells!\nWe cannot imagine how much; but if we have so much power over our\nbodies, how much more must the pure, divine Jesus, have had over his! I\nsuspect this miracle was wrought, not through anything done to the\nwater, but through the power of the spirit over the body of Jesus,\nwhich was all obedient thereto. I am not explaining the miracle, for\nthat I cannot do. One day I think it will be plain common sense to us.\nBut now I am only showing you what seems to me to bring us a step\nnearer to the essential region of the miracle, and so far make it\neasier to believe. If we look at the history of our Lord, we shall find\nthat, true real human body as his was, it was yet used by his spirit\nafter a fashion in which we cannot yet use our bodies. And this is only\nreasonable. Let me give you an instance. You remember how, on the Mount\nof Transfiguration, that body shone so that the light of it illuminated\nall his garments. You do not surely suppose that this shine was\nexternal--physical light, as we say, _merely?_ No doubt it was physical\nlight, for how else would their eyes have seen it? But where did it\ncome from? What was its source? I think it was a natural outburst of\nglory from the mind of Jesus, filled with the perfect life of communion\nwith his Father--the light of his divine blessedness taking form in\nphysical radiance that permeated and glorified all that surrounded him.\nAs the body is the expression of the soul, as the face of Jesus himself\nwas the expression of the being, the thought, the love of Jesus in like\nmanner this radiance was the natural expression of his gladness, even\nin the face of that of which they had been talking--Moses, Elias, and\nhe--namely, the decease that he should accomplish at Jerusalem. Again,\nafter his resurrection, he convinced the hands, as well as eyes, of\ndoubting Thomas, that he was indeed there in the body; and yet that\nbody could appear and disappear as the Lord willed. All this is full of\nmarvel, I grant you; but probably far more intelligible to us in a\nfurther state of existence than some of the most simple facts with\nregard to our own bodies are to us now, only that we are so used to\nthem that we never think how unintelligible they really are.\"\n\n\"But then about Peter, papa? What you have been saying will not apply\nto Peter's body, you know.\"\n\n\"I confess there is more difficulty there. But if you can suppose that\nsuch power were indwelling in Jesus, you cannot limit the sphere of its\naction. As he is the head of the body, his church, in all spiritual\nthings, so I firmly believe, however little we can understand about it,\nis he in all natural things as well. Peter's faith in him brought even\nPeter's body within the sphere of the outgoing power of the Master. Do\nyou suppose that because Peter ceased to be brave and trusting,\ntherefore Jesus withdrew from him some sustaining power, and allowed\nhim to sink? I do not believe it. I believe Peter's sinking followed\nnaturally upon his loss of confidence. Thus he fell away from the life\nof the Master; was no longer, in that way I mean, connected with the\nHead, was instantly under the dominion of the natural law of\ngravitation, as we call it, and began to sink. Therefore the Lord must\ntake other means to save him. He must draw nigh to him in a bodily\nmanner. The pride of Peter had withdrawn him from the immediate\nspiritual influence of Christ, conquering his matter; and therefore the\nLord must come over the stormy space between, come nearer to him in the\nbody, and from his own height of safety above the sphere of the natural\nlaw, stretch out to him the arm of physical aid, lift him up, lead him\nto the boat. The whole salvation of the human race is figured in this\nstory. It is all Christ, my love.--Does this help you to believe at\nall?\"\n\n\"I think it does, papa. But it wants thinking over a good deal. I\nalways find as I think, that lighter bits shine out here and there in a\nthing I have no hope of understanding altogether. That always helps me\nto believe that the rest might be understood too, if I were only clever\nenough.\"\n\n\"Simple enough, not clever enough, my dear.\"\n\n\"But there's one thing,\" said my wife, \"that is more interesting to me\nthan what you have been talking about. It is the other instances in the\nlife of St. Peter in which you said he failed in a similar manner from\npride or self-satisfaction.\"\n\n\"One, at least, seems to me very clear. You have often remarked to me,\nEthel, how little praise servants can stand; how almost invariably\nafter you have commended the diligence or skill of any of your\nhousehold, as you felt bound to do, one of the first visible results\nwas either a falling away in the performance by which she had gained\nthe praise, or a more or less violent access, according to the nature\nof the individual, of self-conceit, soon breaking out in bad temper or\nimpertinence. Now you will see precisely the same kind of thing in\nPeter.\"\n\nHere I opened my New Testament, and read fragmentarily, \"'But whom say\nye that I am?... Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God....\nBlessed art thou, Simon.... My Father hath revealed that unto thee. I\nwill give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.... I must suffer\nmany things, and be killed, and be raised again the third day.... Be it\nfar from thee, Lord. This shall not be unto thee.... Get thee behind\nme, Satan. Thou art an offence unto me.' Just contemplate the change\nhere in the words of our Lord. 'Blessed art thou.' 'Thou art an offence\nunto me.' Think what change has passed on Peter's mood before the\nsecond of these words could be addressed to him to whom the first had\njust been spoken. The Lord had praised him. Peter grew self-sufficient,\neven to the rebuking of him whose praise had so uplifted him. But it is\never so. A man will gain a great moral victory: glad first, then\nuplifted, he will fall before a paltry temptation. I have sometimes\nwondered, too, whether his denial of our Lord had anything to do with\nhis satisfaction with himself for making that onslaught upon the high\npriest's servant. It was a brave thing and a faithful to draw a single\nsword against a multitude. In his fiery eagerness and inexperience, the\nblow, well meant to cleave Malchus's head, missed, and only cut off his\near; but Peter had herein justified his confident saying that he would\nnot deny him. He was not one to deny his Lord who had been the first to\nconfess him! Yet ere the cock had crowed, ere the morning had dawned,\nthe vulgar grandeur of the palace of the high priest (for let it be art\nitself, it was vulgar grandeur beside that grandeur which it caused\nPeter to deny), and the accusing tone of a maid-servant, were enough to\nmake him quail whom the crowd with lanterns, and torches, and weapons,\nhad only roused to fight. True, he was excited then, and now he was\ncold in the middle of the night, with Jesus gone from his sight a\nprisoner, and for the faces of friends that had there surrounded him\nand strengthened him with their sympathy, now only the faces of those\nwho were, or whom at least Peter thought to be on the other side,\nlooking at him curiously, as a strange intruder into their domains.\nAlas, that the courage which led him to follow the Lord should have\nthus led him, not to deny him, but into the denial of him! Yet why\nshould I say _alas?_ If the denial of our Lord lay in his heart a\npossible thing, only prevented by his being kept in favourable\ncircumstances for confessing him, it was a thousand times better that\nhe should deny him, and thus know what a poor weak thing that heart of\nhis was, trust it no more, and give it up to the Master to make it\nstrong, and pure, and grand. For such an end the Lord was willing to\nbear all the pain of Peter's denial. O, the love of that Son of Man,\nwho in the midst of all the wretched weaknesses of those who surrounded\nhim, loved the best in them, and looked forward to his own victory for\nthem that they might become all that they were meant to be--like him;\nthat the lovely glimmerings of truth and love that were in them\nnow--the breakings forth of the light that lighteneth every man--might\ngrow into the perfect human day; loving them even the more that they\nwere so helpless, so oppressed, so far from that ideal which was their\nlife, and which all their dim desires were reaching after!\"\n\nHere I ceased, and a little overcome with the great picture in my soul\nto which I had been able only to give the poorest expression, rose, and\nretired to my own room. There I could only fall on my knees and pray\nthat the Lord Christ, who had died for me, might have his own way with\nme--that it might be worth his while to have done what he did and what\nhe was doing now for me. To my Elder Brother, my Lord, and my God, I\ngave myself yet again, confidently, because he cared to have me, and my\nvery breath was his. I _would_ be what he wanted, who knew all about\nit, and had done everything that I might be a son of God--a living\nglory of gladness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nNICEBOOTS.\n\n\nThe next morning the captain of the lost vessel called upon me early to\nthank me for himself and his men. He was a fine honest-looking burly\nfellow, dressed in blue from head to heel. He might have sat for a\nportrait of Chaucer's shipman, as far as his hue and the first look of\nhim went. It was clear that \"in many a tempest had his beard be shake,\"\nand certainly \"the hote somer had made his hew all broun;\" but farther\nthe likeness would hardly go, for the \"good fellow\" which Chaucer\napplies with such irony to the shipman of his time, who would filch\nwine, and drown all the captives he made in a sea-fight, was clearly\napplicable in good earnest to this shipman. Still, I thought I had\nsomething to bring against him, and therefore before we parted I said\nto him--\n\n\"They tell me, captain, that your vessel was not seaworthy, and that\nyou could not but have known that.\"\n\n\"She was my own craft, sir, and I judged her fit for several voyages\nmore. If she had been A 1 she couldn't have been mine; and a man must\ndo what he can for his family.\"\n\n\"But you were risking your life, you know.\"\n\n\"A few chances more or less don't much signify to a sailor, sir. There\nain't nothing to be done without risk. You'll find an old tub go voyage\nafter voyage, and she beyond bail, and a clipper fresh off the stocks\ngo down in the harbour. It's all in the luck, sir, I assure you.\"\n\n\"Well, if it were your own life I should have nothing to say, seeing\nyou have a family to look after; but what about the poor fellows who\nmade the voyage with you? Did they know what kind of a vessel they were\nembarking in?\"\n\n\"Wherever the captain's ready to go he'll always find men ready to\nfollow him. Bless you, sir, they never asks no questions. If a sailor\nwas always to be thinking of the chances, he'd never set his foot off\nshore.\"\n\n\"Still, I don't think it's right they shouldn't know.\"\n\n\"I daresay they knowed all about the old brig as well as I did myself.\nYou gets to know all about a craft just as you do about her captain.\nShe's got a character of her own, and she can't hide it long, any more\nthan you can hide yours, sir, begging your pardon.\"\n\n\"I daresay that's all correct, but still I shouldn't like anyone to say\nto me, 'You ought to have told me, captain.' Therefore, you see, I'm\ntelling you, captain, and now I'm clear.--Have a glass of wine before\nyou go,\" I concluded, ringing the bell.\n\n\"Thank you, sir. I'll turn over what you've been saying, and anyhow I\ntake it kind of you.\"\n\nSo we parted. I have never seen him since, and shall not, most likely,\nin this world. But he looked like a man that could understand why and\nwherefore I spoke as I did. And I had the advantage of having had a\nchance of doing something for him first of all. Let no man who wants to\ndo anything for the soul of a man lose a chance of doing something for\nhis body. He ought to be willing, and ready, which is more than\nwilling, to do that whether or not; but there are those who need this\nreminder. Of many a soul Jesus laid hold by healing the suffering the\nbody brought upon it. No one but himself can tell how much the nucleus\nof the church was composed of and by those who had received health from\nhis hands, loving-kindness from the word of his mouth. My own opinion\nis that herein lay the very germ of the kernel of what is now the\nancient, was then the infant church; that from them, next to the\ndisciples themselves, went forth the chief power of life in love, for\nthey too had seen the Lord, and in their own humble way could preach\nand teach concerning him. What memories of him theirs must have been!\n\nThings went on very quietly, that is, as I mean now, from the\nview-point of a historian, without much to record bearing notably upon\nafter events, for the greater part of the next week. I wandered about\nmy parish, making acquaintance with different people in an outside sort\nof way, only now and then finding an opportunity of seeing into their\nsouls except by conclusion. But I enjoyed endlessly the aspects of the\ncountry. It was not picturesque except in parts. There was little wood\nand there were no hills, only undulations, though many of them were\nsteep enough even from a pedestrian's point of view. Neither, however,\nwere there any plains except high moorland tracts. But the impression\nof the whole country was large, airy, sunshiny, and it was clasped in\nthe arms of the infinite, awful, yet how bountiful sea--if one will\nlook at the ocean in its world-wide, not to say its eternal aspects,\nand not out of the fears of a hidebound love of life! The sea and the\nsky, I must confess, dwarfed the earth, made it of small account beside\nthem; but who could complain of such an influence? At least, not I.\n\nMy children bathed in this sea every day, and gathered strength and\nknowledge from it. It was, as I have indicated, a dangerous coast to\nbathe upon. The sweep of the tides varied with the varying sands that\nwere cast up. There was now in one place, now in another, a strong\n_undertow_, as they called it--a reflux, that is, of the inflowing\nwaters, which was quite sufficient to carry those who could not swim\nout into the great deep, and rendered much exertion necessary, even in\nthose who could, to regain the shore. But there was a fine strong\nCornish woman to take charge of the ladies and the little boys, and\nshe, watching the ways of the wild monster, knew the when and the\nwhere, and all about it.\n\nConnie got out upon the downs every day. She improved in health\ncertainly, and we thought a little even in her powers of motion. The\nweather continued superb. What rain there was fell at night, just\nenough for Nature to wash her face with and so look quite fresh in the\nmorning. We contrived a dinner on the sands on the other side of the\nbay, for the Friday of this same week.\n\nThe morning rose gloriously. Harry and Charlie were turning the house\nupside down, to judge by their noise, long before I was in the humour\nto get up, for I had been reading late the night before. I never made\nmuch objection to mere noise, knowing that I could stop it the moment I\npleased, and knowing, which was of more consequence, that so far from\nthere being anything wrong in making a noise, the sea would make noise\nenough in our ears before we left Kilkhaven. The moment, however, that\nI heard a thread of whining or a burst of anger in the noise, I would\ninterfere at once--treating these just as things that must be dismissed\nat once. Harry and Charlie were, I say, to use their own form of\nspeech, making such a row that morning, however, that I was afraid of\nsome injury to the house or furniture, which were not our own. So I\nopened my door and called out--\n\n\"Harry! Charlie! What on earth are you about?\"\n\n\"Nothing, papa,\" answered Charlie. \"Only it's so jolly!\"\n\n\"What is jolly, my boy?\" I asked.\n\n\"O, I don't know, papa! It's _so_ jolly!\"\n\n\"Is it the sunshine?\" thought I; \"and the wind? God's world all over?\nThe God of gladness in the hearts of the lads? Is it that? No wonder,\nthen, that they cannot tell yet what it is!\"\n\nI withdrew into my room; and so far from seeking to put an end to the\nnoise--I knew Connie did not mind it--listened to it with a kind of\nreverence, as the outcome of a gladness which the God of joy had\nkindled in their hearts. Soon after, however, I heard certain dim\ngrowls of expostulation from Harry, and having, from experience, ground\nfor believing that the elder was tyrannising over the younger, I\nstopped that and the noise together, sending Charlie to find out where\nthe tide would be between one and two o'clock, and Harry to run to the\ntop of the hill, and find out the direction of the wind. Before I was\ndressed, Charlie was knocking at my door with the news that it would be\nhalf-tide about one; and Harry speedily followed with the discovery\nthat the wind was north-east by south-west, which of course determined\nthat the sun would shine all day.\n\nAs the dinner-hour drew near, the servants went over, with Walter at\ntheir head, to choose a rock convenient for a table, under the shelter\nof the rocks on the sands across the bay. Thither, when Walter\nreturned, we bore our Connie, carrying her litter close by the edge of\nthe retreating tide, which sometimes broke in a ripple of music under\nher, wetting our feet with innocuous rush. The child's delight was\nextreme, as she thus skimmed the edge of the ocean, with the little\nones gambolling about her, and her mamma and Wynnie walking quietly on\nthe landward side, for she wished to have no one between her and the\nsea.\n\nAfter scrambling with difficulty over some rocky ledges, and stopping\nat Connie's request, to let her look into a deep pool in the sand,\nwhich somehow or other retained the water after the rest had retreated,\nwe set her down near the mouth of a cave, in the shadow of a rock. And\nthere was our dinner nicely laid for us on a flat rock in front of the\ncave. The cliffs rose behind us, with curiously curved and variously\nangled strata. The sun in his full splendour threw dark shadows on the\nbrilliant yellow sand, more and more of which appeared as the bright\nblue water withdrew itself, now rippling over it as if it meant to hide\nit all up again, now uncovering more as it withdrew for another rush.\nBefore we had finished our dinner, the foremost wavelets appeared so\nfar away over the plain of the sand, that it seemed a long walk to the\nedge that had been almost at our feet a little while ago. Between us\nand it lay a lovely desert of glittering sand.\n\nWhen even Charlie and Harry had arrived at the conclusion that it was\ntime to stop eating, we left the shadow and went out into the sun,\ncarrying Connie and laying her down in the midst of \"the ribbed\nsea-sand,\" which was very ribby to-day. On a shawl a little way off\nfrom her lay her baby, crowing and kicking with the same jollity that\nhad possessed the boys ever since the morning. I wandered about with\nWynnie on the sands, picking up amongst other things strange creatures\nin thin shells ending in vegetable-like tufts, if I remember rightly.\nMy wife sat on the end of Connie's litter, and Dora and the boys, a\nlittle way off, were trying how far the full force of three wooden\nspades could, in digging a hole, keep ahead of the water which was ever\ntumbling in the sand from the sides of the same. Behind, the servants\nwere busy washing the plates in a pool, and burying the fragments of\nthe feast; for I made it a rule wherever we went that the fair face of\nnature was not to be defiled. I have always taken the part of\nexcursionists in these latter days of running to and fro, against those\nwho complain that the loveliest places are being destroyed by their\ninroads. But there is one most offensive, even disgusting habit amongst\nthem--that of leaving bones, fragments of meat pies, and worse than\nall, pieces of greasy paper about the place, which I cannot excuse, or\nat least defend. Even the surface of Cumberland and Westmoreland lakes\nwill be defiled with these floating abominations--not abominations at\nall if they are decently burned or buried when done with, but certainly\nabominations when left to be cast hither and thither in the wind, over\nthe grass, or on the eddy and ripple of the pure water, for days after\nthose who have thus left their shame behind them have returned to their\nshops or factories. I forgive them for trampling down the grass and the\nferns. That cannot be helped, and in comparison of the good they get,\nis not to be considered at all. But why should they leave such a savage\ntrail behind them as this, forgetting too that though they have done\nwith the spot, there are others coming after them to whom these\nremnants must be an offence?\n\nAt length in our roaming, Wynnie and I approached a long low ridge of\nrock, rising towards the sea into which it ran. Crossing this, we came\nsuddenly upon the painter whom Dora had called Niceboots, sitting with\na small easel before him. We were right above him ere we knew. He had\nhis back towards us, so that we saw at once what he was painting.\n\n\"O, papa!\" cried Wynnie involuntarily, and the painter looked round.\n\n\"I beg your pardon,\" I said. \"We came over from the other side, and did\nnot see you before. I hope we have not disturbed you much.\"\n\n\"Not in the least,\" he answered courteously, and rose as he spoke.\n\nI saw that the subject on his easel suggested that of which Wynnie had\nbeen making a sketch at the same time, on the day when Connie first lay\non the top of the opposite cliff. But he was not even looking in the\nsame direction now.\n\n\"Do you mind having your work seen before it is finished?\"\n\n\"Not in the least, if the spectators will do me the favour to remember\nthat most processes have to go through a seemingly chaotic stage,\" he\nanswered.\n\nI was struck with the mode and tone of the remark.\n\n\"Here is no common man,\" I said to myself, and responded to him in\nsomething of a similar style.\n\n\"I wish we could always keep that in mind with regard to human beings\nthemselves, as well as their works,\" I said aloud.\n\nThe painter looked at me, and I looked at him.\n\n\"We speak each from the experience of his own profession, I presume,\"\nhe said.\n\n\"But,\" I returned, glancing at the little picture in oils upon his\neasel, \"your work here, though my knowledge of painting is next to\nnothing--perhaps I ought to say nothing at all--this picture must have\nlong ago passed the chaotic stage.\"\n\n\"It is nearly as much finished as I care to make it,\" he returned. \"I\nhardly count this work at all. I am chiefly amusing, or rather\npleasing, my own fancy at present.\"\n\n\"Apparently,\" I remarked, \"you had the conical rock outside the hay for\nyour model, and now you are finishing it with your back turned towards\nit. How is that?\"\n\n\"I will soon explain,\" he answered. \"The moment I saw this rock, it\nreminded me of Dante's Purgatory.\"\n\n\"Ah, you are a reader of Dante?\" I said. \"In the original, I hope.\"\n\n\"Yes. A friend of mine, a brother painter, an Italian, set me going\nwith that, and once going with Dante, nobody could well stop. I never\nknew what intensity _per se_ was till I began to read Dante.\"\n\n\"That is quite my own feeling. Now, to return to your picture.\"\n\n\"Without departing at all from natural forms, I thought to make it\nsuggest the Purgatorio to anyone who remembered the description given\nof the place _ab extra_ by Ulysses, in the end of the twenty-sixth\ncanto of the Inferno. Of course, that thing there is a mere rock, yet\nit has certain mountain forms about it. I have put it at a much greater\ndistance, you see, and have sought to make it look a solitary mountain\nin the midst of a great water. You will discover even now that the\ncircles of the Purgatory are suggested without any approach, I think,\nto artificial structure; and there are occasional hints at figures,\nwhich you cannot definitely detach from the rocks--which, by the way,\nyou must remember, were in one part full of sculptures. I have kept the\nmountain near enough, however, to indicate the great expanse of wild\nflowers on the top, which Matilda was so busy gathering. I want to\nindicate too the wind up there in the terrestrial paradise, ever and\nalways blowing one way. You remember, Mr. Walton?\"--for the young man,\ngetting animated, began to talk as if we had known each other for some\ntime--and here he repeated the purport of Dante's words in English:\n\n  \"An air of sweetness, changeless in its flow,\n  With no more strength than in a soft wind lies,\n  Smote peacefully against me on the brow.\n  By which the leaves all trembling, level-wise,\n  Did every one bend thitherward to where\n  The high mount throws its shadow at sunrise.\"\n\n\"I thought you said you did not use translations?\"\n\n\"I thought it possible that--Miss Walton (?)\" interrogatively\nthis--\"might not follow the Italian so easily, and I feared to seem\npedantic.\"\n\n\"She won't lag far behind, I flatter myself,\" I returned. \"Whose\ntranslation do you quote?\"\n\nHe hesitated a moment; then said carelessly:\n\n\"I have cobbled a few passages after that fashion myself.\"\n\n\"It has the merit of being near the original at least,\" I returned;\n\"and that seems to me one of the chief merits a translation can\npossess.\"\n\n\"Then,\" the painter resumed, rather hastily, as if to avoid any further\nremark upon his verses, \"you see those white things in the air above?\"\nHere he turned to Wynnie. \"Miss Walton will remember--I think she was\nmaking a drawing of the rock at the same time I was--how the seagulls,\nor some such birds--only two or three of them--kept flitting about the\ntop of it?\"\n\n\"I remember quite well,\" answered Wynnie, with a look of appeal to me.\n\n\"Yes,\" I interposed; \"my daughter, in describing what she had been\nattempting to draw, spoke especially of the birds over the rock. For\nshe said the white lapping of the waves looked like spirits trying to\nget loose, and the white birds like foam that had broken its chains,\nand risen in triumph into the air.\"\n\nHere Mr. Niceboots, for as yet I did not know what else to call him,\nlooked at Wynnie almost with a start.\n\n\"How wonderfully that falls in with my fancy about the rock!\" he said.\n\"Purgatory indeed! with imprisoned souls lapping at its foot, and the\nfree souls winging their way aloft in ether. Well, this world is a kind\nof purgatory anyhow--is it not, Mr. Walton?\"\n\n\"Certainly it is. We are here tried as by fire, to see what our work\nis--whether wood, hay, and stubble, or gold and silver and precious\nstones.\"\n\n\"You see,\" resumed the painter, \"if anybody only glanced at my little\npicture, he would take those for sea-birds; but if he looked into it,\nand began to suspect me, he would find out that they were Dante and\nBeatrice on their way to the sphere of the moon.\"\n\n\"In one respect at least, then, your picture has the merit of\ncorresponding to fact; for what thing is there in the world, or what\ngroup of things, in which the natural man will not see merely the\nthings of nature, but the spiritual man the things of the spirit?\"\n\n\"I am no theologian,\" said the painter, turning away, I thought\nsomewhat coldly.\n\nBut I could see that Wynnie was greatly interested in him. Perhaps she\nthought that here was some enlightenment of the riddle of the world for\nher, if she could but get at what he was thinking. She was used to my\nway of it: here might be something new.\n\n\"If I can be of any service to Miss Walton with her drawing, I shall be\nhappy,\" he said, turning again towards me.\n\nBut his last gesture had made me a little distrustful of him, and I\nreceived his advances on this point with a coldness which I did not\nwish to make more marked than his own towards my last observation.\n\n\"You are very kind,\" I said; \"but Miss Walton does not presume to be an\nartist.\"\n\nI saw a slight shade pass over Wynnie's countenance. When I turned to\nMr. Niceboots, a shade of a different sort was on his. Surely I had\nsaid something wrong to cast a gloom on two young faces. I made haste\nto make amends.\n\n\"We are just going to have some coffee,\" I said, \"for my servants, I\nsee, have managed to kindle a fire. Will you come and allow me to\nintroduce you to Mrs. Walton?\"\n\n\"With much pleasure,\" he answered, rising from the rock whereon, as he\nspoke about his picture, he had again seated himself. He was a\nfine-built, black-bearded, sunburnt fellow, with clear gray eyes\nnotwithstanding, a rather Roman nose, and good features generally. But\nthere was an air of suppression, if not of sadness, about him, however,\ndid not in the least interfere with the manliness of his countenance,\nor of its expression.\n\n\"But,\" I said, \"how am I to effect an introduction, seeing I do not yet\nknow your name.\"\n\nI had had to keep a sharp look-out on myself lest I should call him Mr.\nNiceboots. He smiled very graciously and replied,\n\n\"My name is Percivale--Charles Percivale.\"\n\n\"A descendant of Sir Percivale of King Arthur's Round Table?\"\n\n\"I cannot count quite so far back,\" he answered, \"as that--not quite to\nthe Conquest,\" he added, with a slight deepening of his sunburnt hue.\n\"I do come of a fighting race, but I cannot claim Sir Percivale.\"\n\nWe were now walking along the edge of the still retreating waves\ntowards the group upon the sands, Mr. Percivale and I foremost, and\nWynnie lingering behind.\n\n\"O, do look here papa!\" she cried, from some little distance.\n\nWe turned and saw her gazing at something on the sand at her feet.\nHastening back, we found it to be a little narrow line of foam-bubbles,\nwhich the water had left behind it on the sand, slowly breaking and\npassing out of sight. Why there should be foam-bubbles there then, and\nnot always, I do not know. But there they were--and such colours! deep\nrose and grassy green and ultramarine blue; and, above all, one dark,\nyet brilliant and intensely-burnished, metallic gold. All of them were\nof a solid-looking burnished colour, like opaque body-colour laid on\nbehind translucent crystal. Those little ocean bubbles were well worth\nturning to see; and so I said to Wynnie. But, as we gazed, they went on\nvanishing, one by one. Every moment a heavenly glory of hue burst, and\nwas nowhere.\n\nWe walked away again towards the rest of our party.\n\n\"Don't you think those bubbles more beautiful than any precious stones\nyou ever saw, papa?\"\n\n\"Yes, my love, I think they are, except it be the opal. In the opal,\nGod seems to have fixed the evanescent and made the vanishing eternal.\"\n\n\"And flowers are more beautiful things than jewels?' she said\ninterrogatively.\n\n\"Many--perhaps most flowers are,\" I granted. \"And did you ever see such\ncurves and delicate textures anywhere else as in the clouds, papa?\"\n\n\"I think not--in the cirrhous clouds at least--the frozen ones. But\nwhat are you putting me to my catechism for in this way, my child?\"\n\n\"O, papa, I could go on a long time with that catechism; but I will end\nwith one question more, which you will perhaps find a little harder to\nanswer. Only I daresay you have had an answer ready for years lest one\nof us should ask you some day.\"\n\n\"No, my love. I never got an answer ready for anything lest one of my\nchildren should ask me. But it is not surprising either that children\nshould be puzzled about the things that have puzzled their father, or\nthat by the time they are able to put the questions, he should have\nfound out some sort of an answer to most of them. Go on with your\ncatechism, Wynnie. Now for your puzzle!\"\n\n\"It's not a funny question, papa; it's a very serious one. I can't\nthink why the unchanging God should have made all the most beautiful\nthings wither and grow ugly, or burst and vanish, or die somehow and be\nno more. Mamma is not so beautiful as she once was, is she?\"\n\n\"In one way, no; but in another and better way, much more so. But we\nwill not talk about her kind of beauty just now; we will keep to the\nmore material loveliness of which you have been speaking--though, in\ntruth, no loveliness can be only material. Well, then, for my answer;\nit is, I think, because God loves the beauty so much that he makes all\nbeautiful things vanish quickly.\"\n\n\"I do not understand you, papa.\"\n\n\"I daresay not, my dear. But I will explain to you a little, if Mr.\nPercivale will excuse me.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, I am greatly interested, both in the question and the\nanswer.\"\n\n\"Well, then, Wynnie; everything has a soul and a body, or something\nlike them. By the body we know the soul. But we are always ready to\nlove the body instead of the soul. Therefore, God makes the body die\ncontinually, that we may learn to love the soul indeed. The world is\nfull of beautiful things, but God has saved many men from loving the\nmere bodies of them, by making them poor; and more still by reminding\nthem that if they be as rich as Croesus all their lives, they will be\nas poor as Diogenes--poorer, without even a tub--when this world, with\nall its pictures, scenery, books, and--alas for some\nChristians!--bibles even, shall have vanished away.\"\n\n\"Why do you say _alas_, papa--if they are Christians especially?\"\n\n\"I say _alas_ only from their point of view, not from mine. I mean such\nas are always talking and arguing from the Bible, and never giving\nthemselves any trouble to do what it tells them. They insist on the\nanise and cummin, and forget the judgment, mercy, and faith. These\nworship the body of the truth, and forget the soul of it. If the\nflowers were not perishable, we should cease to contemplate their\nbeauty, either blinded by the passion for hoarding the bodies of them,\nor dulled by the hebetude of commonplaceness that the constant presence\nof them would occasion. To compare great things with small, the flowers\nwither, the bubbles break, the clouds and sunsets pass, for the very\nsame holy reason, in the degree of its application to them, for which\nthe Lord withdrew from his disciples and ascended again to his\nFather--that the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, the Soul of things,\nmight come to them and abide with them, and so the Son return, and the\nFather be revealed. The flower is not its loveliness, and its\nloveliness we must love, else we shall only treat them as flower-greedy\nchildren, who gather and gather, and fill hands and baskets, from a\nmere desire of acquisition, excusable enough in them, but the same in\nkind, however harmless in mode, and degree, and object, as the avarice\nof the miser. Therefore God, that we may always have them, and ever\nlearn to love their beauty, and yet more their truth, sends the\nbeneficent winter that we may think about what we have lost, and\nwelcome them when they come again with greater tenderness and love,\nwith clearer eyes to see, and purer hearts to understand, the spirit\nthat dwells in them. We cannot do without the 'winter of our\ndiscontent.' Shakspere surely saw that when he makes Titania say, in _A\nMidsummer Night's Dream_:\n\n  'The human mortals want their winter here'--\n\nnamely, to set things right; and none of those editors who would alter\nthe line seem to have been capable of understanding its import.\"\n\n\"I think I understand you a little,\" answered Wynnie. Then, changing\nher tone, \"I told you, papa, you would have an answer ready; didn't I?\"\n\n\"Yes, my child; but with this difference--I found the answer to meet my\nown necessities, not yours.\"\n\n\"And so you had it ready for me when I wanted it.\"\n\n\"Just so. That is the only certainty you have in regard to what you\ngive away. No one who has not tasted it and found it good has a right\nto offer any spiritual dish to his neighbour.\"\n\nMr. Percivale took no part in our conversation. The moment I had\npresented him to Mrs. Walton and Connie, and he had paid his respects\nby a somewhat stately old-world obeisance, he merged the salutation\ninto a farewell, and, either forgetting my offer of coffee, or having\nchanged his mind, withdrew, a little to my disappointment, for,\nnotwithstanding his lack of response where some things he said would\nhave led me to expect it, I had begun to feel much interested in him.\n\nHe was scarcely beyond hearing, when Dora came up to me from her\ndigging, with an eager look on her sunny face.\n\n\"Hasn't he got nice boots, papa?\"\n\n\"Indeed, my dear, I am unable to support you in that assertion, for I\nnever saw his boots.\"\n\n\"I did, then,\" returned the child; \"and I never saw such nice boots.\"\n\n\"I accept the statement willingly,\" I replied; and we heard no more of\nthe boots, for his name was now substituted for his nickname. Nor did I\nsee himself again for some days--not in fact till next Sunday--though\nwhy he should come to church at all was something of a puzzle to me,\nespecially when I knew him better.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE BLACKSMITH.\n\n\nThe next day I set out after breakfast to inquire about a blacksmith.\nIt was not every or any blacksmith that would do. I must not fix on the\nfirst to do my work because he was the first. There was one in the\nvillage, I soon learned; but I found him an ordinary man, who, I have\nno doubt, could shoe a horse and avoid the quick, but from whom any\ngreater delicacy of touch was not to be expected. Inquiring further, I\nheard of a young smith who had lately settled in a hamlet a couple of\nmiles distant, but still within the parish. In the afternoon I set out\nto find him. To my surprise, he was a pale-faced, thoughtful-looking\nman, with a huge frame, which appeared worn rather than naturally thin,\nand large eyes that looked at the anvil as if it was the horizon of the\nworld. He had got a horse-shoe in his tongs when I entered.\nNotwithstanding the fire that glowed on the hearth, and the sparks that\nflew like a nimbus in eruption from about his person, the place looked\nvery dark to me entering from the glorious blaze of the almost noontide\nsun, and felt cool after the deep lane through which I had come, and\nwhich had seemed a very reservoir of sunbeams. I could see the smith by\nthe glow of his horse-shoe; but all between me and the shoe was dark.\n\n\"Good-morning,\" I said. \"It is a good thing to find a man by his work.\nI heard you half a mile off or so, and now I see you, but only by the\nglow of your work. It is a grand thing to work in fire.\"\n\nHe lifted his hammered hand to his forehead courteously, and as lightly\nas if the hammer had been the butt-end of a whip.\n\n\"I don't know if you would say the same if you had to work at it in\nweather like this,\" he answered.\n\n\"If I did not,\" I returned, \"that would be the fault of my weakness,\nand would not affect the assertion I have just made, that it is a fine\nthing to work in fire.\"\n\n\"Well, you may be right,\" he rejoined with a sigh, as, throwing the\nhorse-shoe he had been fashioning from the tongs on the ground, he next\nlet the hammer drop beside the anvil, and leaning against it held his\nhead for a moment between his hands, and regarded the floor. \"It does\nnot much matter to me,\" he went on, \"if I only get through my work and\nhave done with it. No man shall say I shirked what I'd got to do. And\nthen when it's over there won't be a word to say agen me, or--\"\n\nHe did not finish the sentence. And now I could see the sunlight lying\nin a somewhat dreary patch, if the word _dreary_ can be truly used with\nrespect to any manifestation of sunlight, on the dark clay floor.\n\n\"I hope you are not ill,\" I said.\n\nHe made no answer, but taking up his tongs caught with it from a beam\none of a number of roughly-finished horse-shoes which hung there, and\nput it on the fire to be fashioned to a certain fit. While he turned it\nin the fire, and blew the bellows, I stood regarding him. \"This man\nwill do for my work,\" I said to myself; \"though I should not wonder\nfrom the look of him if it was the last piece of work he ever did under\nthe New Jerusalem.\" The smith's words broke in on my meditations.\n\n\"When I was a little boy,\" he said, \"I once wanted to stay at home from\nschool. I had, I believe, a little headache, but nothing worth minding.\nI told my mother that I had a headache, and she kept me, and I helped\nher at her spinning, which was what I liked best of anything. But in\nthe afternoon the Methodist preacher came in to see my mother, and he\nasked me what was the matter with me, and my mother answered for me\nthat I had a bad head, and he looked at me; and as my head was quite\nwell by this time, I could not help feeling guilty. And he saw my look,\nI suppose, sir, for I can't account for what he said any other way; and\nhe turned to me, and he said to me, solemn-like, 'Is your head bad\nenough to send you to the Lord Jesus to make you whole?' I could not\nspeak a word, partly from bashfulness, I suppose, for I was but ten\nyears old. So he followed it up, as they say: 'Then you ought to be at\nschool,' says he. I said nothing, because I couldn't. But never since\nthen have I given in as long as I could stand. And I can stand now, and\nlift my hammer, too,\" he said, as he took the horse-shoe from the\nforge, laid it on the anvil, and again made a nimbus of coruscating\niron.\n\n\"You are just the man I want,\" I said. \"I've got a job for you, down to\nKilkhaven, as you say in these parts.\"\n\n\"What is it, sir? Something about the church? I should ha' thought the\nchurch was all spick and span by this time.\"\n\n\"I see you know who I am,\" I said.\n\n\"Of course I do,\" he answered. \"I don't go to church myself, being\nbrought up a Methodist; but anything that happens in the parish is\nknown the next day all over it.\"\n\n\"You won't mind doing my job though you are a Methodist, will you?\" I\nasked.\n\n\"Not I, sir. If I've read right, it's the fault of the Church that we\ndon't pull all alongside. You turned us out, sir; we didn't go out of\nourselves. At least, if all they say is true, which I can't be sure of,\nyou know, in this world.\"\n\n\"You are quite right there though,\" I answered. \"And in doing so, the\nChurch had the worst of it--as all that judge and punish their\nneighbours have. But you have been the worse for it, too: all of which\nis to be laid to the charge of the Church. For there is not one\nclergyman I know--mind, I say, that I know--who would have made such a\ncruel speech to a boy as that the Methodist parson made to you.\"\n\n\"But it did me good, sir?\"\n\n\"Are you sure of that? I am not. Are you sure, first of all, it did not\nmake you proud? Are you sure it has not made you work beyond your\nstrength--I don't mean your strength of arm, for clearly that is all\nthat could be wished, but of your chest, your lungs? Is there not some\ndanger of your leaving someone who is dependent on you too soon\nunprovided for? Is there not some danger of your having worked as if\nGod were a hard master?--of your having worked fiercely, indignantly,\nas if he wronged you by not caring for you, not understanding you?\"\n\nHe returned me no answer, but hammered momently on his anvil. Whether\nhe felt what I meant, or was offended at my remark, I could not then\ntell. I thought it best to conclude the interview with business.\n\n\"I have a delicate little job that wants nice handling, and I fancy you\nare just the man to do it to my mind,\" I said.\n\n\"What is it, sir?\" he asked, in a friendly manner enough.\n\n\"If you will excuse me, I would rather show it to you than talk about\nit,\" I returned.\n\n\"As you please, sir. When do you want me?\"\n\n\"The first hour you can come.\"\n\n\"To-morrow morning?\"\n\n\"If you feel inclined.\"\n\n\"For that matter, I'd rather go to bed.\"\n\n\"Come to me instead: it's light work.\"\n\n\"I will, sir--at ten o'clock.\"\n\n\"If you please.\"\n\nAnd so it was arranged.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE LIFE-BOAT.\n\n\nThe next day rose glorious. Indeed, early as the sun rose, I saw him\nrise--saw him, from the down above the house, over the land to the east\nand north, ascend triumphant into his own light, which had prepared the\nway for him; while the clouds that hung over the sea glowed out with a\nfaint flush, as anticipating the hour when the west should clasp the\ndeclining glory in a richer though less dazzling splendour, and shine\nout the bride of the bridegroom east, which behold each other from afar\nacross the intervening world, and never mingle but in the sight of the\neyes. The clear pure light of the morning made me long for the truth in\nmy heart, which alone could make me pure and clear as the morning, tune\nme up to the concert-pitch of the nature around me. And the wind that\nblew from the sunrise made me hope in the God who had first breathed\ninto my nostrils the breath of life, that he would at length so fill me\nwith his breath, his wind, his spirit, that I should think only his\nthoughts and live his life, finding therein my own life, only glorified\ninfinitely.\n\nAfter breakfast and prayers, I would go to the church to await the\narrival of my new acquaintance the smith. In order to obtain entrance,\nI had, however, to go to the cottage of the sexton. This was not my\nfirst visit there, so that I may now venture to take my reader with me.\nTo reach the door, I had to cross a hollow by a bridge, built, for the\nsake of the road, over what had once been the course of a rivulet from\nthe heights above. Now it was a kind of little glen, or what would in\nScotland be called a den, I think, grown with grass and wild flowers\nand ferns, some of them, rare and fine. The roof of the cottage came\ndown to the road, and, until you came quite near, you could not but\nwonder where the body that supported this head could be. But you soon\nsaw that the ground fell suddenly away, leaving a bank against which\nthe cottage was built. Crossing a garden of the smallest, the principal\nflowers of which were the stonecrop on its walls, by a flag-paved path,\nyou entered the building, and, to your surprise, found yourself, not in\na little cottage kitchen, as you expected, but in a waste-looking\nspace, that seemed to have forgotten the use for which it had been\nbuilt. There was a sort of loft along one side of it, and it was heaped\nwith indescribable lumber-looking stuff with here and there a hint at\npossible machinery. The place had been a mill for grinding corn, and\nits wheel had been driven by the stream which had run for ages in the\nhollow of which I have already spoken. But when the canal came to be\nconstructed, the stream had to be turned aside from its former course,\nand indeed was now employed upon occasion to feed the canal; so that\nthe mill of necessity had fallen into disuse and decay. Crossing this\nfloor, you entered another door, and turning sharp to the left, went\ndown a few steps of a ladder-sort of stair, and after knocking your hat\nagainst a beam, emerged in the comfortable quaint little cottage\nkitchen you had expected earlier. A cheerful though small fire burns in\nthe grate--for even here the hearth-fire has vanished from the records\nof cottage-life--and is pleasant here even in the height of summer,\nthough it is counted needful only for cooking purposes. The ceiling,\nwhich consists only of the joists and the boards that floor the bedroom\nabove, is so low, that necessity, if not politeness, would compel you\nto take off your already-bruised hat. Some of these joists, you will\nfind, are made further useful by supporting each a shelf, before which\nhangs a little curtain of printed cotton, concealing the few stores and\npostponed eatables of the house--forming, in fact, both store-room and\nlarder of the family. On the walls hang several coloured prints, and\nwithin a deep glazed frame the figure of a ship in full dress, carved\nin rather high relief in sycamore.\n\nAs I now entered, Mrs. Coombes rose from a high-backed settle near the\nfire, and bade me good-morning with a courtesy.\n\n\"What a lovely day it is, Mrs. Coombes! It is so bright over the sea,\"\nI said, going to the one little window which looked out on the great\nAtlantic, \"that one almost expects a great merchant navy to come\nsailing into Kilkhaven--sunk to the water's edge with silks, and ivory,\nand spices, and apes, and peacocks, like the ships of Solomon that we\nread about--just as the sun gets up to the noonstead.\"\n\nBefore I record her answer, I turn to my reader, who in the spirit\naccompanies me, and have a little talk with him. I always make it a\nrule to speak freely with the less as with the more educated of my\nfriends. I never _talk down_ to them, except I be expressly explaining\nsomething to them. The law of the world is as the law of the family.\nThose children grow much the faster who hear all that is going on in\nthe house. Reaching ever above themselves, they arrive at an\nunderstanding at fifteen, which, in the usual way of things, they would\nnot reach before five-and-twenty or thirty; and this in a natural way,\nand without any necessary priggishness, except such as may belong to\ntheir parents. Therefore I always spoke to the poor and uneducated as\nto my own people,--freely, not much caring whether I should be quite\nunderstood or not; for I believed in influences not to be measured by\nthe measure of the understanding.\n\nBut what was the old woman's answer? It was this:\n\n\"I know, sir. And when I was as young as you\"--I was not so very young,\nmy reader may well think--\"I thought like that about the sea myself.\nEverything come from the sea. For my boy Willie he du bring me home the\nbeautifullest parrot and the talkingest you ever see, and the red shawl\nall worked over with flowers: I'll show it to you some day, sir, when\nyou have time. He made that ship you see in the frame there, sir, all\nwith his own knife, out on a bit o' wood that he got at the Marishes,\nas they calls it, sir--a bit of an island somewheres in the great sea.\nBut the parrot's gone dead like the rest of them, sir.--Where am I? and\nwhat am I talking about?\" she added, looking down at her knitting as if\nshe had dropped a stitch, or rather as if she had forgotten what she\nwas making, and therefore what was to come next.\n\n\"You were telling me how you used to think of the sea--\"\n\n\"When I was as young as you. I remember, sir. Well, that lasted a long\ntime--lasted till my third boy fell asleep in the wide water; for it du\ncall it falling asleep, don't it, sir?\"\n\n\"The Bible certainly does,\" I answered.\n\n\"It's the Bible I be meaning, of course,\" she returned. \"Well, after\nthat, but I don't know what began it, only I did begin to think about\nthe sea as something that took away things and didn't bring them no\nmore. And somehow or other she never look so blue after that, and she\ngive me the shivers. But now, sir, she always looks to me like one o'\nthe shining ones that come to fetch the pilgrims. You've heard tell of\nthe _Pilgrim's Progress_, I daresay, sir, among the poor people; for\nthey du say it was written by a tinker, though there be a power o' good\nthings in it that I think the gentlefolk would like if they knowed it.\"\n\n\"I do know the book--nearly as well as I know the Bible,\" I answered;\n\"and the shining ones are very beautiful in it. I am glad you can think\nof the sea that way.\"\n\n\"It's looking in at the window all day as I go about the house,\" she\nanswered, \"and all night too when I'm asleep; and if I hadn't learned\nto think of it that way, it would have driven me mad, I du believe. I\nwas forced to think that way about it, or not think at all. And that\nwouldn't be easy, with the sound of it in your ears the last thing at\nnight and the first thing in the morning.\"\n\n\"The truth of things is indeed the only refuge from the look of\nthings,\" I replied. \"But now I want the key of the church, if you will\ntrust me with it, for I have something to do there this morning; and\nthe key of the tower as well, if you please.\"\n\nWith her old smile, ripened only by age, she reached the ponderous keys\nfrom the nail where they hung, and gave them into my hand. I left her\nin the shadow of her dwelling, and stepped forth into the sunlight. The\nfirst thing I observed was the blacksmith waiting for me at the church\ndoor.\n\nNow that I saw him in the full light of day, and now that he wore his\nmorning face upon which the blackness of labour had not yet gathered, I\ncould see more plainly how far he was from well. There was a flush on\nhis thin cheek by which the less used exercise of walking revealed his\ninward weakness, and the light in his eyes had something of the\nfar-country in them--\"the light that never was on sea or shore.\" But\nhis speech was cheerful, for he had been walking in the light of this\nworld, and that had done something to make the light within him shine a\nlittle more freely.\n\n\"How do you find yourself to-day?\" I asked.\n\n\"Quite well, sir, I thank you,\" he answered. \"A day like this does a\nman good. But,\" he added, and his countenance fell, \"the heart knoweth\nits own bitterness.\"\n\n\"It may know it too much,\" I returned, \"just because it refuses to let\na stranger intermeddle therewith.\"\n\nHe made no reply. I turned the key in the great lock, and the\niron-studded oak opened and let us into the solemn gloom.\n\nIt did not require many minutes to make the man understand what I\nwanted of him.\n\n\"We must begin at the bells and work down,\" he said.\n\nSo we went up into the tower, where, with the help of a candle I\nfetched for him from the cottage, he made a good many minute\nmeasurements; found that carpenter's work was necessary for the\nadjustment of the hammers and cranks and the leading of the rods,\nundertook the management of the whole, and in the course of an hour and\na half went home to do what had to be done before any fixing could be\ncommenced, assuring me that he had no doubt of bringing the job to a\nsatisfactory conclusion, although the force of the blow on the bell\nwould doubtless have to be regulated afterwards by repeated trials.\n\n\"In a fortnight, I hope you will be able to play a tune to the parish,\nsir,\" he added, as he took his leave.\n\nI resolved, if possible, to know more of the man, and find out his\ntrouble, if haply I might be able to give him any comfort, for I was\nall but certain that there was a deeper cause for his gloom than the\nstate of his health.\n\nWhen he was gone I stood with the key of the church in my hand, and\nlooked about me. Nature at least was in glorious health--sunshine in\nher eyes, light fantastic cloud-images passing through her brain, her\nbreath coming and going in soft breezes perfumed with the scents of\nmeadows and wild flowers, and her green robe shining in the motions of\nher gladness. I turned to lock the church door, though in my heart I\ngreatly disapproved of locking the doors of churches, and only did so\nnow because it was not my church, and I had no business to force my\nopinions upon other customs. But when I turned I received a kind of\nquestioning shock. There was the fallen world, as men call it, shining\nin glory and gladness, because God was there; here was the way into the\nlost Paradise, yea, the door into an infinitely higher Eden than that\never had or ever could have been, iron-clamped and riveted, gloomy and\nlow-browed like the entrance to a sepulchre, and surrounded with the\ngrim heads of grotesque monsters of the deep. What did it mean? Here\nwas contrast enough to require harmonising, or if that might not be,\nthen accounting for. Perhaps it was enough to say that although God\nmade both the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of grace, yet the\nsymbol of the latter was the work of man, and might not altogether\ncorrespond to God's idea of the matter. I turned away thoughtful, and\nwent through the churchyard with my eye on the graves.\n\nAs I left the churchyard, still looking to the earth, the sound of\nvoices reached my ear. I looked up. There, down below me, at the foot\nof the high bank on which I stood, lay a gorgeous shining thing upon\nthe bosom of the canal, full of men, and surrounded by men, women, and\nchildren, delighting in its beauty. I had never seen such a thing\nbefore, but I knew at once, as by instinct, which of course it could\nnot have been, that it was the life-boat. But in its gorgeous colours,\nred and white and green, it looked more like the galley that bore\nCleopatra to Actium. Nor, floating so light on the top of the water,\nand broad in the beam withal, curved upward and ornamented at stern and\nstem, did it look at all like a creature formed to battle with the\nfierce elements. A pleasure-boat for floating between river banks it\nseemed, drawn by swans mayhap, and regarded in its course by fair eyes\nfrom green terrace-walks, or oriel windows of ancient houses on verdant\nlawns. Ten men sat on the thwarts, and one in the stern by the yet\nuseless rudder, while men and boys drew the showy thing by a rope\ndownward to the lock-gates. The men in the boat, wore blue jerseys, but\nyou could see little of the colour for strange unshapely things that\nthey wore above them, like an armour cut out of a row of organ pipes.\nThey were their cork-jackets; for every man had to be made into a\nlife-boat himself. I descended the bank, and stood on the edge of the\ncanal as it drew near. Then I saw that every oar was loosely but firmly\nfastened to the rowlock, so that it could be dropped and caught again\nin a moment; and that the gay sides of the unwieldy-looking creature\nwere festooned with ropes from the gunwale, for the men to lay hold of\nwhen she capsized, for the earlier custom of fastening the men to their\nseats had been quite given up, because their weight under the water\nmight prevent the boat from righting itself again, and the men could\nnot come to the surface. Now they had a better chance in their freedom,\nthough why they should not be loosely attached to the boat, I do not\nquite see.\n\nThey towed the shining thing through the upper gate of the lock, and\nslowly she sank from my sight, and for some moments was no more to be\nseen, for I had remained standing where first she passed me. All at\nonce there she was beyond the covert of the lock-head, abroad and free,\nfleeting from the strokes of ten swift oars over the still waters of\nthe bay towards the waves that roared further out where the\nground-swell was broken by the rise of the sandy coast. There was no\nvessel in danger now, as the talk of the spectators informed me; it was\nonly for exercise and show that they went out. It seemed all child's\nplay for a time; but when they got among the broken waves, then it\nlooked quite another thing. The motion of the waters laid hold upon\nher, and soon tossed her fearfully, now revealing the whole of her\ncapacity on the near side of one of their slopes, now hiding her whole\nbulk in one of their hollows beyond. She, careless as a child in the\ntroubles of the world, floated about amongst them with what appeared\ntoo much buoyancy for the promise of a safe return. Again and again she\nwas driven from her course towards the low rocks on the other side of\nthe bay, and again and again, returned to disport herself, like a\nsea-animal, as it seemed, upon the backs of the wild, rolling, and\nbursting billows.\n\n\"Can she go no further?\" I asked of the captain of the coastguard, whom\nI found standing by my side.\n\n\"Not without some danger,\" he answered.\n\n\"What, then, must it be in a storm!\" I remarked.\n\n\"Then of course,\" he returned, \"they must take their chance. But there\nis no good in running risks for nothing. That swell is quite enough for\nexercise.\"\n\n\"But is it enough to accustom them to face the danger that will come?\"\nI asked.\n\n\"With danger comes courage,\" said the old sailor.\n\n\"Were you ever afraid?\"\n\n\"No, sir. I don't think I ever was afraid. Yes, I believe I was once\nfor one moment, no more, when I fell from the maintop-gallant yard, and\nfelt myself falling. But it was soon over, for I only fell into the\nmaintop. I was expecting the smash on deck when I was brought up there.\nBut,\" he resumed, \"I don't care much about the life-boat. My rockets\nare worth a good deal more, as you may see, sir, before the winter is\nover; for seldom does a winter pass without at least two or three\nwrecks close by here on this coast. The full force of the Atlantic\nbreaks here, sir. I _have_ seen a life-boat--not that one--_she's_ done\nnothing yet--pitched stern over stem; not capsized, you know, sir, in\nthe ordinary way, but struck by a wave behind while she was just\nhanging in the balance on the knife-edge of a wave, and flung a\nsomerset, as I say, stern over stem, and four of her men lost.\"\n\nWhile we spoke I saw on the pier-head the tall figure of the painter\nlooking earnestly at the boat. I thought he was regarding it chiefly\nfrom an artistic point of view, but I became aware before long that\nthat would not have been consistent with the character of Charles\nPercivale. He had been, I learned afterwards, a crack oarsman at\nOxford, and had belonged to the University boat, so that he had some\nalmost class-sympathy with the doings of the crew.\n\nIn a little while the boat sped swiftly back, entered the lock, was\nlifted above the level of the storm-heaved ocean, and floated up the\nsmooth canal calmly as if she had never known what trouble was. Away up\nto the pretty little Tudor-fashioned house in which she lay--one could\nalmost fancy dreaming of storms to come--she went, as softly as if\nmoved only by her \"own sweet will,\" in the calm consolation for her\nimprisonment of having tried her strength, and found therein good hope\nof success for the time when she should rush to the rescue of men from\nthat to which, as a monster that begets monsters, she a watching\nPerseis, lay ready to offer battle. The poor little boat lying in her\nlittle house watching the ocean, was something signified in my eyes,\nand not less so after what came in the course of changing seasons and\ngathered storms.\n\nAll this time I had the keys in my hand, and now went back to the\ncottage to restore them to their place upon the wall. When I entered\nthere was a young woman of a sweet interesting countenance talking to\nMrs. Coombes. Now as it happened, I had never yet seen the daughter who\nlived with her, and thought this was she.\n\n\"I've found your daughter at last then?\" I said, approaching them.\n\n\"Not yet, sir. She goes out to work, and her hands be pretty full at\npresent. But this be almost my daughter, sir,\" she added. \"This is my\nnext daughter, Mary Trehern, from the south. She's got a place near by,\nto be near her mother that is to be, that's me.\"\n\nMary was hanging her head and blushing, as the old woman spoke.\n\n\"I understand,\" I said. \"And when are you going to get your new mother,\nMary? Soon I hope.\"\n\nBut she gave me no reply--only hung her head lower and blushed deeper.\n\nMrs. Coombes spoke for her.\n\n\"She's shy, you see, sir. But if she was to speak her mind, she would\nask you whether you wouldn't marry her and Willie when he comes home\nfrom his next voyage.\"\n\nMary's hands were trembling now, and she turned half away.\n\n\"With all my heart,\" I said.\n\nThe girl tried to turn towards me, but could not. I looked at her face\na little more closely. Through all its tremor, there was a look of\nconstancy that greatly pleased me. I tried to make her speak.\n\n\"When do you expect Willie home?\" I said.\n\nShe made a little gasp and murmur, but no articulate words came.\n\n\"Don't be frightened, Mary,\" said her mother, as I found she always\ncalled her. \"The gentleman won't be sharp with you.\"\n\nShe lifted a pair of soft brown eyes with one glance and a smile, and\nthen sank them again.\n\n\"He'll be home in about a month, we think,\" answered the mother. \"She's\na good ship he's aboard of, and makes good voyages.\"\n\n\"It is time to think about the bans, then,\" I said.\n\n\"If you please, sir,\" said the mother.\n\n\"Just come to me about it, and I will attend to it--when you think\nproper.\"\n\nI thought I could hear a murmured \"Thank you, sir,\" from the girl, but\nI could not be certain that she spoke. I shook hands with them, and\nwent for a stroll on the other side of the bay.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nMR. PERCIVALE.\n\n\nWhen I reached home I found that Connie was already on her watch-tower.\nFor while I was away, they had carried her out that she might see the\nlife-boat. I followed her, and found the whole family about her couch,\nand with them Mr. Percivale, who was showing her some sketches that he\nhad made in the neighbourhood. Connie knew nothing of drawing; but she\nseemed to me always to catch the feeling of a thing. Her remarks\ntherefore were generally worth listening to, and Mr. Percivale was\nevidently interested in them. Wynnie stood behind Connie, looking over\nher shoulder at the drawing in her hand.\n\n\"How do you get that shade of green?\" I heard her ask as I came up.\n\nAnd then Mr. Percivale proceeded to tell her; from which beginning they\nwent on to other things, till Mr. Percivale said--\n\n\"But it is hardly fair, Miss Walton; to criticise my work while you\nkeep your own under cover.\"\n\n\"I wasn't criticising, Mr. Percivale; was I, Connie?\"\n\n\"I didn't hear her make a single remark, Mr. Percivale,\" said Connie,\ntaking her sister's side.\n\nTo my surprise they were talking away with the young man as if they had\nknown him for years, and my wife was seated at the foot of the couch,\napparently taking no exception to the suddenness of the intimacy. I am\nafraid, when I think of it, that a good many springs would be missing\nfrom the world's history if they might not flow till the papas gave\ntheir wise consideration to everything about the course they were to\ntake.\n\n\"I think, though,\" added Connie, \"it is only fair that Mr. Percivale\n_should_ see your work, Wynnie.\"\n\n\"Then I will fetch my portfolio, if Mr. Percivale will promise to\nremember that I have no opinion of it. At the same time, if I could do\nwhat I wanted to do, I think I should not be ashamed of showing my\ndrawings even to him.\"\n\nAnd now I was surprised to find how like grown women my daughters could\ntalk. To me they always spoke like the children they were; but when I\nheard them now it seemed as if they had started all at once into ladies\nexperienced in the ways of society. There they were chatting lightly,\nairily, and yet decidedly, a slight tone of badinage interwoven, with a\nyoung man of grace and dignity, whom they had only seen once before,\nand who had advanced no farther, with Connie at least, than a stately\nbow. They had, however, been a whole hour together before I arrived,\nand their mother had been with them all the while, which gives great\ncourage to good girls, while, I am told, it shuts the mouths of those\nwho are sly. But then it must be remembered that there are as great\ndifferences in mothers as in girls. And besides, I believe wise girls\nhave an instinct about men that all the experience of other men cannot\novertake. But yet again, there are many girls foolish enough to mistake\na mere impulse for instinct, and vanity for insight.\n\nAs Wynnie spoke, she turned and went back to the house to fetch some of\nher work. Now, had she been going a message for me, she would have gone\nlike the wind; but on this occasion she stepped along in a stately\nmanner, far from devoid of grace, but equally free from frolic or\neagerness. And I could not help noting as well that Mr. Percivale's\neyes followed her. What I felt or fancied is of no consequence to\nanybody. I do not think, even if I were writing an autobiography, I\nshould be forced to tell _all_ about myself. But an autobiography is\nfurther from my fancy, however much I may have trenched upon its\nlimits, than any other form of literature with which I am acquainted.\n\nShe was not long in returning, however, though she came back with the\nsame dignified motion.\n\n\"There is nothing really worth either showing or concealing,\" she said\nto Mr. Percivale, as she handed him the portfolio, to help himself, as\nit were. She then turned away, as if a little feeling of shyness had\ncome over her, and began to look for something to do about Connie. I\ncould see that, although she had hitherto been almost indifferent about\nthe merit of her drawings, she had a new-born wish that they might not\nappear altogether contemptible in the eyes of Mr. Percivale. And I saw,\ntoo, that Connie's wide eyes were taking in everything. It was\nwonderful how Connie's deprivations had made her keen in observing. Now\nshe hastened to her sister's rescue even from such a slight\ninconvenience as the shadow of embarrassment in which she found\nherself--perhaps from having seen some unusual expression in my face,\nof which I was unconscious, though conscious enough of what might have\noccasioned such.\n\n\"Give me your hand, Wynnie,\" said Connie, \"and help me to move one inch\nfurther on my side.--I may move just that much on my side, mayn't I,\npapa?\"\n\n\"I think you had better not, my dear, if you can do without it,\" I\nanswered; for the doctor's injunctions had been strong.\n\n\"Very well, papa; but I feel as if it would do me good.\"\n\n\"Mr. Turner will be here next week, you know; and you must try to stick\nto his rules till he comes to see you. Perhaps he will let you relax a\nlittle.\"\n\nConnie smiled very sweetly and lay still, while Wynnie stood holding\nher hand.\n\nMeantime Mr. Percivale, having received the drawings, had walked away\nwith them towards what they called the storm tower--a little building\nstanding square to the points of the compass, from little windows, in\nwhich the coastguard could see with their telescopes along the coast on\nboth sides and far out to sea. This tower stood on the very edge of the\ncliff, but behind it there was a steep descent, to reach which\napparently he went round the tower and disappeared. He evidently wanted\nto make a leisurely examination of the drawings--somewhat formidable\nfor Wynnie, I thought. At the same time, it impressed me favourably\nwith regard to the young man that he was not inclined to pay a set of\nstupid and untrue compliments the instant the portfolio was opened,\nbut, on the contrary, in order to speak what was real about them, would\ntake the trouble to make himself in some adequate measure acquainted\nwith them. I therefore, to Wynnie's relief, I fear, strolled after him,\nseeing no harm in taking a peep at his person, while he was taking a\npeep at my daughter's mind. I went round the tower to the other side,\nand there saw him at a little distance below me, but further out on a\ngreat rock that overhung the sea, connected with the cliff by a long\nnarrow isthmus, a few yards lower than the cliff itself, only just\nbroad enough to admit of a footpath along its top, and on one side\ngoing sheer down with a smooth hard rock-face to the sands below. The\nother side was less steep, and had some grass upon it. But the path was\ntoo narrow, and the precipice too steep, for me to trust my head with\nthe business of guiding my feet along it. So I stood and saw him from\nthe mainland--saw his head at least bent over the drawings; saw how\nslowly he turned from one to the other; saw how, after having gone over\nthem once, he turned to the beginning and went over them again, even\nmore slowly than before; saw how he turned the third time to the first.\nThen, getting tired, I went back to the group on the down; caught sight\nof Charlie and Harry turning heels over head down the slope toward the\nhouse; found that my wife had gone home--in fact, that only Connie and\nWynnie were left. The sun had disappeared under a cloud, and the sea\nhad turned a little slaty; the yellow flowers in the short down-grass\nno longer caught the eye with their gold, and the wind that bent their\ntops had just the suspicion of an edge in it. And Wynnie's face looked\na little cloudy too, I thought, and I feared that it was my fault. I\nfancied there was just a tinge of beseeching in Connie's eye, as I\nlooked at her, thinking there might be danger for her in the\nsunlessness of the wind. But I do not know that all this, even the\nclouding of the sun, may not have come out of my own mind, the result\nof my not being quite satisfied with myself because of the mood I had\nbeen in. My feeling had altered considerably in the mean time.\n\n\"Run, Wynnie, and ask Mr. Percivale, with my compliments, to come and\nlunch with us,\" I said--more to let her see I was not displeased,\nhowever I might have looked, than for any other reason. She\nwent--sedately as before.\n\nAlmost as soon as she was gone, I saw that I had put her in a\ndifficulty. For I had discovered, very soon after coming into these\nparts, that her head was no more steady than my own on high places, for\nshe up had never been used to such in our own level country, except,\nindeed, on the stair that led down to the old quarry and the well,\nwhere, I can remember now, she always laid her hand on the balustrade\nwith some degree of tremor, although she had been in the way of going\nup and down from childhood. But if she could not cross that narrow and\nreally dangerous isthmus, still less could she call to a man she had\nnever seen but once, across the intervening chasm. I therefore set off\nafter her, leaving Connie lying there in loneliness, between the sea\nand the sky. But when I got to the other side of the little tower,\ninstead of finding her standing hesitating on the brink of action,\nthere she was on the rock beyond. Mr. Percivale had risen, and was\nevidently giving an answer to my invitation; at least, the next moment\nshe turned to come back, and he followed. I stood trembling almost to\nsee her cross the knife-back of that ledge. If I had not been almost\nfascinated, I should have turned and left them to come together, lest\nthe evil fancy should cross her mind that I was watching them, for it\nwas one thing to watch him with her drawings, and quite another to\nwatch him with herself. But I stood and stared as she crossed. In the\nmiddle of the path, however--up to which point she had been walking\nwith perfect steadiness and composure--she lifted her eyes--by what\ninfluence I cannot tell--saw me, looked as if she saw ghost, half\nlifted her arms, swayed as if she would fall, and, indeed, was falling\nover the precipice when Percivale, who was close behind her caught her\nin his arms, almost too late for both of them. So nearly down was she\nalready, that her weight bent him over the rocky side, till it seemed\nas if he must yield, or his body snap. For he bent from the waist, and\nlooked as if his feet only kept a hold on the ground. It was all over\nin a moment, but in that moment it made a sun-picture on my brain,\nwhich returns, ever and again, with such vivid agony that I cannot hope\nto get rid of it till I get rid of the brain itself in which lies the\nimpress. In another moment they were at my side--she with a wan,\nterrified smile, he in a ruddy alarm. I was unable to speak, and could\nonly, with trembling steps, lead the way from the dreadful spot. I\nreproached myself afterwards for my want of faith in God; but I had not\nhad time to correct myself yet. Without a word on their side either,\nthey followed me. Before we reached Connie, I recovered myself\nsufficiently to say, \"Not a word to Connie,\" and they understood me. I\ntold Wynnie to run to the house, and send Walter to help me to carry\nConnie home. She went, and, until Walter came, I talked to Mr.\nPercivale as if nothing had happened. And what made me feel yet more\nfriendly towards him was, that he did not do as some young men wishing\nto ingratiate themselves would have done: he did not offer to help me\nto carry Connie home. I saw that the offer rose in his mind, and that\nhe repressed it. He understood that I must consider such a permission\nas a privilege not to be accorded to the acquaintance of a day; that I\nmust know him better before I could allow the weight of my child to\nrest on his strength. I was even grateful to him for this knowledge of\nhuman nature. But he responded cordially to my invitation to lunch with\nus, and walked by my side as Walter and I bore the precious burden home.\n\nDuring our meal, he made himself quite agreeable; talked well on the\ntopics of the day, not altogether as a man who had made up his mind,\nbut not the less, rather the more, as a man who had thought about them,\nand one who did not find it so easy to come to a conclusion as most\npeople do--or possibly as not feeling the necessity of coming to a\nconclusion, and therefore preferring to allow the conclusion to grow\ninstead of constructing one for immediate use. This I rather liked than\notherwise. His behaviour, I need hardly say, after what I have told of\nhim already, was entirely that of a gentleman; and his education was\ngood. But what I did not like was, that as often as the conversation\nmade a bend in the direction of religious matters, he was sure to bend\nit away in some other direction as soon as ever he laid his next hold\nupon it. This, however, might have various reasons to account for it,\nand I would wait.\n\nAfter lunch, as we rose from the table, he took Wynnie's portfolio from\nthe side-table where he had laid it, and with no more than a bow and\nthanks returned it to her. She, I thought, looked a little\ndisappointed, though she said as lightly as she could:\n\n\"I am afraid you have not found anything worthy of criticism in my poor\nattempts, Mr. Percivale?\"\n\n\"On the contrary, I shall be most happy to tell you what I think of\nthem if you would like to hear the impression they have made upon me,\"\nhe replied, holding out his hand to take the portfolio again.\n\n\"I shall be greatly obliged to you,\" she said, returning it, \"for I\nhave had no one to help me since I left school, except a book called\n_Modern Painters_, which I think has the most beautiful things in it I\never read, but which I lay down every now and then with a kind of\ndespair, as if I never could do anything worth doing. How long the next\nvolume is in coming! Do you know the author, Mr. Percivale?\"\n\n\"I wish I did. He has given me much help. I do not say I can agree with\neverything he writes; but when I do not, I have such a respect for him\nthat I always feel as if he must be right whether he seems to me to be\nright or not. And if he is severe, it is with the severity of love that\nwill speak only the truth.\"\n\nThis last speech fell on my ear like the tone of a church bell. \"That\nwill do, my friend,\" thought I. But I said nothing to interrupt.\n\nBy this time he had laid the portfolio open on the side-table, and\nplaced a chair in front of it for my daughter. Then seating himself by\nher side, but without the least approach to familiarity, he began to\ntalk to her about her drawings, praising, in general, the feeling, but\nfinding fault with the want of nicety in the execution--at least so it\nappeared to me from what I could understand of the conversation.\n\n\"But,\" said my daughter, \"it seems to me that if you get the feeling\nright, that is the main thing.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" returned Mr. Percivale; \"so much the main thing that any\nimperfection or coarseness or untruth which interferes with it becomes\nof the greatest consequence.\"\n\n\"But can it really interfere with the feeling?\"\n\n\"Perhaps not with most people, simply because most people observe so\nbadly that their recollections of nature are all blurred and blotted\nand indistinct, and therefore the imperfections we are speaking of do\nnot affect them. But with the more cultivated it is otherwise. It is\nfor them you ought to work, for you do not thereby lose the others.\nBesides, the feeling is always intensified by the finish, for that\nbelongs to the feeling too, and must, I should think, have some\ninfluence even where it is not noted.\"\n\n\"But is it not a hopeless thing to attempt the finish of nature?\"\n\n\"Not at all; to the degree, that is, in which you can represent\nanything else of nature. But in this drawing now you have no\nrepresentative of, nothing to hint at or recall the feeling of the\nexquisiteness of nature's finish. Why should you not at least have\ndrawn a true horizon-line there? Has the absolute truth of the meeting\nof sea and sky nothing to do with the feeling which such a landscape\nproduces? I should have thought you would have learned that, if\nanything, from Mr. Ruskin.\"\n\nMr. Percivale spoke earnestly. Wynnie, either from disappointment or\ndespair, probably from a mixture of both, apparently fancied that, or\nrather felt as if, he was scolding her, and got cross. This was\nanything but dignified, especially with a stranger, and one who was\ndoing his best to help her. And yet, somehow, I must with shame confess\nI was not altogether sorry to see it. In fact, my reader, I must just\nuncover my sin, and say that I felt a little jealous of Mr. Percivale.\nThe negative reason was that I had not yet learned to love him. The\nonly cure for jealousy is love. But I was ashamed too of Wynnie's\nbehaving so childishly. Her face flushed, the tears came in her eyes,\nand she rose, saying, with a little choke in her voice--\n\n\"I see it's no use trying. I won't intrude any more into things I am\nincapable of. I am much obliged to you, Mr. Percivale, for showing me\nhow presumptuous I have been.\"\n\nThe painter rose as she rose, looking greatly concerned. But he did not\nattempt to answer her. Indeed she gave him no time. He could only\nspring after her to open the door for her. A more than respectful bow\nas she left the room was his only adieu. But when he turned his face\nagain towards me, it expressed even a degree of consternation.\n\n\"I fear,\" he said, approaching me with an almost military step, much at\nvariance with the shadow upon his countenance, \"I fear I have been rude\nto Miss Walton, but nothing was farther--\"\n\n\"You mistake entirely, Mr. Percivale. I heard all you were saying, and\nyou were not in the least rude. On the contrary, I consider you were\nvery kind to take the trouble with her you did. Allow me to make the\napology for my daughter which I am sure she will wish made when she\nrecovers from the disappointment of finding more obstacles in the way\nof her favourite pursuit than she had previously supposed. She is only\ntoo ready to lose heart, and she paid too little attention to your\napprobation and too much--in proportion, I mean--to your--criticism.\nShe felt discouraged and lost her temper, but more with herself and her\npoor attempts, I venture to assure you, than with your remarks upon\nthem. She is too much given to despising her own efforts.\"\n\n\"But I must have been to blame if I caused any such feeling with regard\nto those drawings, for I assure you they contain great promise.\"\n\n\"I am glad you think so. That I should myself be of the same opinion\ncan be of no consequence.\"\n\n\"Miss Walton at least sees what ought to be represented. All she needs\nis greater severity in the quality of representation. And that would\nhave grown without any remark from onlookers. Only a friendly criticism\nis sometimes a great help. It opens the eyes a little sooner than they\nwould have opened of themselves. And time,\" he added, with a half sigh\nand with an appeal in his tone, as if he would justify himself to my\nconscience, \"is half the battle in this world. It is over so soon.\"\n\n\"No sooner than it ought to be,\" I rejoined.\n\n\"So it may appear to you,\" he returned; \"for you, I presume to\nconjecture, have worked hard and done much. I may or may not have\nworked hard--sometimes I think I have, sometimes I think I have\nnot--but I certainly have done little. Here I am nearly thirty, and\nhave made no mark on the world yet.\"\n\n\"I don't know that that is of so much consequence,\" I said. \"I have\nnever hoped for more than to rub out a few of the marks already made.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you are right,\" he returned. \"Every man has something he can\ndo, and more, I suppose, that he can't do. But I have no right to turn\na visit into a visitation. Will you please tell Miss Walton that I am\nvery sorry I presumed on the privileges of a drawing-master, and gave\nher pain. It was so far from my intention that it will be a lesson to\nme for the future.\"\n\nWith these words he took his leave, and I could not help being greatly\npleased both with them and with his bearing. He was clearly anything\nbut a common man.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE SHADOW OP DEATH.\n\n\nWhen Wynnie appeared at dinner she looked ashamed of herself, and her\nface betrayed that she had been crying. But I said nothing, for I had\nconfidence that all she needed was time to come to herself, that the\nvoice that speaks louder than any thunder might make its stillness\nheard. And when I came home from my walk the next morning I found Mr.\nPercivale once more in the group about Connie, and evidently on the\nbest possible terms with all. The same afternoon Wynnie went out\nsketching with Dora. I had no doubt that she had made some sort of\napology to Mr. Percivale; but I did not make the slightest attempt to\ndiscover what had passed between them, for though it is of all things\ndesirable that children should be quite open with their parents, I was\nmost anxious to lay upon them no burden of obligation. For such burden\nlies against the door of utterance, and makes it the more difficult to\nopen. It paralyses the speech of the soul. What I desired was that they\nshould trust me so that faith should overcome all difficulty that might\nlie in the way of their being open with me. That end is not to be\ngained by any urging of admonition. Against such, growing years at\nleast, if nothing else, will bring a strong reaction. Nor even, if so\ngained would the gain be at all of the right sort. The openness would\nnot be faith. Besides, a parent must respect the spiritual person of\nhis child, and approach it with reverence, for that too looks the\nFather in the face, and has an audience with him into which no earthly\nparent can enter even if he dared to desire it. Therefore I trusted my\nchild. And when I saw that she looked at me a little shyly when we next\nmet, I only sought to show her the more tenderness and confidence,\ntelling her all about my plans with the bells, and my talks with the\nsmith and Mrs. Coombes. She listened with just such interest as I had\nalways been accustomed to see in her, asking such questions, and making\nsuch remarks as I might have expected, but I still felt that there was\nthe thread of a little uneasiness through the web of our\nintercourse,--such a thread of a false colour as one may sometimes find\nwandering through the labour of the loom, and seek with pains to draw\nfrom the woven stuff. But it was for Wynnie to take it out, not for me.\nAnd she did not leave it long. For as she bade me good-night in my\nstudy, she said suddenly, yet with hesitating openness,\n\n\"Papa, I told Mr. Percivale that I was sorry I had behaved so badly\nabout the drawings.\"\n\n\"You did right, my child,\" I replied. At the same moment a pang of\nanxiety passed through me lest under the influence of her repentance\nshe should have said anything more than becoming. But I banished the\ndoubt instantly as faithlessness in the womanly instincts of my child.\nFor we men are always so ready and anxious to keep women right, like\nthe wretched creature, Laertes, in _Hamlet_, who reads his sister such\na lesson on her maidenly duties, but declines almost with contempt to\nlisten to a word from her as to any co-relative obligation on his side!\n\nAnd here I may remark in regard to one of the vexed questions of the\nday--the rights of women--that what women demand it is not for men to\nwithhold. It is not their business to lay the law for women. That women\nmust lay down for themselves. I confess that, although I must herein\nseem to many of my readers old-fashioned and conservative, I should not\nlike to see any woman I cared much for either in parliament or in an\nanatomical class-room; but on the other hand I feel that women must be\nleft free to settle that matter. If it is not good, good women will\nfind it out and recoil from it. If it is good then God give them good\nspeed. One thing they _have_ a right to--a far wider and more valuable\neducation than they have been in the way of receiving. When the mothers\nare well taught the generations will grow in knowledge at a fourfold\nrate. But still the teaching of life is better than all the schools,\nand common sense than all learning. This common sense is a rare gift,\nscantier in none than in those who lay claim to it on the ground of\nfollowing commonplace, worldly, and prudential maxims. But I must\nreturn to my Wynnie.\n\n\"And what did Mr. Percivale say?\" I resumed, for she was silent.\n\n\"He took the blame all on himself, papa.\"\n\n\"Like a gentleman,\" I said.\n\n\"But I could not leave it so, you know, papa, because that was not the\ntruth.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"I told him that I had lost my temper from disappointment; that I had\nthought I did not care for my drawings because I was so far from\nsatisfied with them, but when he made me feel that they were worth\nnothing, then I found from the vexation I felt that I had cared for\nthem. But I do think, papa, I was more ashamed of having shown them,\nand vexed with myself, than cross with him. But I was very silly.\"\n\n\"Well, and what did he say?\"\n\n\"He began to praise them then. But you know I could not take much of\nthat, for what could he do?\"\n\n\"You might give him credit for a little honesty, at least.\"\n\n\"Yes; but things may be true in a way, you know, and not mean much.\"\n\n\"He seems to have succeeded in reconciling you to the prosecution of\nyour efforts, however; for I saw you go out with your sketching\napparatus this afternoon.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered shyly. \"He was so kind that somehow I got heart to\ntry again. He's very nice, isn't he?\"\n\nMy answer was not quite ready.\n\n\"Don't you like him, papa?\"\n\n\"Well--I like him--yes. But we must not be in haste with our judgments,\nyou know. I have had very little opportunity of seeing into him. There\nis much in him that I like, but--\"\n\n\"But what? please, papa.\"\n\n\"To tell the truth then, Wynnie, for I can speak my mind to you, my\nchild, there is a certain shyness of approaching the subject of\nreligion; so that I have my fears lest he should belong to any of these\nnew schools of a fragmentary philosophy which acknowledge no source of\ntruth but the testimony of the senses and the deductions made therefrom\nby the intellect.\"\n\n\"But is not that a hasty conclusion, papa?\"\n\n\"That is a hasty question, my dear. I have come to no conclusion. I was\nonly speaking confidentially about my fears.\"\n\n\"Perhaps, papa, it's only that he's not sure enough, and is afraid of\nappearing to profess more than he believes. I'm sure, if that's it, I\nhave the greatest sympathy with him.\"\n\nI looked at her, and saw the tears gathering fast in her eyes.\n\n\"Pray to God on the chance of his hearing you, my darling, and go to\nsleep,\" I said. \"I will not think hardly of you because you cannot be\nso sure as I am. How could you be? You have not had my experience.\nPerhaps you are right about Mr. Percivale too. But it would be an\nawkward thing to get intimate with him, you know, and then find out\nthat we did not like him after all. You couldn't like a man much, could\nyou, who did not believe in anything greater than himself, anything\nmarvellous, grand, beyond our understanding--who thought that he had\ncome out of the dirt and was going back to the dirt?\"\n\n\"I could, papa, if he tried to do his duty notwithstanding--for I'm\nsure I couldn't. I should cry myself to death.\"\n\n\"You are right, my child. I should honour him too. But I should be very\nsorry for him. For he would be so disappointed in himself.\"\n\nI do not know whether this was the best answer to make, but I had\nlittle time to think.\n\n\"But you don't know that he's like that.\"\n\n\"I do not, my dear. And more, I will not associate the idea with him\ntill I know for certain. We will leave it to ignorant old ladies who\nlay claim to an instinct for theology to jump at conclusions, and\nreserve ours--as even such a man as we have been supposing might well\nteach us--till we have sufficient facts from which to draw them. Now go\nto bed, my child.\"\n\n\"Good-night then, dear papa,\" she said, and left me with a kiss.\n\nI was not altogether comfortable after this conversation. I had tried\nto be fair to the young man both in word and thought, but I could not\nrelish the idea of my daughter falling in love with him, which looked\nlikely enough, before I knew more about him, and found that _more_ good\nand hope-giving. There was but one rational thing left to do, and that\nwas to cast my care on him that careth for us--on the Father who loved\nmy child more than even I could love her--and loved the young man too,\nand regarded my anxiety, and would take its cause upon himself. After I\nhad lifted up my heart to him I was at ease, read a canto of Dante's\n_Paradise_, and then went to bed. The prematurity of a conversation\nwith my wife, in which I found that she was very favourably impressed\nwith Mr. Percivale, must be pardoned to the forecasting hearts of\nfathers and mothers.\n\nAs I went out for my walk the next morning, I caught sight of the\nsexton, with whom as yet I had had but little communication, busily\ntrimming some of the newer graves in the churchyard. I turned in\nthrough the nearer gate, which was fashioned like a lych-gate, with\nseats on the sides and a stone table in the centre, but had no roof.\nThe one on the other side of the church was roofed, but probably they\nhad found that here no roof could resist the sea-blasts in winter. The\ntop of the wall where the roof should have rested, was simply covered\nwith flat slates to protect it from the rain.\n\n\"Good-morning, Coombes,\" I said.\n\nHe turned up a wizened, humorous old face, the very type of a\ngravedigger's, and with one hand leaning on the edge of the green\nmound, upon which he had been cropping with a pair of shears the too\nlong and too thin grass, touched his cap with the other, and bade me a\ncheerful good-morning in return.\n\n\"You're making things tidy,\" I said.\n\n\"It take time to make them all comfortable, you see, sir,\" he returned,\ntaking up his shears again and clipping away at the top and sides of\nthe mound.\n\n\"You mean the dead, Coombes?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir; to be sure, sir.\"\n\n\"You don't think it makes much difference to their comfort, do you,\nwhether the grass is one length or another upon their graves?\"\n\n\"Well no, sir. I don't suppose it makes _much_ difference to them. But\nit look more comfortable, you know. And I like things to look\ncomfortable. Don't you, sir?\"\n\n\"To be sure I do, Coombes. And you are quite right. The resting-place\nof the body, although the person it belonged to be far away, should be\nrespected.\"\n\n\"That's what I think, though I don't get no credit for it. I du believe\nthe people hereabouts thinks me only a single hair better than a Jack\nKetch. But I'm sure I du my best to make the poor things comfortable.\"\n\nHe seemed unable to rid his mind of the idea that the comfort of the\ndeparted was dependent upon his ministrations.\n\n\"The trouble I have with them sometimes! There's now this same one as\nlies here, old Jonathan Giles. He have the gout so bad! and just as I\ncome within a couple o' inches o' the right depth, out come the edge of\na great stone in the near corner at the foot of the bed. Thinks I,\nhe'll never lie comfortable with that same under his gouty toe. But the\ntrouble I had to get out that stone! I du assure you, sir, it took me\nnigh half the day.--But this be one of the nicest places to lie in all\nup and down the coast--a nice gravelly soil, you see, sir; dry, and\nwarm, and comfortable. Them poor things as comes out of the sea must\nquite enjoy the change, sir.\"\n\nThere was something grotesque in the man's persistence in regarding the\nobjects of his interest from this point of view. It was a curious way\nfor the humanity that was in him to find expression; but I did not like\nto let him go on thus. It was so much opposed to all that I believed\nand felt about the change from this world to the next!\n\n\"But, Coombes,\" I said, \"why will you go on talking as if it made an\natom of difference to the dead bodies where they were buried? They care\nno more about it than your old coat would care where it was thrown\nafter you had done with it.\"\n\nHe turned and regarded his coat where it hung beside him on the\nheadstone of the same grave at which he was working, shook his head\nwith a smile that seemed to hint a doubt whether the said old coat\nwould be altogether so indifferent to its treatment when, it was past\nuse as I had implied. Then he turned again to his work, and after a\nmoment's silence began to approach me from another side. I confess he\nhad the better of me before I was aware of what he was about.\n\n\"The church of Boscastle stands high on the cliff. You've been to\nBoscastle, sir?\"\n\nI told him I had not yet, but hoped to go before the summer was over.\n\n\"Ah, you should see Boscastle, sir. It's a wonderful place. That's\nwhere I was born, sir. When I was a by that church was haunted, sir.\nIt's a damp place, and the wind in it awful. I du believe it stand\nhigher than any church in the country, and have got more wind in it of\na stormy night than any church whatsomever. Well, they said it was\nhaunted; and sure enough every now and then there was a knocking heard\ndown below. And this always took place of a stormy night, as if there\nwas some poor thing down in the low wouts (_vaults_), and he wasn't\ncomfortable and wanted to get out. Well, one night it was so plain and\nso fearful it was that the sexton he went and took the blacksmith and a\nship's carpenter down to the harbour, and they go up together, and they\nhearken all over the floor, and they open one of the old family wouts\nthat belongs to the Penhaligans, and they go down with a light. Now the\nwind it was a-blowing all as usual, only worse than common. And there\nto be sure what do they see but the wout half-full of sea-water, and\nnows and thens a great spout coming in through a hole in the rock; for\nit was high-water and a wind off the sea, as I tell you. And there was\na coffin afloat on the water, and every time the spout come through, it\nset it knocking agen the side o' the wout, and that was the ghost.\"\n\n\"What a horrible idea!\" I said, with a half-shudder at the unrest of\nthe dead.\n\nThe old man uttered a queer long-drawn sound,--neither a chuckle, a\ncrow, nor a laugh, but a mixture of all three,--and turned himself yet\nagain to the work which, as he approached the end of his narration, he\nhad suspended, that he might make his story _tell_, I suppose, by\nlooking me in the face. And as he turned he said, \"I thought you would\nlike to be comfortable then as well as other people, sir.\"\n\nI could not help laughing to see how the cunning old fellow had caught\nme. I have not yet been able to find out how much of truth there was in\nhis story. From the twinkle of his eye I cannot help suspecting that if\nhe did not invent the tale, he embellished it, at least, in order to\nproduce the effect which he certainly did produce. Humour was clearly\nhis predominant disposition, the reflex of which was to be seen, after\na mild lunar fashion, on the countenance of his wife. Neither could I\nhelp thinking with pleasure, as I turned away, how the merry little old\nman would enjoy telling his companions how he had posed the new parson.\nVery welcome was he to his laugh for my part. Yet I gladly left the\nchurchyard, with its sunshine above and its darkness below. Indeed I\nhad to look up to the glittering vanes on the four pinnacles of the\nchurch-tower, dwelling aloft in the clean sunny air, to get the feeling\nof the dark vault, and the floating coffin, and the knocking heard in\nthe windy church, out of my brain. But the thing that did free me was\nthe reflection with what supreme disregard the disincarcerated spirit\nwould look upon any possible vicissitudes of its abandoned vault. For\nin proportion as the body of man's revelation ceases to be in harmony\nwith the spirit that dwells therein, it becomes a vault, a prison, from\nwhich it must be freedom to escape at length. The house we like best\nwould be a prison of awful sort if doors and windows were built up.\nMan's abode, as age begins to draw nigh, fares thus. Age is in fact the\nmason that builds up the doors and the windows, and death is the angel\nthat breaks the prison-house and lets the captives free. Thus I got\nsomething out of the sexton's horrible story.\n\nBut before the week was over, death came near indeed--in far other\nfashion than any funereal tale could have brought it.\n\nOne day, after lunch, I had retired to my study, and was dozing in my\nchair, for the day was hot, when I was waked by Charlie rushing into\nthe room with the cry, \"Papa, papa, there's a man drowning.\"\n\nI started up, and hurried down to the drawing-room, which looked out\nover the bay. I could see nothing but people running about on the edge\nof the quiet waves. No sign of human being was on--the water. But the\none boat belonging to the pilot was coming out from the shelter of the\nlock of the canal where it usually lay, and my friend of the coastguard\nwas running down from the tower on the cliff with ropes in his hand. He\nwould not stop the boat even for the moment it would need to take him\non board, but threw them in and urged to haste. I stood at the window\nand watched. Every now and then I fancied I saw something white heaved\nup on the swell of a wave, and as often was satisfied that I had but\nfancied it. The boat seemed to be floating about lazily, if not idly.\nThe eagerness to help made it appear as if nothing was going on. Could\nit, after all, have been a false alarm? Was there, after all, no\ninsensible form swinging about in the sweep of those waves, with life\ngradually oozing away? Long, long as it seemed to me, I watched, and\nstill the boat kept moving from place to place, so far out that I could\nsee nothing distinctly of the motions of its crew. At length I saw\nsomething. Yes; a long white thing rose from the water slowly, and was\ndrawn into the boat. It rowed swiftly to the shore. There was but one\nplace fit to land upon,--a little patch of sand, nearly covered at\nhigh-water, but now lying yellow in the sun, under the window at which\nI stood, and immediately under our garden-wall. Thither the boat shot\nalong; and there my friend of the coastguard, earnest and sad, was\nwaiting to use, though without hope, every appliance so well known to\nhim from the frequent occurrence of such necessity in the course of his\nwatchful duties along miles and miles of stormy coast.\n\nI will not linger over the sad details of vain endeavour. The honoured\nhead of a family, he had departed and left a good name behind him. But\neven in the midst of my poor attentions to the quiet, speechless,\npale-faced wife, who sat at the head of the corpse, I could not help\nfeeling anxious about the effect on my Connie. It was impossible to\nkeep the matter concealed from her. The undoubted concern on the faces\nof the two boys was enough to reveal that something serious and painful\nhad occurred; while my wife and Wynnie, and indeed the whole household,\nwere busy in attending to every remotest suggestion of aid that reached\nthem from the little crowd gathered about the body. At length it was\nconcluded, on the verdict of the medical man who had been sent for,\nthat all further effort was useless. The body was borne away, and I led\nthe poor lady to her lodging, and remained there with her till I found\nthat, as she lay on the sofa, the sleep that so often dogs the steps of\nsorrow had at length thrown its veil over her consciousness, and put\nher for the time to rest. There is a gentle consolation in the firmness\nof the grasp of the inevitable, known but to those who are led through\nthe valley of the shadow. I left her with her son and daughter, and\nreturned to my own family. They too were of course in the skirts of the\ncloud. Had they only heard of the occurrence, it would have had little\neffect; but death had appeared to them. Everyone but Connie had seen\nthe dead lying there; and before the day was over, I wished that she\ntoo had seen the dead. For I found from what she said at intervals, and\nfrom the shudder that now and then passed through her, that her\nimagination was at work, showing but the horrors that belong to death;\nfor the enfolding peace that accompanies it can be known but by sight\nof the dead. When I spoke to her, she seemed, and I suppose for the\ntime felt tolerably quiet and comfortable; but I could see that the\nwords she had heard fall in the going and coming, and the\ncommunications of Charlie and Harry to each other, had made as it were\nan excoriation on her fancy, to which her consciousness was ever\nreturning. And now I became more grateful than I had yet been for the\ngift of that gipsy-child. For I felt no anxiety about Connie so long as\nshe was with her. The presence even of her mother could not relieve\nher, for she and Wynnie were both clouded with the same awe, and its\nreflex in Connie was distorted by her fancy. But the sweet ignorance of\nthe baby, which rightly considered is more than a type or symbol of\nfaith, operated most healingly; for she appeared in her sweet merry\nways--no baby was ever more filled with the mere gladness of life than\nConnie's baby--to the mood in which they all were, like a little sunny\nwindow in a cathedral crypt, telling of a whole universe of sunshine\nand motion beyond those oppressed pillars and low-groined arches. And\nwhy should not the baby know best? I believe the babies do know best. I\ntherefore favoured her having the child more than I might otherwise\nhave thought good for her, being anxious to get the dreary, unhealthy\nimpression healed as soon as possible, lest it should, in the delicate\nphysical condition in which she was, turn to a sore.\n\nBut my wife suffered for a time nearly as much as Connie. As long as\nshe was going about the house or attending to the wants of her family,\nshe was free; but no sooner did she lay her head on the pillow than in\nrushed the cry of the sea, fierce, unkind, craving like a wild beast.\nAgain and again she spoke of it to me, for it came to her mingled with\nthe voice of the tempter, saying, \"_Cruel chance_,\" over and over\nagain. For although the two words contradict each other when put\ntogether thus, each in its turn would assert itself.\n\nA great part of the doubt in the world comes from the fact that there\nare in it so many more of the impressible as compared with the\noriginating minds. Where the openness to impression is balanced by the\npower of production, the painful questions of the world are speedily\nmet by their answers; where such is not the case, there are often long\nperiods of suffering till the child-answer of truth is brought to the\nbirth. Hence the need for every impressible mind to be, by reading or\nspeech, held in living association with an original mind able to combat\nthose suggestions of doubt and even unbelief, which the look of things\nmust often occasion--a look which comes from our inability to gain\nother than fragmentary visions of the work that the Father worketh\nhitherto. When the kingdom of heaven is at hand, one sign thereof will\nbe that all clergymen will be more or less of the latter sort, and mere\nreceptive goodness, no more than education and moral character, will be\nconsidered sufficient reason for a man's occupying the high position of\nan instructor of his fellows. But even now this possession of original\npower is not by any means to be limited to those who make public show\nof the same. In many a humble parish priest it shows itself at the\nbedside of the suffering, or in the admonition of the closet, although\nas yet there are many of the clergy who, so far from being able to\nconsole wisely, are incapable of understanding the condition of those\nthat need consolation.\n\n\"It is all a fancy, my dear,\" I said to her. \"There is nothing more\nterrible in this than in any other death. On the contrary, I can hardly\nimagine a less fearful one. A big wave falls on the man's head and\nstuns him, and without further suffering he floats gently out on the\nsea of the unknown.\"\n\n\"But it is so terrible for those left behind!\"\n\n\"Had you seen the face of his widow, so gentle, so loving, so resigned\nin its pallor, you would not have thought it so _terrible_.\"\n\nBut though she always seemed satisfied, and no doubt felt nearly so,\nafter any conversation of the sort, yet every night she would call out\nonce and again, \"O, that sea, out there!\" I was very glad indeed when\nMr. Turner, who had arranged to spend a short holiday with us, arrived.\n\nHe was concerned at the news I gave him of the shock both Connie and\nher mother had received, and counselled an immediate change, that time\nmight, in the absence of surrounding associations, obliterate something\nof the impression that had been made. The consequence was, that we\nresolved to remove our household, for a short time, to some place not\ntoo far off to permit of my attending to my duties at Kilkhaven, but\nout of the sight and sound of the sea. It was Thursday when Mr. Turner\narrived, and he spent the next two days in inquiring and looking about\nfor a suitable spot to which we might repair as early in the week as\npossible.\n\nOn the Saturday the blacksmith was busy in the church-tower, and I went\nin to see how he was getting on.\n\n\"You had a sad business here the last week, sir,\" he said, after we had\ndone talking about the repairs.\n\n\"A very sad business indeed,\" I answered.\n\n\"It was a warning to us all,\" he said.\n\n\"We may well take it so,\" I returned. \"But it seems to me that we are\ntoo ready to think of such remarkable things only by themselves,\ninstead of being roused by them to regard everything, common and\nuncommon, as ordered by the same care and wisdom.\"\n\n\"One of our local preachers made a grand use of it.\"\n\nI made no reply. He resumed.\n\n\"They tell me you took no notice of it last Sunday, sir.\"\n\n\"I made no immediate allusion to it, certainly. But I preached under\nthe influence of it. And I thought it better that those who could\nreflect on the matter should be thus led to think for themselves than\nthat they should be subjected to the reception of my thoughts and\nfeelings about it; for in the main it is life and not death that we\nhave to preach.\"\n\n\"I don't quite understand you, sir. But then you don't care much for\npreaching in your church.\"\n\n\"I confess,\" I answered, \"that there has been much indifference on that\npoint. I could, however, mention to you many and grand exceptions.\nStill there is, even in some of the best in the church, a great amount\nof disbelief in the efficacy of preaching. And I allow that a great\ndeal of what is called preaching, partakes of its nature only in the\nremotest degree. But, while I hold a strong opinion of its value--that\nis, where it is genuine--I venture just to suggest that the nature of\nthe preaching to which the body you belong to has resorted, has had\nsomething to do, by way of a reaction, in driving the church to the\nother extreme.\"\n\n\"How do you mean that, sir?\"\n\n\"You try to work upon people's feelings without reference to their\njudgment. Anyone who can preach what you call rousing sermons is\nconsidered a grand preacher amongst you, and there is a great danger of\nhis being led thereby to talk more nonsense than sense. And then when\nthe excitement goes off, there is no seed left in the soil to grow in\npeace, and they are always craving after more excitement.\"\n\n\"Well, there is the preacher to rouse them up again.\"\n\n\"And the consequence is that they continue like children--the good\nones, I mean--and have hardly a chance of making a calm, deliberate\nchoice of that which is good; while those who have been only excited\nand nothing more, are hardened and seared by the recurrence of such\nfeeling as is neither aroused by truth nor followed by action.\"\n\n\"You daren't talk like that if you knew the kind of people in this\ncountry that the Methodists, as you call them, have got a hold of. They\ntell me it was like hell itself down in those mines before Wesley come\namong them.\"\n\n\"I should be a fool or a bigot to doubt that the Wesleyans have done\nincalculable good in the country. And that not alone to the people who\nnever went to church. The whole Church of England is under obligations\nto Methodism such as no words can overstate.\"\n\n\"I wonder you can say such things against them, then.\"\n\n\"Now there you show the evil of thinking too much about the party you\nbelong to. It makes a man touchy; and then he fancies when another is\nmerely, it may be, analysing a difference, or insisting strongly on\nsome great truth, that he is talking against his party.\"\n\n\"But you said, sir, that our clergy don't care about moving our\njudgments, only our feelings. Now I know preachers amongst us of whom\nthat would be anything but true.\"\n\n\"Of course there must be. But there is what I say--your party-feeling\nmakes you touchy. A man can't always be saying in the press of\nutterance, '_Of course there are exceptions_.' That is understood. I\nconfess I do not know much about your clergy, for I have not had the\nopportunity. But I do know this, that some of the best and most liberal\npeople I have ever known have belonged to your community.\"\n\n\"They do gather a deal of money for good purposes.\"\n\n\"Yes. But that was not what I meant by _liberal_. It is far easier to\ngive money than to be generous in judgment. I meant by _liberal_, able\nto see the good and true in people that differ from you--glad to be\nroused to the reception of truth in God's name from whatever quarter it\nmay come, and not readily finding offence where a remark may have\nchanced to be too sweeping or unguarded. But I see that I ought to be\nmore careful, for I have made you, who certainly are not one of the\nquarrelsome people I have been speaking of, misunderstand me.\"\n\n\"I beg your pardon, sir. I was hasty. But I do think I am more ready to\nlose my temper since--\"\n\nHere he stopped. A fit of coughing came on, and, to my concern, was\nfollowed by what I saw plainly could be the result only of a rupture in\nthe lungs. I insisted on his dropping his work and coming home with me,\nwhere I made him rest the remainder of the day and all Sunday, sending\nword to his mother that I could not let him go home. When we left on\nthe Monday morning, we took him with us in the carriage hired for the\njourney, and set him down at his mother's, apparently no worse than\nusual.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nAT THE FARM.\n\n\nLeaving the younger members of the family at home with the servants, we\nset out for a farmhouse, some twenty miles off, which Turner had\ndiscovered for us. Connie had stood the journey down so well, and was\nnow so much stronger, that we had no anxiety about her so far as\nregarded the travelling. Through deep lanes with many cottages, and\nhere and there a very ugly little chapel, over steep hills, up which\nTurner and Wynnie and I walked, and along sterile moors we drove,\nstopping at roadside inns, and often besides to raise Connie and let\nher look about upon the extended prospect, so that it was drawing\ntowards evening before we arrived at our destination. On the way Turner\nhad warned us that we were not to expect a beautiful country, although\nthe place was within reach of much that was remarkable. Therefore we\nwere not surprised when we drew up at the door of a bare-looking,\nshelterless house, with scarcely a tree in sight, and a stretch of\nundulating fields on every side.\n\n\"A dreary place in winter, Turner,\" I said, after we had seen Connie\ncomfortably deposited in the nice white-curtained parlour, smelling of\ndried roses even in the height of the fresh ones, and had strolled out\nwhile our tea--dinner was being got ready for us.\n\n\"Not a doubt of it; but just the place I wanted for Miss Connie,\" he\nreplied. \"We are high above the sea, and the air is very bracing, and\nnot, at this season, too cold. A month later I should not on any\naccount have brought her here.\"\n\n\"I think even now there is a certain freshness in the wind that calls\nup a kind of will in the nerves to meet it.\"\n\n\"That is precisely what I wanted for you all. You observe there is no\nrasp in its touch, however. There are regions in this island of ours\nwhere even in the hottest day in summer you would frequently discover a\ncertain unfriendly edge in the air, that would set you wondering\nwhether the seasons had not changed since you were a boy, and used to\nlie on the grass half the idle day.\"\n\n\"I often do wonder whether it may not be so, but I always come to the\nconclusion that even this is but an example of the involuntary tendency\nof the mind of man towards the ideal. He forgets all that comes between\nand divides the hints of perfection scattered here and there along the\nscope of his experience. I especially remember one summer day in my\nchildhood, which has coloured all my ideas of summer and bliss and\nfulfilment of content. It is made up of only mossy grass, and the scent\nof the earth and wild flowers, and hot sun, and perfect sky--deep and\nblue, and traversed by blinding white clouds. I could not have been\nmore than five or six, I think, from the kind of dress I wore, the very\npearl buttons of which, encircled on their face with a ring of\nhalf-spherical hollows, have their undeniable relation in my memory to\nthe heavens and the earth, to the march of the glorious clouds, and the\ntender scent of the rooted flowers; and, indeed, when I think of it,\nmust, by the delight they gave me, have opened my mind the more to the\nenjoyment of the eternal paradise around me. What a thing it is to\nplease a child!\"\n\n\"I know what you mean perfectly,\" answered Turner. \"It is as I get\nolder that I understand what Wordsworth says about childhood. It is\nindeed a mercy that we were not born grown men, with what we consider\nour wits about us. They are blinding things those wits we gather. I\nfancy that the single thread by which God sometimes keeps hold of a man\nis such an impression of his childhood as that of which you have been\nspeaking.\"\n\n\"I do not doubt it; for conscience is so near in all those memories to\nwhich you refer. The whole surrounding of them is so at variance with\nsin! A sense of purity, not in himself, for the child is not feeling\nthat he is pure, is all about him; and when afterwards the condition\nreturns upon him,--returns when he is conscious of so much that is evil\nand so much that is unsatisfied in him,--it brings with it a longing\nafter the high clear air of moral well-being.\"\n\n\"Do you think, then, that it is only by association that nature thus\nimpresses us? that she has no power of meaning these things?\"\n\n\"Not at all. No doubt there is something in the recollection of the\nassociations of childhood to strengthen the power of nature upon us;\nbut the power is in nature herself, else it would be but a poor weak\nthing to what it is. There _is_ purity and state in that sky. There\n_is_ a peace now in this wide still earth--not so very beautiful, you\nown--and in that overhanging blue, which my heart cries out that it\nneeds and cannot be well till it gains--gains in the truth, gains in\nGod, who is the power of truth, the living and causing truth. There is\nindeed a rest that remaineth, a rest pictured out even here this night,\nto rouse my dull heart to desire it and follow after it, a rest that\nconsists in thinking the thoughts of Him who is the Peace because the\nUnity, in being filled with that spirit which now pictures itself forth\nin this repose of the heavens and the earth.\"\n\n\"True,\" said Turner, after a pause. \"I must think more about such\nthings. The science the present day is going wild about will not give\nus that rest.\"\n\n\"No; but that rest will do much to give you that science. A man with\nthis repose in his heart will do more by far, other capabilities being\nequal, to find out the laws that govern things. For all law is living\nrest.\"\n\n\"What you have been saying,\" resumed Turner, after another pause,\n\"reminds me much of one of Wordsworth's poems. I do not mean the famous\node.\"\n\n\"You mean the 'Ninth Evening Voluntary,' I know--one of his finest and\ntruest and deepest poems. It begins, 'Had this effulgence disappeared.'\"\n\n\"Yes, that is the one I mean. I shall read it again when I go home. But\nyou don't agree with Wordsworth, do you, about our having had an\nexistence previous to this?\"\n\nHe gave a little laugh as he asked the question.\n\n\"Not in the least. But an opinion held by such men as Plato, Origen,\nand Wordsworth, is not to be laughed at, Mr. Turner. It cannot be in\nits nature absurd. I might have mentioned Shelley as holding it, too,\nhad his opinion been worth anything.\"\n\n\"Then you don't think much of Shelley?\"\n\n\"I think his _feeling_ most valuable; his _opinion_ nearly worthless.\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps I had no business to laugh, at it; but--\"\n\n\"Do not suppose for a moment that I even lean to it. I dislike it. It\nwould make me unhappy to think there was the least of sound argument\nfor it. But I respect the men who have held it, and know there must be\n_something_ good in it, else they could not have held it.\"\n\n\"Are you able then to sympathise with that ode of Wordsworth's? Does it\nnot depend for all its worth on the admission of this theory?\"\n\n\"Not in the least. Is it necessary to admit that we must have had a\nconscious life before this life to find meaning in the words,--\n\n  'But trailing clouds of glory do we come\n  From God who is our home'?\n\nIs not all the good in us his image? Imperfect and sinful as we are, is\nnot all the foundation of our being his image? Is not the sin all ours,\nand the life in us all God's? We cannot be the creatures of God without\npartaking of his nature. Every motion of our conscience, every\nadmiration of what is pure and noble, is a sign and a result of this.\nIs not every self-accusation a proof of the presence of his spirit?\nThat comes not of ourselves--that is not without him. These are the\nclouds of glory we come trailing from him. All feelings of beauty and\npeace and loveliness and right and goodness, we trail with us from our\nhome. God is the only home of the human soul. To interpret in this\nmanner what Wordsworth says, will enable us to enter into perfect\nsympathy with all that grandest of his poems. I do not say this is what\nhe meant; but I think it includes what he meant by being greater and\nwider than what he meant. Nor am I guilty of presumption in saying so,\nfor surely the idea that we are born of God is a greater idea than that\nwe have lived with him a life before this life. But Wordsworth is not\nthe first among our religious poets to give us at least what is\nvaluable in the notion. I came upon a volume amongst my friend\nShepherd's books, with which I had made no acquaintance before--Henry\nVaughan's poems. I brought it with me, for it has finer lines, I almost\nthink, than any in George Herbert, though not so fine poems by any\nmeans as his best. When we go into the house I will read one of them to\nyou.\"\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Turner. \"I wish I could have such talk once a week.\nThe shades of the prison-house, you know, Mr. Walton, are always trying\nto close about us, and shut out the vision of the glories we have come\nfrom, as Wordsworth says.\"\n\n\"A man,\" I answered, \"who ministers to the miserable necessities of his\nfellows has even more need than another to believe in the light and the\ngladness--else a poor Job's comforter will he be. _I_ don't want to be\ntreated like a musical snuff-box.\"\n\nThe doctor laughed.\n\n\"No man can _prove_,\" he said, \"that there is not a being inside the\nsnuff-box, existing in virtue of the harmony of its parts, comfortable\nwhen they go well, sick when they go badly, and dying when it is\ndismembered, or even when it stops.\"\n\n\"No,\" I answered. \"No man can prove it. But no man can convince a human\nbeing of it. And just as little can anyone convince me that my\nconscience, making me do sometimes what I _don't_ like, comes from a\nharmonious action of the particles of my brain. But it is time we went\nin, for by the law of things in general, I being ready for my dinner,\nmy dinner ought to be ready for me.\"\n\n\"A law with more exceptions than instances, I fear,\" said Turner.\n\n\"I doubt that,\" I answered. \"The readiness is everything, and that we\nconstantly blunder in. But we had better see whether we are really\nready for it, by trying whether it is ready for us.\"\n\nConnie went to bed early, as indeed we all did, and she was rather\nbetter than worse the next morning. My wife, for the first time for\nmany nights, said nothing about the crying of the sea. The following\nday Turner and I set out to explore the neighbourhood. The rest\nremained quietly at home.\n\nIt was, as I have said, a high bare country. The fields lay side by\nside, parted from each other chiefly, as so often in Scotland, by stone\nwalls; and these stones being of a laminated nature, the walls were not\nunfrequently built by laying thin plates on their edges, which gave a\nneatness to them not found in other parts of the country as far as I am\naware. In the middle of the fields came here and there patches of yet\nunreclaimed moorland.\n\nNow in a region like this, beauty must be looked for below the surface.\nThere is a probability of finding hollows of repose, sunken spots of\nloveliness, hidden away altogether from the general aspect of\nsternness, or perhaps sterility, that meets the eye in glancing over\nthe outspread landscape; just as in the natures of stern men you may\nexpect to find, if opportunity should be afforded you, sunny spots of\ntender verdure, kept ever green by that very sternness which is turned\ntowards the common gaze--thus existent because they are below the\nsurface, and not laid bare to the sweep of the cold winds that roam the\nworld. How often have not men started with amaze at the discovery of\nsome feminine sweetness, some grace of protection in the man whom they\nhad judged cold and hard and rugged, inaccessible to the more genial\ninfluences of humanity! It may be that such men are only fighting\nagainst the wind, and keep their hearts open to the sun.\n\nI knew this; and when Turner and I set out that morning to explore, I\nexpected to light upon some instance of it--some mine or other in which\nnature had hidden away rare jewels; but I was not prepared to find such\nas I did find. With our hearts full of a glad secret we returned home,\nbut we said nothing about it, in order that Ethelwyn and Wynnie might\nenjoy the discovery even as we had enjoyed it.\n\nThere was another grand fact with regard to the neighbourhood about\nwhich we judged it better to be silent for a few days, that the inland\ninfluences might be free to work. We were considerably nearer the ocean\nthan my wife and daughters supposed, for we had made a great round in\norder to arrive from the land-side. We were, however, out of the sound\nof its waves, which broke all along the shore, in this part, at the\nfoot of tremendous cliffs. What cliffs they were we shall soon find.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE KEEVE.\n\n\n\"Now, my dear! now, Wynnie!\" I said, after prayers the next morning,\n\"you must come out for a walk as soon as ever you can get your bonnets\non.\"\n\n\"But we can't leave Connie, papa,\" objected Wynnie.\n\n\"O, yes, you can, quite well. There's nursie to look after her. What do\nyou say, Connie?\"\n\nFor, for some time now, Connie had been able to get up so early, that\nit was no unusual thing to have prayers in her room.\n\n\"I am entirely independent of help from my family,\" returned Connie\ngrandiloquently. \"I am a woman of independent means,\" she added. \"If\nyou say another word, I will rise and leave the room.\"\n\nAnd she made a movement as if she would actually do as she had said.\nSeized with an involuntary terror, I rushed towards her, and the\nimpertinent girl burst out laughing in my face--threw herself back on\nher pillows, and laughed delightedly.\n\n\"Take care, papa,\" she said. \"I carry a terrible club for rebellious\npeople.\" Then, her mood changing, she added, as if to suppress the\ntears gathering in her eyes, \"I am the queen--of luxury and\nself-will--and I won't have anybody come near me till dinner-time. I\nmean to enjoy myself.\"\n\nSo the matter was settled, and we went out for our walk. Ethelwyn was\nnot such a good walker as she had been; but even if she had retained\nthe strength of her youth, we should not have got on much the better\nfor it--so often did she and Wynnie stop to grub ferns out of the\nchinks and roots of the stone-walls. Now, I admire ferns as much as\nanybody--that is, not, I fear, so much as my wife and daughter, but\nquite enough notwithstanding--but I do not quite enjoy being pulled up\nlike a fern at every turn.\n\n\"Now, my dear, what is the use of stopping to torture that harmless\nvegetable?\" I say, but say in vain. \"It is much more beautiful where it\nis than it will be anywhere where you can put it. Besides, you know\nthey never come to anything with you. They _always_ die.\"\n\nThereupon my wife reminds me of this fern and that fern, gathered in\nsuch and such places, and now in such and such corners of the garden or\nthe greenhouse, or under glass-shades in this or that room, of the very\nexistence of which I am ignorant, whether from original inattention, or\nmerely from forgetfulness, I do not know. Certainly, out of their own\nplace I do not care much for them.\n\nAt length, partly by the inducement I held out to them of a much\ngreater variety of ferns where we were bound, I succeeded in getting\nthem over the two miles in little more than two hours. After passing\nfrom the lanes into the fields, our way led downwards till we reached a\nvery steep large slope, with a delightful southern exposure, and\ncovered with the sweetest down-grasses. It was just the place to lie\nin, as on the edge of the earth, and look abroad upon the universe of\nair and floating worlds.\n\n\"Let us have a rest here, Ethel,\" I said. \"I am sure this is much more\ndelightful than uprooting ferns. What an awful thing to think that here\nwe are on this great round tumbling ball of a world, held by the feet,\nand lifting up the head into infinite space--without choice or wish of\nour own--compelled to think and to be, whether we will or not! Just God\nmust know it to be very good, or he would not have taken it in his\nhands to make individual lives without a possible will of theirs. He\nmust be our Father, or we are wretched creatures--the slaves of a fatal\nnecessity! Did it ever strike you, Turner, that each one of us stands\non the apex of the world? With a sphere, you know, it must be so. And\nthus is typified, as it seems to me, that each one of us must look up\nfor himself to find God, and then look abroad to find his fellows.\"\n\n\"I think I know what you mean,\" was all Turner's reply.\n\n\"No doubt,\" I resumed, \"the apprehension of this truth has, in\notherwise ill-ordered minds, given rise to all sorts of fierce and\ngrotesque fanaticism. But the minds which have thus conceived the\ntruth, would have been immeasurably worse without it; nay, this truth\naffords at last the only possible door out of the miseries of their own\nchaos, whether inherited or the result of their own misconduct.\"\n\n\"What's that in the grass?\" cried Wynnie, in a tone of alarm.\n\nI looked where she indicated, and saw a slow-worm, or blind-worm, lying\nbasking in the sun. I rose and went towards it.\n\n\"Here's your stick,\" said Turner.\n\n\"What for?\" I asked. \"Why should I kill it? It is perfectly harmless,\nand, to my mind, beautiful.\"\n\nI took it in my hands, and brought it to my wife. She gave an\ninvoluntary shudder as it came near her.\n\n\"I assure you it is harmless,\" I said, \"though it has a forked tongue.\"\nAnd I opened its mouth as I spoke. \"I do not think the serpent form is\nessentially ugly.\"\n\n\"It makes me feel ugly,\" said Wynnie.\n\n\"I allow I do not quite understand the mystery of it,\" I said. \"But you\nnever saw lovelier ornamentation than these silvery scales, with all\nthe neatness of what you ladies call a set pattern, and none of the\nstiffness, for there are not two of them the same in form. And you\nnever saw lovelier curves than this little patient creature, which does\nnot even try to get away from me, makes with the queer long thin body\nof him.\"\n\n\"I wonder how it can look after its tail, it is so far off,\" said\nWynnie.\n\n\"It does though--better than you ladies look after your long dresses. I\nwonder whether it is descended from creatures that once had feet, and\ndid not make a good use of them. Perhaps they had wings even, and would\nnot use them at all, and so lost them. Its ancestors may have had\npoison-fangs; it is innocent enough. But it is a terrible thing to be\nall feet, is it not? There is an awful significance in the condemnation\nof the serpent--'On thy belly shalt thou go, and eat dust.' But it is\nbetter to talk of beautiful things. _My_ soul at least has dropped from\nits world apex. Let us go on. Come, wife. Come, Turner.\"\n\nThey did not seem willing to rise. But the glen drew me. I rose, and my\nwife followed my example with the help of my hand. She returned to the\nsubject, however, as we descended the slope.\n\n\"Is it possible that in the course of ever so many ages wings and feet\nshould be both lost?\" she said.\n\n\"The most presumptuous thing in the world is to pronounce on the\npossible and the impossible. I do not know what is possible and what is\nimpossible. I can only tell a little of what is true and what is\nuntrue. But I do say this, that between the condition of many decent\nmembers of society and that for the sake of which God made them, there\nis a gulf quite as vast as that between a serpent and a bird. I get\npeeps now and then into the condition of my own heart, which, for the\nmoment, make it seem impossible that I should ever rise into a true\nstate of nature--that is, into the simplicity of God's will concerning\nme. The only hope for ourselves and for others lies in him--in the\npower the creating spirit has over the spirits he has made.\"\n\nBy this time the descent on the grass was getting too steep and\nslippery to admit of our continuing to advance in that direction. We\nturned, therefore, down the valley in the direction of the sea. It was\nbut a narrow cleft, and narrowed much towards a deeper cleft, in which\nwe now saw the tops of trees, and from which we heard the rush of\nwater. Nor had we gone far in this direction before we came upon a gate\nin a stone wall, which led into what seemed a neglected garden. We\nentered, and found a path turning and winding, among small trees, and\nluxuriant ferns, and great stones, and fragments of ruins down towards\nthe bottom of the chasm. The noise of falling water increased as we\nwent on, and at length, after some scrambling and several sharp turns,\nwe found ourselves with a nearly precipitous wall on each side, clothed\nwith shrubs and ivy, and creeping things of the vegetable world. Up\nthis cleft there was no advance. The head of it was a precipice down\nwhich shot the stream from the vale above, pouring out of a deep slit\nit had itself cut in the rock as with a knife. Halfway down, it tumbled\ninto a great basin of hollowed stone, and flowing from a chasm in its\nside, which left part of the lip of the basin standing like the arch of\na vanished bridge, it fell into a black pool below, whence it crept as\nif half-stunned or weary down the gentle decline of the ravine. It was\na perfect little picture. I, for my part, had never seen such a\npicturesque fall. It was a little gem of nature, complete in effect.\nThe ladies were full of pleasure. Wynnie, forgetting her usual reserve,\nbroke out in frantic exclamations of delight.\n\nWe stood for a while regarding the ceaseless pour of the water down the\nprecipice, here shot slanting in a little trough of the rock, full of\nforce and purpose, here falling in great curls of green and gray, with\nan expression of absolute helplessness and conscious perdition, as if\nsheer to the centre, but rejoicing the next moment to find itself\nbrought up boiling and bubbling in the basin, to issue in the gathered\nhope of experience. Then we turned down the stream a little way,\ncrossed it by a plank, and stood again to regard it from the opposite\nside. Small as the whole affair was--not more than about a hundred and\nfifty feet in height--it was so full of variety that I saw it was all\nmy memory could do, if it carried away anything like a correct picture\nof its aspect. I was contemplating it fixedly, when a little stifled\ncry from Wynnie made me start and look round. Her face was flushed, yet\nshe was trying to look unconcerned.\n\n\"I thought we were quite alone, papa,\" she said; \"but I see a gentleman\nsketching.\"\n\nI looked whither she indicated. A little way down, the bed of the\nravine widened considerably, and was no doubt filled with water in\nrainy weather. Now it was swampy--full of reeds and willow bushes. But\non the opposite side of the stream, with a little canal from it going\nall around it, lay a great flat rectangular stone, not more than a foot\nabove the level of the water, and upon a camp-stool in the centre of\nthis stone sat a gentleman sketching. I had no doubt that Wynnie had\nrecognised him at once. And I was annoyed, and indeed angry, to think\nthat Mr. Percivale had followed us here. But while I regarded him, he\nlooked up, rose very quietly, and, with his pencil in his hand, came\ntowards us. With no nearer approach to familiarity than a bow, and no\nexpression of either much pleasure or any surprise, he said--\n\n\"I have seen your party for some time, Mr. Walton--since you crossed\nthe stream; but I would not break in upon your enjoyment with the\nsurprise which my presence here must cause you.\"\n\nI suppose I answered with a bow of some sort; for I could not say with\ntruth that I was glad to see him. He resumed, doubtless penetrating my\nsuspicion--\n\n\"I have been here almost a week. I certainly had no expectation of the\npleasure of seeing you.\"\n\nThis he said lightly, though no doubt with the object of clearing\nhimself. And I was, if not reassured, yet disarmed, by his statement;\nfor I could not believe, from what I knew of him, that he would be\nguilty of such a white lie as many a gentleman would have thought\njustifiable on the occasion. Still, I suppose he found me a little\nstiff, for presently he said--\n\n\"If you will excuse me, I will return to my work.\"\n\nThen I felt as if I must say something, for I had shown him no courtesy\nduring the interview.\n\n\"It must be a great pleasure to carry away such talismans with\nyou--capable of bringing the place back to your mental vision at any\nmoment.\"\n\n\"To tell the truth,\" he answered, \"I am a little ashamed of being found\nsketching here. Such bits of scenery are not of my favourite studies.\nBut it is a change.\"\n\n\"It is very beautiful here,\" I said, in a tone of contravention.\n\n\"It is very pretty,\" he answered--\"very lovely, if you will--not very\nbeautiful, I think. I would keep that word for things of larger regard.\nBeauty requires width, and here is none. I had almost said this place\nwas fanciful--the work of imagination in her play-hours, not in her\nlarge serious moods. It affects me like the face of a woman only\npretty, about which boys and guardsmen will rave--to me not very\ninteresting, save for its single lines.\"\n\n\"Why, then, do you sketch the place?\"\n\n\"A very fair question,\" he returned, with a smile. \"Just because it is\nsoothing from the very absence of beauty. I would far rather, however,\nif I were only following my taste, take the barest bit of the moor\nabove, with a streak of the cold sky over it. That gives room.\"\n\n\"You would like to put a skylark in it, wouldn't you?\"\n\n\"That I would if I knew how. I see you know what I mean. But the mere\nromantic I never had much taste for; though if you saw the kind of\npictures I try to paint, you would not wonder that I take sketches of\nplaces like this, while in my heart of hearts I do not care much for\nthem. They are so different, and just _therefore_ they are good for me.\nI am not working now; I am only playing.\"\n\n\"With a view to working better afterwards, I have no doubt,\" I answered.\n\n\"You are right there, I hope,\" was his quiet reply, as he turned and\nwalked back to the island.\n\nHe had not made a step towards joining us. He had only taken his hat\noff to the ladies. He was gaining ground upon me rapidly.\n\n\"Have you quarrelled with our new friend, Harry?\" said my wife, as I\ncame up to her.\n\nShe was sitting on a stone. Turner and Wynnie were farther off towards\nthe foot of the fall.\n\n\"Not in the least,\" I answered, slightly outraged--I did not at first\nknow why--by the question. \"He is only gone to his work, which is a\nduty belonging both to the first and second tables of the law.\"\n\n\"I hope you have asked him to come home to our early dinner, then,\" she\nrejoined.\n\n\"I have not. That remains for you to do. Come, I will take you to him.\"\n\nEthelwyn rose at once, put her hand in mine, and with a little help\nsoon reached the table-rock. When Percivale saw that she was really on\na visit to him on his island-perch, he rose, and when she came near\nenough, held out his hand. It was but a step, and she was beside him in\na moment. After the usual greetings, which on her part, although very\nquiet, like every motion and word of hers, were yet indubitably cordial\nand kind, she said, \"When you get back to London, Mr. Percivale, might\nI ask you to allow some friends of mine to call at your studio, and see\nyour paintings?\"\n\n\"With all my heart,\" answered Percivale. \"I must warn you, however,\nthat I have not much they will care to see. They will perhaps go away\nless happy than they entered. Not many people care to see my pictures\ntwice.\"\n\n\"I would not send you anyone I thought unworthy of the honour,\"\nanswered my wife.\n\nPercivale bowed--one of his stately, old-world bows, which I greatly\nliked.\n\n\"Any friend of yours--that is guarantee sufficient,\" he answered.\n\nThere was this peculiarity about any compliment that Percivale paid,\nthat you had not a doubt of its being genuine.\n\n\"Will you come and take an early dinner with us?\" said my wife. \"My\ninvalid daughter will be very pleased to see you.\"\n\n\"I will with pleasure,\" he answered, but in a tone of some hesitation,\nas he glanced from Ethelwyn to me.\n\n\"My wife speaks for us all,\" I said. \"It will give us all pleasure.\"\n\n\"I am only afraid it will break in upon your morning's work,\" remarked\nEthelwyn.\n\n\"O, that is not of the least consequence,\" he rejoined. \"In fact, as I\nhave just been saying to Mr. Walton, I am not working at all at\npresent. This is pure recreation.\"\n\nAs he spoke he turned towards his easel, and began hastily to bundle up\nhis things.\n\n\"We're not quite ready to go yet,\" said my wife, loath to leave the\nlovely spot. \"What a curious flat stone this is!\" she added.\n\n\"It is,\" said Percivale. \"The man to whom the place belongs, a worthy\nyeoman of the old school, says that this wider part of the channel must\nhave been the fish-pond, and that the portly monks stood on this stone\nand fished in the pond.\"\n\n\"Then was there a monastery here?\" I asked.\n\n\"Certainly. The ruins of the chapel, one of the smallest, are on the\ntop, just above the fall--rather a fearful place to look down from. I\nwonder you did not observe them as you came. They say it had a silver\nbell in the days of its glory, which now lies in a deep hole under the\nbasin, half-way between the top and bottom of the fall. But the old man\nsays that nothing will make him look, or let anyone else lift the huge\nstone; for he is much better pleased to believe that it may be there,\nthan he would be to know it was not there; for certainly, if it were\nfound, it would not be left there long.\"\n\nAs he spoke Percivale had continued packing his gear. He now led our\nparty up to the chapel, and thence down a few yards to the edge of the\nchasm, where the water fell headlong. I turned away with that fear of\nhigh places which is one of my many weaknesses; and when I turned again\ntowards the spot, there was Wynnie on the very edge, looking over into\nthe flash and tumult of the water below, but with a nervous grasp of\nthe hand of Percivale, who stood a little farther back.\n\nIn going home, the painter led us by an easier way out of the valley,\nleft his little easel and other things at a cottage, and then walked on\nin front between my wife and daughter, while Turner and I followed. He\nseemed quite at his ease with them, and plenty of talk and laughter\nrose on the way. I, however, was chiefly occupied with finding out\nTurner's impression of Connie's condition.\n\n\"She is certainly better,\" he said. \"I wonder you do not see it as\nplainly as I do. The pain is nearly gone from her spine, and she can\nmove herself a good deal more, I am certain, than she could when she\nleft. She asked me yesterday if she might not turn upon one side. 'Do\nyou think you could?' I asked.--'I think so,' she answered. 'At any\nrate, I have often a great inclination to try; only papa said I had\nbetter wait till you came.' I do think she might be allowed a little\nmore change of posture now.\"\n\n\"Then you have really some hope of her final recovery?\"\n\n\"I have _hope_ most certainly. But what is hope in me, you must not\nallow to become certainty in you. I am nearly sure, though, that she\ncan never be other than an invalid; that is, if I am to judge by what I\nknow of such cases.\"\n\n\"I am thankful for the hope,\" I answered. \"You need not be afraid of my\nturning upon you, should the hope never pass into sight. I should do so\nonly if I found that you had been treating me irrationally--inspiring\nme with hope which you knew to be false. The element of uncertainty is\nessential to hope, and for all true hope, even as hope, man has to be\nunspeakably thankful.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE WALK TO CHURCH.\n\n\nI was glad to be able to arrange with a young clergyman who was on a\nvisit to Kilkhaven, that he should take my duty for me the next Sunday,\nfor that was the only one Turner could spend with us. He and I and\nWynnie walked together two miles to church. It was a lovely morning,\nwith just a tint of autumn in the air. But even that tint, though all\nelse was of the summer, brought a shadow, I could see, on Wynnie's face.\n\n\"You said you would show me a poem of--Vaughan, I think you said, was\nthe name of the writer. I am too ignorant of our older literature,\"\nsaid Turner.\n\n\"I have only just made acquaintance with him,\" I answered. \"But I think\nI can repeat the poem. You shall judge whether it is not like\nWordsworth's Ode.\n\n  'Happy those early days, when I\n  Shined in my angel infancy;\n  Before I understood the place\n  Appointed for my second race,\n  Or taught my soul to fancy ought\n  But a white, celestial thought;\n  When yet I had not walked above\n  A mile or two from my first love,\n  And looking back, at that short space,\n  Could see a glimpse of his bright face;\n  When on some gilded cloud or flower\n  My gazing soul would dwell an hour,\n  And in those weaker glories spy\n  Some shadows of eternity;\n  Before I taught my tongue to wound\n  My conscience with a sinful sound,\n  But felt through all this fleshly dress\n  Bright shoots of everlastingness.\n  O how I long to travel back----'\"\n\nBut here I broke down, for I could not remember the rest with even\napproximate accuracy.\n\n\"When did this Vaughan live?\" asked Turner.\n\n\"He was born, I find, in 1621--five years, that is, after Shakspere's\ndeath, and when Milton was about thirteen years old. He lived to the\nage of seventy-three, but seems to have been little known. In politics\nhe was on the Cavalier side. By the way, he was a medical man, like\nyou, Turner--an M.D. We'll have a glance at the little book when we go\nback. Don't let me forget to show it you. A good many of your\nprofession have distinguished themselves in literature, and as profound\nbelievers too.\"\n\n\"I should have thought the profession had been chiefly remarkable for\nsuch as believe only in the evidence of the senses.\"\n\n\"As if having searched into the innermost recesses of the body, and not\nhaving found a soul, they considered themselves justified in declaring\nthere was none.\"\n\n\"Just so.\"\n\n\"Well, that is true of the commonplace amongst them, I do believe. You\nwill find the exceptions have been men of fine minds and\ncharacters--not such as he of whom Chaucer says,\n\n  'His study was but little on the Bible;'\n\nfor if you look at the rest of the description of the man, you will\nfind that he was in alliance with his apothecary for their mutual\nadvantage, that he was a money-loving man, and that some of Chaucer's\nkeenest irony is spent on him in an off-hand, quiet manner. Compare the\ntone in which he writes of the doctor of physic, with the profound\nreverence wherewith he bows himself before the poor country-parson.\"\n\nHere Wynnie spoke, though with some tremor in her voice.\n\n\"I never know, papa, what people mean by talking about childhood in\nthat way. I never seem to have been a bit younger and more innocent\nthan I am.\"\n\n\"Don't you remember a time, Wynnie, when the things about you--the sky\nand the earth, say--seemed to you much grander than they seem now? You\nare old enough to have lost something.\"\n\nShe thought for a little while before she answered.\n\n\"My dreams were, I know. I cannot say so of anything else.\"\n\nI in my turn had to be silent, for I did not see the true answer,\nthough I was sure there was one somewhere, if I could only find it. All\nI could reply, however, even after I had meditated a good while,\nwas--and perhaps, after all, it was the best thing I could have said:\n\n\"Then you must make a good use of your dreams, my child.\"\n\n\"Why, papa?\"\n\n\"Because they are the only memorials of childhood you have left.\"\n\n\"How am I to make a good use of them? I don't know what to do with my\nsilly old dreams.\"\n\nBut she gave a sigh as she spoke that testified her silly old dreams\nhad a charm for her still.\n\n\"If your dreams, my child, have ever testified to you of a condition of\nthings beyond that which you see around you, if they have been to you\nthe hints of a wonder and glory beyond what visits you now, you must\nnot call them silly, for they are just what the scents of Paradise\nborne on the air were to Adam and Eve as they delved and spun,\nreminding them that they must aspire yet again through labour into that\nchildhood of obedience which is the only paradise of humanity--into\nthat oneness with the will of the Father, which our race, our\nindividual selves, need just as much as if we had personally fallen\nwith Adam, and from which we fall every time we are disobedient to the\nvoice of the Father within our souls--to the conscience which is his\nmaking and his witness. If you have had no childhood, my Wynnie, yet\npermit your old father to say that everything I see in you indicates\nmore strongly in you than in most people that it is this childhood\nafter which you are blindly longing, without which you find that life\nis hardly to be endured. Thank God for your dreams, my child. In him\nyou will find that the essence of those dreams is fulfilled. We are\nsaved by hope, Turner. Never man hoped too much, or repented that he\nhad hoped. The plague is that we don't hope in God half enough. The\nvery fact that hope is strength, and strength the outcome, the body of\nlife, shows that hope is at one with life, with the very essence of\nwhat says 'I am'--yea, of what doubts and says 'Am I?' and therefore is\nreasonable to creatures who cannot even doubt save in that they live.\"\n\nBy this time, for I have, of course, only given the outlines, or rather\nsalient points, of our conversation, we had reached the church, where,\nif I found the sermon neither healing nor inspiring, I found the\nprayers full of hope and consolation. They at least are safe beyond\nhuman caprice, conceit, or incapacity. Upon them, too, the man who is\ndistressed at the thought of how little of the needful food he had been\nable to provide for his people, may fall back for comfort, in the\nthought that there at least was what ought to have done them good, what\nit was well worth their while to go to church for. But I did think they\nwere too long for any individual Christian soul, to sympathise with\nfrom beginning to end, that is, to respond to, like organ-tube to the\nfingered key, in every touch of the utterance of the general Christian\nsoul. For my reader must remember that it is one thing to read prayers\nand another to respond; and that I had had very few opportunities of\nbeing in the position of the latter duty. I had had suspicions before,\nand now they were confirmed--that the present crowding of services was\nmost inexpedient. And as I pondered on the matter, instead of trying to\ngo on praying after I had already uttered my soul, which is but a\nheathenish attempt after much speaking, I thought how our Lord had\ngiven us such a short prayer to pray, and I began to wonder when or how\nthe services came to be so heaped the one on the back of the other as\nthey now were. No doubt many people defended them; no doubt many people\ncould sit them out; but how many people could pray from beginning to\nend of them I On this point we had some talk as we went home. Wynnie\nwas opposed to any change of the present use on the ground that we\nshould only have the longer sermons.\n\n\"Still,\" I said, \"I do not think even that so great an evil. A\nsensitive conscience will not reproach itself so much for not listening\nto the whole of a sermon, as for kneeling in prayer and not praying. I\nthink myself, however, that after the prayers are over, everyone should\nbe at liberty to go out and leave the sermon unheard, if he pleases. I\nthink the result would be in the end a good one both for parson and\npeople. It would break through the deadness of this custom, this use\nand wont. Many a young mind is turned for life against the influences\nof church-going--one of the most sacred influences when _pure_, that\nis, un-mingled with non-essentials--just by the feeling that he _must_\ndo so and so, that he must go through a certain round of duty. It is a\nwilling service that the Lord wants; no forced devotions are either\nacceptable to him, or other than injurious to the worshipper, if such\nhe can be called.\"\n\nAfter an early dinner, I said to Turner--\"Come out with me, and we will\nread that poem of Vaughan's in which I broke down today.\"\n\n\"O, papa!\" said Connie, in a tone of injury, from the sofa.\n\n\"What is it, my dear?\" I asked.\n\n\"Wouldn't it be as good for us as for Mr. Turner?\"\n\n\"Quite, my dear. Well, I will keep it for the evening, and meantime Mr.\nTurner and I will go and see if we can find out anything about the\nchange in the church-service.\"\n\nFor I had thrown into my bag as I left the rectory a copy of _The\nClergyman's Vade Mecum_--a treatise occupied with the externals of the\nchurchman's relations--in which I soon came upon the following passage:\n\n\"So then it appears that the common practice of reading all three\ntogether, is an innovation, and if an ancient or infirm clergyman do\nread them at two or three several times, he is more strictly\nconformable; however, this is much better than to omit any part of the\nliturgy, or to read all three offices into one, as is now commonly\ndone, without any pause or distinction.\"\n\n\"On the part of the clergyman, you see, Turner,\" I said, when I had\nfinished reading the whole passage to him. \"There is no care taken of\nthe delicate women of the congregation, but only of the ancient or\ninfirm clergyman. And the logic, to say the least, is rather queer: is\nit only in virtue of his antiquity and infirmity that he is to be\nupheld in being more strictly conformable? The writer's honesty has its\nheels trodden upon by the fear of giving offence. Nevertheless there\nshould perhaps be a certain slowness to admit change, even back to a\nmore ancient form.\"\n\n\"I don't know that I can quite agree with you there,\" said Turner. \"If\nthe form is better, no one should hesitate to advocate the change. If\nit is worse, then slowness is not sufficient--utter obstinacy is the\nright condition.\"\n\n\"You are right, Turner. For the right must be the rule, and where _the\nright_ is beyond our understanding or our reach, then _the better_, as\nindeed not only right compared with the other, but the sole ascent\ntowards the right.\"\n\nIn the evening I took Henry Vaughan's poems into the common\nsitting-room, and to Connie's great delight read the whole of the\nlovely, though unequal little poem, called \"The Retreat,\" in recalling\nwhich I had failed in the morning. She was especially delighted with\nthe \"white celestial thought,\" and the \"bright shoots of\neverlastingness.\" Then I gave a few lines from another yet more unequal\npoem, worthy in themselves of the best of the other. I quote the first\nstrophe entire:\n\n  CHILDHOOD.\n\n  \"I cannot reach it; and my striving eye\n  Dazzles at it, as at eternity.\n  Were now that chronicle alive,\n  Those white designs which children drive,\n  And the thoughts of each harmless hour,\n  With their content too in my power,\n  Quickly would I make my path even,\n  And by mere playing go to heaven.\n\n  *     *     *     *     *\n\n  And yet the practice worldlings call\n  Business and weighty action all,\n  Checking the poor child for his play,\n  But gravely cast themselves away.\n\n  *     *     *     *     *\n\n  An age of mysteries! which he\n  Must live twice that would God's face see;\n  Which angels guard, and with it play,\n  Angels! which foul men drive away.\n  How do I study now, and scan\n  Thee more than ere I studied man,\n  And only see through a long night\n  Thy edges and thy bordering light I\n  O for thy centre and midday!\n  For sure that is the _narrow way!_\"\n\n\"For of such is the kingdom of heaven.\" said my wife softly, as I\nclosed the book.\n\n\"May I have the book, papa?\" said Connie, holding out her thin white\ncloud of a hand to take it.\n\n\"Certainly, my child. And if Wynnie would read it with you, she will\nfeel more of the truth of what Mr. Percivale was saying to her about\nfinish. Here are the finest, grandest thoughts, set forth sometimes\nwith such carelessness, at least such lack of neatness, that, instead\nof their falling on the mind with all their power of loveliness, they\nare like a beautiful face disfigured with patches, and, what is worse,\nthey put the mind out of the right, quiet, unquestioning, open mood,\nwhich is the only fit one for the reception of such true things as are\nembodied in the poems. But they are too beautiful after all to be more\nthan a little spoiled by such a lack of the finish with which Art ends\noff all her labours. A gentleman, however, thinks it of no little\nimportance to have his nails nice as well as his face and his shirt.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE OLD CASTLE.\n\n\nThe place Turner had chosen suited us all so well, that after attending\nto my duties on the two following Sundays at Kilkhaven, I returned on\nthe Monday or Tuesday to the farmhouse. But Turner left us in the\nmiddle of the second week, for he could not be longer absent from his\ncharge at home, and we missed him much. It was some days before Connie\nwas quite as cheerful again as usual. I do not mean that she was in the\nleast gloomy--that she never was; she was only a little less merry. But\nwhether it was that Turner had opened our eyes, or that she had visibly\nimproved since he allowed her to make a little change in her\nposture--certainly she appeared to us to have made considerable\nprogress, and every now and then we were discovering some little proof\nof the fact. One evening, while we were still at the farm, she startled\nus by calling out suddenly,--\n\n\"Papa, papa! I moved my big toe! I did indeed.\"\n\nWe were all about her in a moment. But I saw that she was excited, and\nfearing a reaction I sought to calm her.\n\n\"But, my dear,\" I said, as quietly as I could, \"you are probably still\naware that you are possessed of two big toes: which of them are we to\ncongratulate on this first stride in the march of improvement?\"\n\nShe broke out in the merriest laugh. A pause followed in which her face\nwore a puzzled expression. Then she said all at once, \"Papa, it is very\nodd, but I can't tell which of them,\" and burst into tears. I was\nafraid that I had done more harm than good.\n\n\"It is not of the slightest consequence, my child,\" I said. \"You have\nhad so little communication with the twins of late, that it is no\nwonder you should not be able to tell the one from the other.\"\n\nShe smiled again through her sobs, but was silent, with shining face,\nfor the rest of the evening. Our hopes took a fresh start, but we heard\nno more from her of her power over her big toe. As often as I inquired\nshe said she was afraid she had made a mistake, for she had not had\nanother hint of its existence. Still I thought it could not have been a\nfancy, and I would cleave to my belief in the good sign.\n\nPercivale called to see us several times, but always appeared anxious\nnot to intrude more of his society upon us than might be agreeable. He\ngrew in my regard, however; and at length I asked him if he would\nassist me in another surprise which I meditated for my companions, and\nthis time for Connie as well, and which I hoped would prevent the\npainful influences of the sight of the sea from returning upon them\nwhen they went back to Kilkhaven: they must see the sea from a quite\ndifferent shore first. In a word I would take them to Tintagel, of the\nnear position of which they were not aware, although in some of our\nwalks we had seen the ocean in the distance. An early day was fixed for\ncarrying out our project, and I proceeded to get everything ready. The\nonly difficulty was to find a carriage in the neighbourhood suitable\nfor receiving Connie's litter. In this, however, I at length succeeded,\nand on the morning of a glorious day of blue and gold, we set out for\nthe little village of Trevenna, now far better known than at the time\nof which I write. Connie had been out every day since she came, now in\none part of the fields, now in another, enjoying the expanse of earth\nand sky, but she had had no drive, and consequently had seen no variety\nof scenery. Therefore, believing she was now thoroughly able to bear\nit, I quite reckoned of the good she would get from the inevitable\nexcitement. We resolved, however, after finding how much she enjoyed\nthe few miles' drive, that we would not demand more, of her strength\nthat day, and therefore put up at the little inn, where, after ordering\ndinner, Percivale and I left the ladies, and sallied forth to\nreconnoitre.\n\nWe walked through the village and down the valley beyond, sloping\nsteeply between hills towards the sea, the opening closed at the end by\nthe blue of the ocean below and the more ethereal blue of the sky\nabove. But when we reached the mouth of the valley we found that we\nwere not yet on the shore, for a precipice lay between us and the\nlittle beach below. On the left a great peninsula of rock stood out\ninto the sea, upon which rose the ruins of the keep of Tintagel, while\nbehind on the mainland stood the ruins of the castle itself, connected\nwith the other only by a narrow isthmus. We had read that this\npeninsula had once been an island, and that the two parts of the castle\nwere formerly connected by a drawbridge. Looking up at the great gap\nwhich now divided the two portions, it seemed at first impossible to\nbelieve that they had ever been thus united; but a little reflection\ncleared up the mystery.\n\nThe fact was that the isthmus, of half the height of the two parts\nconnected by it, had been formed entirely by the fall of portions of\nthe rock and soil on each side into the narrow dividing space, through\nwhich the waters of the Atlantic had been wont to sweep. And now the\nfragments of walls stood on the very verge of the precipice, and showed\nthat large portions of the castle itself had fallen into the gulf\nbetween. We turned to the left along the edge of the rock, and so by a\nnarrow path reached and crossed to the other side of the isthmus. We\nthen found that the path led to the foot of the rock, formerly island,\nof the keep, and thence in a zigzag up the face of it to the top. We\nfollowed it, and after a great climb reached a door in a modern\nbattlement. Entering, we found ourselves amidst grass, and ruins\nhaggard with age. We turned and surveyed the path by which we had come.\nIt was steep and somewhat difficult. But the outlook was glorious. It\nwas indeed one of God's mounts of vision upon which we stood. The\nthought, \"O that Connie could see this!\" was swelling in my heart, when\nPercivale broke the silence--not with any remark on the glory around\nus, but with the commonplace question--\n\n\"You haven't got your man with you, I think, Mr. Walton?\"\n\n\"No,\" I answered; \"we thought it better to leave him to look after the\nboys.\"\n\nHe was silent for a few minutes, while I gazed in delight.\n\n\"Don't you think,\" he said, \"it would be possible to bring Miss\nConstance up here?\"\n\nI almost started at the idea, and had not replied before he resumed:\n\n\"It would be something for her to recur to with delight all the rest of\nher life.\"\n\n\"It would indeed. But it is impossible.\"\n\n\"I do not think so--if you would allow me the honour to assist you. I\nthink we could do it perfectly between us.\"\n\nI was again silent for a while. Looking down on the way we had come, it\nseemed an almost dreadful undertaking. Percivale spoke again.\n\n\"As we shall come here to-morrow, we need not explore the place now.\nShall we go down at once and observe the whole path, with a view to the\npracticability of carrying her up?\"\n\n\"There can be no objection to that,\" I answered, as a little hope, and\ncourage with it, began to dawn in my heart. \"But you must allow it does\nnot look very practicable.\"\n\n\"Perhaps it would seem more so to you, if you had come up with the idea\nin your head all the way, as I did. Any path seems more difficult in\nlooking back than at the time when the difficulties themselves have to\nbe met and overcome.\"\n\n\"Yes, but then you must remember that we have to take the way back\nwhether we will or no, if we once take the way forward.\"\n\n\"True; and now I will go down with the descent in my head as well as\nunder my feet.\"\n\n\"Well, there can be no harm in reconnoitring it at least. Let us go.\"\n\n\"You know we can rest almost as often as we please,\" said Percivale,\nand turned to lead the way.\n\nIt certainly was steep, and required care even in our own descent; but\nfor a man who had climbed mountains, as I had done in my youth, it\ncould hardly be called difficult even in middle age. By the time we had\ngot again into the valley road I was all but convinced of the\npracticability of the proposal. I was a little vexed, however, I must\nconfess, that a stranger should have thought of giving such a pleasure\nto Connie, when the bare wish that she might have enjoyed it had alone\narisen in my mind. I comforted myself with the reflection that this was\none of the ways in which we were to be weaned from the world and knit\nthe faster to our fellows. For even the middle-aged, in the decay of\ntheir daring, must look for the fresh thought and the fresh impulse to\nthe youth which follows at their heels in the march of life. Their part\nis to _will_ the relation and the obligation, and so, by love to and\nfaith in the young, keep themselves in the line along which the\nelectric current flows, till at length they too shall once more be\nyoung and daring in the strength of the Lord. A man must always seek to\nrise above his moods and feelings, to let them move within him, but not\nallow them to storm or gloom around him. By the time we reached home we\nhad agreed to make the attempt, and to judge by the path to the foot of\nthe rock, which was difficult in parts, whether we should be likely to\nsucceed, without danger, in attempting the rest of the way and the\nfollowing descent. As soon as we had arrived at this conclusion, I felt\nso happy in the prospect that I grew quite merry, especially after we\nhad further agreed that, both for the sake of her nerves and for the\nsake of the lordly surprise, we should bind Connie's eyes so that she\nshould see nothing till we had placed her in a certain position,\nconcerning the preferableness of which we were not of two minds.\n\n\"What mischief have you two been about?\" said my wife, as we entered\nour room in the inn, where the cloth was already laid for dinner. \"You\nlook just like two schoolboys that have been laying some plot, and can\nhardly hold their tongues about it.\"\n\n\"We have been enjoying our little walk amazingly,\" I answered. \"So much\nso, that we mean to set out for another the moment dinner is over.\"\n\n\"I hope you will take Wynnie with you then.\"\n\n\"Or you, my love,\" I returned.\n\n\"No; I will stay with Connie.\"\n\n\"Very well. You, and Connie too, shall go out to-morrow, for we have\nfound a place we want to take you to. And, indeed, I believe it was our\nanticipation of the pleasure you and she would have in the view that\nmade us so merry when you accused us of plotting mischief.\"\n\nMy wife replied only with a loving look, and dinner appearing at this\nmoment, we sat down a happy party.\n\nWhen that was over--and a very good dinner it was, just what I like,\nhomely in material but admirable in cooking--Wynnie and Percivale and I\nset out again. For as Percivale and I came back in the morning we had\nseen the church standing far aloft and aloof on the other side of the\nlittle valley, and we wanted to go to it. It was rather a steep climb,\nand Wynnie accepted Percivale's offered arm. I led the way, therefore,\nand left them to follow--not so far in the rear, however, but that I\ncould take a share in the conversation. It was some little time before\nany arose, and it was Wynnie who led the way into it.\n\n\"What kind of things do you like best to paint, Mr. Percivale?\" she\nasked.\n\nHe hesitated for several seconds, which between a question and an\nanswer look so long, that most people would call them minutes.\n\n\"I would rather you should see some of my pictures--I should prefer\nthat to answering your question,\" he said, at length.\n\n\"But I have seen some of your pictures,\" she returned.\n\n\"Pardon me. Indeed you have not, Miss Walton.\"\n\n\"At least I have seen some of your sketches and studies.\"\n\n\"Some of my sketches--none of my studies.\"\n\n\"But you make use of your sketches for your pictures, do you not?\"\n\n\"Never of such as you have seen. They are only a slight antidote to my\npictures.\"\n\n\"I cannot understand you.\"\n\n\"I do not wonder at that. But I would rather, I repeat, say nothing\nabout my pictures till you see some of them.\"\n\n\"But how am I to have that pleasure, then?\"\n\n\"You go to London sometimes, do you not?\"\n\n\"Very rarely. More rarely still when the Royal Academy is open.\"\n\n\"That does not matter much. My pictures are seldom to be found there.\"\n\n\"Do you not care to send them there?\"\n\n\"I send one, at least, every year. But they are rarely accepted.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nThis was a very improper question, I thought; but if Wynnie had thought\nso she would not have put it. He hesitated a little before he replied--\n\n\"It is hardly for me to say why,\" he answered; \"but I cannot wonder\nmuch at it, considering the subjects I choose.--But I daresay,\" he\nadded, in a lighter tone, \"after all, that has little to do with it,\nand there is something about the things themselves that precludes a\nfavourable judgment. I avoid thinking about it. A man ought to try to\nlook at his own work as if it were none of his, but not as with the\neyes of other people. That is an impossibility, and the attempt a\nbewilderment. It is with his own eyes he must look, with his own\njudgment he must judge. The only effort is to get it set far away\nenough from him to be able to use his own eyes and his own judgment\nupon it.\"\n\n\"I think I see what you mean. A man has but his own eyes and his own\njudgment. To look with those of other people is but a fancy.\"\n\n\"Quite so. You understand me quite.\"\n\nHe said no more in explanation of his rejection by the Academy. Till we\nreached the church, nothing more of significance passed between them.\n\nWhat a waste, bare churchyard that was! It had two or three lych-gates,\nbut they had no roofs. They were just small enclosures, with the low\nstone tables, to rest the living from the weight of the dead, while the\nclergyman, as the keeper of heaven's wardrobe, came forth to receive\nthe garment they restored--to be laid aside as having ended its work,\nas having been worn done in the winds, and rains, and labours of the\nworld. Not a tree stood in that churchyard. Hank grass was the sole\ncovering of the soil heaved up with the dead beneath. What blasts from\nthe awful space of the sea must rush athwart the undefended garden! The\nancient church stood in the midst, with its low, strong, square tower,\nand its long, narrow nave, the ridge bowed with age, like the back of a\nhorse worn out in the service of man, and its little homely chancel,\nlike a small cottage that had leaned up against its end for shelter\nfrom the western blasts. It was locked, and we could not enter. But of\nall world-worn, sad-looking churches, that one--sad, even in the\nsunset--was the dreariest I had ever beheld. Surely, it needed the\ngospel of the resurrection fervently preached therein, to keep it from\nsinking to the dust with dismay and weariness. Such a soul alone could\nkeep it from vanishing utterly of dismal old age. Near it was one huge\nmound of grass-grown rubbish, looking like the grave where some former\nchurch of the dead had been buried, when it could stand erect no longer\nbefore the onsets of Atlantic winds. I walked round and round it,\ngathering its architecture, and peeping in at every window I could\nreach. Suddenly I was aware that I was alone. Returning to the other\nside, I found that Percivale was seated on the churchyard wall, next\nthe sea--it would have been less dismal had it stood immediately on the\ncliffs, but they were at some little distance beyond bare downs and\nrough stone walls; he was sketching the place, and Wynnie stood beside\nhim, looking over his shoulder. I did not interrupt him, but walked\namong the graves, reading the poor memorials of the dead, and wondering\nhow many of the words of laudation that were inscribed on their tombs\nwere spoken of them while they were yet alive. Yet, surely, in the\nlives of those to whom they applied the least, there had been moments\nwhen the true nature, the nature God had given them, broke forth in\nfaith and tenderness, and would have justified the words inscribed on\ntheir gravestones! I was yet wandering and reading, and stumbling over\nthe mounds, when my companions joined me, and, without a word, we\nwalked out of the churchyard. We were nearly home before one of us\nspoke.\n\n\"That church is oppressive,\" said Percivale. \"It looks like a great\nsepulchre, a place built only for the dead--the church of the dead.\"\n\n\"It is only that it partakes with the living,\" I returned; \"suffers\nwith them the buffetings of life, outlasts them, but shows, like the\nshield of the Red-Cross Knight, the 'old dints of deep wounds.'\"\n\n\"Still, is it not a dreary place to choose for a church to stand in?\"\n\n\"The church must stand everywhere. There is no region into which it\nmust not, ought not to enter. If it refuses any earthly spot, it is\nshrinking from its calling. Here this one stands for the sea as for the\nland, high-uplifted, looking out over the waters as a sign of the haven\nfrom all storms, the rest in God. And down beneath in its storehouse\nlie the bodies of men--you saw the grave of some of them on the other\nside--flung ashore from the gulfing sea. It may be a weakness, but one\nwould rather have the bones of his friend laid in the still Sabbath of\nthe churchyard earth, than sweeping and swaying about as Milton\nimagines the bones of his friend Edward King, in that wonderful\n'Lycidas.'\" Then I told them the conversation I had had with the sexton\nat Kilkhaven. \"But,\" I went on, \"these fancies are only the ghostly\nmists that hang about the eastern hills before the sun rises. We shall\nlook down on all that with a smile by and by; for the Lord tells us\nthat if we believe in him we shall never die.\"\n\nBy this time we were back once more at the inn. We gave Connie a\ndescription of what we had seen.\n\n\"What a brave old church!\" said Connie.\n\nThe next day I awoke very early, full of the anticipated attempt. I got\nup at once, found the weather most promising, and proceeded first of\nall to have a look at Connie's litter, and see that it was quite sound.\nSatisfied of this, I rejoiced in the contemplation of its lightness and\nstrength.\n\nAfter breakfast I went to Connie's room, and told her that Mr.\nPercivale and I had devised a treat for her. Her face shone at once.\n\n\"But we want to do it our own way.\"\n\n\"Of course, papa,\" she answered.\n\n\"Will you let us tie your eyes up?\"\n\n\"Yes; and my ears and my hands too. It would be no good tying my feet,\nwhen I don't know one big toe from the other.\"\n\nAnd she laughed merrily.\n\n\"We'll try to keep up the talk all the way, so that you sha'n't weary\nof the journey.\"\n\n\"You're going to carry me somewhere with my eyes tied up. O! how jolly!\nAnd then I shall see something all at once! Jolly! jolly!--Getting\ntired!\" she repeated. \"Even the wind on my face would be pleasure\nenough for half a day. I sha'n't get tired so soon as you will--you\ndear, kind papa! I am afraid I shall be dreadfully heavy. But I sha'n't\njerk your arms much. I will lie so still!\"\n\n\"And you won't mind letting Mr. Percivale help me to carry you?\"\n\n\"No. Why should I, if he doesn't mind it? He looks strong enough; and I\nam sure he is nice, and won't think me heavier than I am.\"\n\n\"Very well, then. I will send mamma and Wynnie to dress you at once;\nand we shall set out as soon as you are ready.\"\n\nShe clapped her hands with delight, then caught me round the neck and\ngave me one of my own kisses as she called the best she had, and began\nto call as loud as she could on her mamma and Wynnie to come and dress\nher.\n\nIt was indeed a glorious morning. The wind came in little wafts, like\nveins of cool white silver amid the great, warm, yellow gold of the\nsunshine. The sea lay before us a mound of blue closing up the end of\nthe valley, as if overpowered into quietness by the lordliness of the\nsun overhead; and the hills between which we went lay like great sheep,\nwith green wool, basking in the blissful heat. The gleam from the\nwaters came up the pass; the grand castle crowned the left-hand steep,\nseeming to warm its old bones, like the ruins of some awful megatherium\nin the lighted air; one white sail sped like a glad thought across the\nspandrel of the sea; the shadows of the rocks lay over our path, like\ntransient, cool, benignant deaths, through which we had to pass again\nand again to yet higher glory beyond; and one lark was somewhere in\nwhose little breast the whole world was reflected as in the convex\nmirror of a dewdrop, where it swelled so that he could not hold it, but\nlet it out again through his throat, metamorphosed into music, which he\npoured forth over all as the libation on the outspread altar of worship.\n\nAnd of all this we talked to Connie as we went; and every now and then\nshe would clap her hands gently in the fulness of her delight, although\nshe beheld the splendour only as with her ears, or from the kisses of\nthe wind on her cheeks. But she seemed, since her accident, to have\napproached that condition which Milton represents Samson as longing for\nin his blindness, wherein the sight should be\n\n  \"through all parts diffused,\n  That she might look at will through every pore.\"\n\nI had, however, arranged with the rest of the company, that the moment\nwe reached the cliff over the shore, and turned to the left to cross\nthe isthmus, the conversation should no longer be about the things\naround us; and especially I warned my wife and Wynnie that no\nexclamation of surprise or delight should break from them before\nConnie's eyes were uncovered. I had said nothing to either of them\nabout the difficulties of the way, that, seeing us take them as\nordinary things, they might take them so too, and not be uneasy.\n\nWe never stopped till we reached the foot of the peninsula, _n\u00e9e_\nisland, upon which the keep of Tintagel stands. There we set Connie\ndown, to take breath and ease our arms before we began the arduous way.\n\n\"Now, now!\" said Connie eagerly, lifting her hands in the belief that\nwe were on the point of undoing the bandage from her eyes.\n\n\"No, no, my love, not yet,\" I said, and she lay still again, only she\nlooked more eager than before.\n\n\"I am afraid I have tired out you and Mr. Percivale, papa,\" she said.\n\nPercivale laughed so amusedly, that she rejoined roguishly--\n\n\"O yes! I know every gentleman is a Hercules--at least, he chooses to\nbe considered one! But, notwithstanding my firm faith in the fact, I\nhave a little womanly conscience left that is hard to hoodwink.\"\n\nThere was a speech for my wee Connie to make! The best answer and the\nbest revenge was to lift her and go on. This we did, trying as well as\nwe might to prevent the difference of level between us from tilting the\nlitter too much for her comfort.\n\n\"Where _are_ you going, papa?\" she said once, but without a sign of\nfear in her voice, as a little slip I made lowered my end of the litter\nsuddenly. \"You must be going up a steep place. Don't hurt yourself,\ndear papa.\"\n\nWe had changed our positions, and were now carrying her, head foremost,\nup the hill. Percivale led, and I followed. Now I could see every\nchange on her lovely face, and it made me strong to endure; for I did\nfind it hard work, I confess, to get to the top. It lay like a little\nsunny pool, on which all the cloudy thoughts that moved in some unseen\nheaven cast exquisitely delicate changes of light and shade as they\nfloated over it. Percivale strode on as if he bore a feather behind\nhim. I did wish we were at the top, for my arms began to feel like\niron-cables, stiff and stark--only I was afraid of my fingers giving\nway. My heart was beating uncomfortably too. But Percivale, I felt\nalmost inclined to quarrel with him before it was over, he strode on so\nunconcernedly, turning every corner of the zigzag where I expected him\nto propose a halt, and striding on again, as if there could be no\npretence for any change of procedure. But I held out, strengthened by\nthe play on my daughter's face, delicate as the play on an opal--one\nthat inclines more to the milk than the fire.\n\nWhen at length we turned in through the gothic door in the battlemented\nwall, and set our lovely burden down upon the grass--\n\n\"Percivale,\" I said, forgetting the proprieties in the affected humour\nof being angry with him, so glad was I that we had her at length on the\nmount of glory, \"why did you go on walking like a castle, and pay no\nheed to me?\"\n\n\"You didn't speak, did you, Mr. Walton,\" he returned, with just a\nshadow of solicitude in the question.\n\n\"No. Of course not,\" I rejoined.\n\n\"O, then,\" he returned, in a tone of relief, \"how could I? You were my\ncaptain: how could I give in so long as you were holding on?\"\n\nI am afraid the _Percivale_, without the _Mister_, came again and again\nafter this, though I pulled myself up for it as often as I caught\nmyself.\n\n\"Now, papa!\" said Connie from the grass.\n\n\"Not yet, my dear. Wait till your mamma and Wynnie come. Let us go and\nmeet them, Mr. Percivale.\"\n\n\"O yes, do, papa. Leave me alone here without knowing where I am or\nwhat kind of a place I am in. I should like to know how it feels. I\nhave never been alone in all my life.\"\n\n\"Very well, my dear,\" I said; and Percivale and I left her alone in the\nruins.\n\nWe found Ethelwyn toiling up with Wynnie helping her all she could.\n\n\"Dear Harry,\" she said, \"how could you think of bringing Connie up such\nan awful place? I wonder you dared to do it.\"\n\n\"It's done you see, wife,\" I answered, \"thanks to Mr. Percivale, who\nhas nearly torn the breath out of me. But now we must get you up, and\nyou will say that to see Connie's delight, not to mention your own, is\nquite wages for the labour.\"\n\n\"Isn't she afraid to find herself so high up?\"\n\n\"She knows nothing about it yet.\"\n\n\"You do not mean you have left the child there with her eyes tied up.\"\n\n\"To be sure. We could not uncover them before you came. It would spoil\nhalf the pleasure.\"\n\n\"Do let us make haste then. It is surely dangerous to leave her so.\"\n\n\"Not in the least; but she must be getting tired of the darkness. Take\nmy arm now.\"\n\n\"Don't you think Mrs. Walton had better take my arm,\" said Percivale,\n\"and then you can put your hand on her back, and help her a little that\nway.\"\n\nWe tried the plan, found it a good one, and soon reached the top. The\nmoment our eyes fell upon Connie, we could see that she had found the\nplace neither fearful nor lonely. The sweetest ghost of a smile hovered\non her pale face, which shone in the shadow of the old gateway of the\nkeep, with light from within her own sunny soul. She lay in such still\nexpectation, that you would have thought she had just fallen asleep\nafter receiving an answer to a prayer, reminding me of a little-known\nsonnet of Wordsworth's, in which he describes as the type of Death--\n\n  \"the face of one\n  Sleeping alone within a mossy cave\n  With her face up to heaven; that seemed to have\n  Pleasing remembrance of a thought foregone;\n  A lovely beauty in a summer grave.\"\n\n[Footnote: _Miscellaneous Sonnets_, part i.28.]\n\nBut she heard our steps, and her face awoke.\n\n\"Is mamma come?\"\n\n\"Yes, my darling. I am here,\" said her mother. \"How do you feel?\"\n\n\"Perfectly well, mamma, thank you. Now, papa!\"\n\n\"One moment more, my love. Now, Percivale.\"\n\nWe carried her to the spot we had agreed upon, and while we held her a\nlittle inclined that she might see the better, her mother undid the\nbandage from her head.\n\n\"Hold your hands over her eyes, a little way from them,\" I said to her\nas she untied the handkerchief, \"that the light may reach them by\ndegrees, and not blind her.\"\n\nEthelwyn did so for a few moments, then removed them. Still for a\nmoment or two more, it was plain from her look of utter bewilderment,\nthat all was a confused mass of light and colour. Then she gave a\nlittle cry, and to my astonishment, almost fear, half rose to a sitting\nposture. One moment more and she laid herself gently back, and wept and\nsobbed.\n\nAnd now I may admit my reader to a share, though at best but a dim\nreflex in my poor words, of the glory that made her weep.\n\nThrough the gothic-arched door in the battlemented wall, which stood on\nthe very edge of the precipitous descent, so that nothing of the\ndescent was seen, and the door was as a framework to the picture,\nConnie saw a great gulf at her feet, full to the brim of a splendour of\nlight and colour. Before her rose the great ruins of rock and castle,\nthe ruin of rock with castle; rough stone below, clear green happy\ngrass above, even to the verge of the abrupt and awful precipice; over\nit the summer sky so clear that it must have been clarified by sorrow\nand thought; at the foot of the rocks, hundreds of feet below, the blue\nwaters breaking in white upon the dark gray sands; all full of the\ngladness of the sun overflowing in speechless delight, and reflected in\nfresh gladness from stone and water and flower, like new springs of\nlight rippling forth from the earth itself to swell the universal tide\nof glory--all this seen through the narrow gothic archway of a door in\na wall--up--down--on either hand. But the main marvel was the look\nsheer below into the abyss full of light and air and colour, its sides\nlined with rock and grass, and its bottom lined with blue ripples and\nsand. Was it any wonder that my Connie should cry aloud when the vision\ndawned upon her, and then weep to ease a heart ready to burst with\ndelight? \"O Lord God,\" I said, almost involuntarily, \"thou art very\nrich. Thou art the one poet, the one maker. We worship thee. Make but\nour souls as full of glory in thy sight as this chasm is to our eyes\nglorious with the forms which thou hast cloven and carved out of\nnothingness, and we shall be worthy to worship thee, O Lord, our God.\"\nFor I was carried beyond myself with delight, and with sympathy with\nConnie's delight and with the calm worship of gladness in my wife's\ncountenance. But when my eye fell on Wynnie, I saw a trouble mingled\nwith her admiration, a self-accusation, I think, that she did not and\ncould not enjoy it more; and when I turned from her, there were the\neyes of Percivale fixed on me in wonderment; and for the moment I felt\nas David must have felt when, in his dance of undignified delight that\nhe had got the ark home again, he saw the contemptuous eyes of Michal\nfixed on him from the window. But I could not leave it so. I said to\nhim--coldly I daresay:\n\n\"Excuse me, Mr. Percivale; I forgot for the moment that I was not\namongst my own family.\"\n\nPercivale took his hat off.\n\n\"Forgive my seeming rudeness, Mr. Walton. I was half-envying and\nhalf-wondering. You would not be surprised at my unconscious behaviour\nif you had seen as much of the wrong side of the stuff as I have seen\nin London.\"\n\nI had some idea of what he meant; but this was no time to enter upon a\ndiscussion. I could only say--\n\n\"My heart was full, Mr. Percivale, and I let it overflow.\"\n\n\"Let me at least share in its overflow,\" he rejoined, and nothing more\npassed on the subject.\n\nFor the next ten minutes we stood in absolute silence. We had set\nConnie down on the grass again, but propped up so that she could see\nthrough the doorway. And she lay in still ecstasy. But there was more\nto be seen ere we descended. There was the rest of the little islet\nwith its crop of down-grass, on which the horses of all the knights of\nKing Arthur's round table might have fed for a week--yes, for a\nfortnight, without, by any means, encountering the short commons of\nwar. There were the ruins of the castle so built of plates of the\nlaminated stone of the rocks on which they stood, and so woven in or\nmore properly incorporated with the outstanding rocks themselves, that\nin some parts I found it impossible to tell which was building and\nwhich was rock--the walls themselves seeming like a growth out of the\nisland itself, so perfectly were they in harmony with, and in kind the\nsame as, the natural ground upon which and of which they had been\nconstructed. And this would seem to me to be the perfection of\narchitecture. The work of man's hands should be so in harmony with the\nplace where it stands that it must look as if it had grown out of the\nsoil. But the walls were in some parts so thin that one wondered how\nthey could have stood so long. They must have been built before the\ntime of any formidable artillery--enough only for defence from arrows.\nBut then the island was nowhere commanded, and its own steep cliffs\nwould be more easily defended than any erections upon it. Clearly the\nintention was that no enemy should thereon find rest for the sole of\nhis foot; for if he was able to land, farewell to the notion of any\nfurther defence. Then there was outside the walls the little\nchapel--such a tiny chapel! of which little more than the foundation\nremained, with the ruins of the altar still standing, and outside the\nchancel, nestling by its wall, a coffin hollowed in the rock; then the\nchurchyard a little way off full of graves, which, I presume, would\nhave vanished long ago were it not that the very graves were founded on\nthe rock. There still stood old worn-out headstones of thin slate, but\nno memorials were left. Then there was the fragment of arched passage\nunderground laid open to the air in the centre of the islet; and last,\nand grandest of all, the awful edges of the rock, broken by time, and\ncarved by the winds and the waters into grotesque shapes and\nthreatening forms. Over all the surface of the islet we carried Connie,\nand from three sides of this sea-fortress she looked abroad over \"the\nAtlantic's level powers.\" It blew a gentle ethereal breeze on the top;\nbut had there been such a wind as I have since stood against on that\nfearful citadel of nature, I should have been in terror lest we should\nall be blown, into the deep. Over the edge she peeped at the strange\nfantastic needle-rock, and round the corner she peeped to see Wynnie\nand her mother seated in what they call Arthur's chair--a canopied\nhollow wrought in the plated rock by the mightiest of all solvents--air\nand water; till at length it was time that we should take our leave of\nthe few sheep that fed over the place, and issuing by the gothic door,\nwind away down the dangerous path to the safe ground below.\n\n\"I think we had better tie up your eyes again, Connie?\" I said.\n\n\"Why?\" she asked, in wonderment. \"There's nothing higher yet, is there?\"\n\n\"No, my love. If there were, you would hardly be able for it to-day, I\nshould think. It is only to keep you from being frightened at the\nprecipice as you go down.\"\n\n\"But I sha'n't be frightened, papa.\"\n\n\"How do you know that?\"\n\n\"Because you are going to carry me.\"\n\n\"But what if I should slip? I might, you know.\"\n\n\"I don't mind. I sha'n't mind being tumbled over the precipice, if you\ndo it. I sha'n't be to blame, and I'm sure you won't, papa.\" Then she\ndrew my head down and whispered in my ear, \"If I get as much more by\nbeing killed, as I have got by having my poor back hurt, I'm sure it\nwill be well worth it.\"\n\nI tried to smile a reply, for I could not speak one. We took her just\nas she was, and with some tremor on my part, but not a single slip, we\nbore her down the winding path, her face showing all the time that,\ninstead of being afraid, she was in a state of ecstatic delight. My\nwife, I could see, was nervous, however; and she breathed a sigh of\nrelief when we were once more at the foot.\n\n\"Well, I'm glad that's over,\" she said.\n\n\"So am I,\" I returned, as we set down the litter.\n\n\"Poor papa! I've pulled his arms to pieces! and Mr. Percivale's too!\"\n\nPercivale answered first by taking up a huge piece of stone. Then\nturning towards her, he said, \"Look here, Miss Connie;\" and flung it\nfar out from the isthmus on which we were resting. We heard it strike\non a rock below, and then fall in a shower of fragments. \"My arms are\nall right, you see,\" he said.\n\nMeantime, Wynnie had scrambled down to the shore, where we had not yet\nbeen. In a few minutes, we still lingering, she came running back to us\nout of breath with the news:\n\n\"Papa! Mr. Percivale! there's such a grand cave down there! It goes\nright through under the island.\"\n\nConnie looked so eager, that Percivale and I glanced at each other, and\nwithout a word, lifted her, and followed Wynnie. It was a little way\nthat we had to carry her down, but it was very broken, and insomuch\nmore difficult than the other. At length we stood in the cavern. What a\ncontrast to the vision overhead!--nothing to be seen but the cool, dark\nvault of the cave, long and winding, with the fresh seaweed lying on\nits pebbly floor, and its walls wet with the last tide, for every tide\nrolled through in rising and falling--the waters on the opposite sides\nof the islet greeting through this cave; the blue shimmer of the rising\nsea, and the forms of huge outlying rocks, looking in at the further\nend, where the roof rose like a grand cathedral arch; and the green\ngleam of veins rich with copper, dashing and streaking the darkness in\ngloomy little chapels, where the floor of heaped-up pebbles rose and\nrose within till it met the descending roof. It was like a going-down\nfrom Paradise into the grave--but a cool, friendly, brown-lighted\ngrave, which even in its darkest recesses bore some witness to the wind\nof God outside, in the occasional ripple of shadowed light, from the\nplay of the sun on the waves, that, fleeted and reflected, wandered\nacross its jagged roof. But we dared not keep Connie long in the damp\ncoolness; and I have given my reader quite enough of description for\none hour's reading. He can scarcely be equal to more.\n\nMy invalids had now beheld the sea in such a different aspect, that I\nno longer feared to go back to Kilkhaven. Thither we went three days\nafter, and at my invitation, Percivale took Turner's place in the\ncarriage.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nJOE AND HIS TROUBLE.\n\n\nHow bright the yellow shores of Kilkhaven looked after the dark sands\nof Tintagel! But how low and tame its highest cliffs after the mighty\nrampart of rocks which there face the sea like a cordon of fierce\nguardians! It was pleasant to settle down again in what had begun to\nlook like home, and was indeed made such by the boisterous welcome of\nDora and the boys. Connie's baby crowed aloud, and stretched forth her\nchubby arms at sight of her. The wind blew gently around us, full both\nof the freshness of the clean waters and the scents of the\ndown-grasses, to welcome us back. And the dread vision of the shore had\nnow receded so far into the past, that it was no longer able to hurt.\n\nWe had called at the blacksmith's house on our way home, and found that\nhe was so far better as to be working at his forge again. His mother\nsaid he was used to such attacks, and soon got over them. I, however,\nfeared that they indicated an approaching break-down.\n\n\"Indeed, sir,\" she said, \"Joe might be well enough if he liked. It's\nall his own fault.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" I asked. \"I cannot believe that your son is in any\nway guilty of his own illness.\"\n\n\"He's a well-behaved lad, my Joe,\" she answered; \"but he hasn't learned\nwhat I had to learn long ago.\"\n\n\"What is that?\" I asked.\n\n\"To make up his mind, and stick to it. To do one thing or the other.\"\n\nShe was a woman with a long upper lip and a judicial face, and as she\nspoke, her lip grew longer and longer; and when she closed her mouth in\nmark of her own resolution, that lip seemed to occupy two-thirds of all\nher face under the nose.\n\n\"And what is it he won't do?\"\n\n\"I don't mind whether he does it or not, if he would only\nmake--up--his--mind--and--stick--to--it.\"\n\n\"What is it you want him to do, then?\"\n\n\"I don't want him to do it, I'm sure. It's no good to me--and wouldn't\nbe much to him, that I'll be bound. Howsomever, he must please himself.\"\n\nI thought it not very wonderful that he looked gloomy, if there was no\nmore sunshine for him at home than his mother's face indicated. Few\nthings can make a man so strong and able for his work as a sun indoors,\nwhose rays are smiles, ever ready to shine upon him when he opens the\ndoor,--the face of wife or mother or sister. Now his mother's face\ncertainly was not sunny. No doubt it must have shone upon him when he\nwas a baby. God has made that provision for babies, who need sunshine\nso much that a mother's face cannot help being sunny to them: why\nshould the sunshine depart as the child grows older?\n\n\"Well, I suppose I must not ask. But I fear your son is very far from\nwell. Such attacks do not often occur without serious mischief\nsomewhere. And if there is anything troubling him, he is less likely to\nget over it.\"\n\n\"If he would let somebody make up his mind for him, and then stick to\nit--\"\n\n\"O, but that is impossible, you know. A man must make up his own mind.\"\n\n\"That's just what he won't do.\"\n\nAll the time she looked naughty, only after a self-righteous fashion.\nIt was evident that whatever was the cause of it, she was not in\nsympathy with her son, and therefore could not help him out of any\ndifficulty he might be in. I made no further attempt to learn from her\nthe cause of her son's discomfort, clearly a deeper cause than his\nillness. In passing his workshop, we stopped for a moment, and I made\nan arrangement to meet him at the church the next day.\n\nI was there before him, and found that he had done a good deal since we\nleft. Little remained except to get the keys put to rights, and the\nrods attached to the cranks in the box. To-day he was to bring a\ncarpenter, a cousin of his own, with him.\n\nThey soon arrived, and a small consultation followed. The cousin was a\nbright-eyed, cheruby-cheeked little man, with a ready smile and white\nteeth: I thought he might help me to understand what was amiss in\nJoseph's affairs. But I would not make the attempt except openly. I\ntherefore said half in a jocular fashion, as with gloomy,\nself-withdrawn countenance the smith was fitting one loop into another\nin two of his iron rods,--\n\n\"I wish we could get this cousin of yours to look a little more\ncheerful. You would think he had quarrelled with the sunshine.\"\n\nThe carpenter showed his white teeth between his rosy lips.\n\n\"Well, sir, if you'll excuse me, you see my cousin Joe is not like the\nrest of us. He's a religious man, is Joe.\"\n\n\"But I don't see how that should make him miserable. It hasn't made me\nmiserable. I hope I'm a religious man myself. It makes me happy every\nday of my life.\"\n\n\"Ah, well,\" returned the carpenter, in a thoughtful tone, as he worked\naway gently to get the inside out of the oak-chest without hurting it,\n\"I don't say it's the religion, for I don't know; but perhaps it's the\nway he takes it up. He don't look after hisself enough; he's always\nthinking about other people, you see, sir; and it seems to me, sir,\nthat if you don't look after yourself, why, who is to look after you?\nThat's common sense, _I_ think.\"\n\nIt was a curious contrast--the merry friendly face, which shone\ngood-fellowship to all mankind, accusing the sombre, pale, sad, severe,\neven somewhat bitter countenance beside him, of thinking too much about\nother people, and too little about himself. Of course it might be\ncorrect in a way. There is all the difference between a comfortable,\nhealthy inclination, and a pained, conscientious principle. It was a\nsmile very unlike his cousin's with which Joe heard his remarks on\nhimself.\n\n\"But,\" I said, \"you will allow, at least, that if everybody would take\nJoe's way of it, there would then be no occasion for taking care of\nyourself.\"\n\n\"I don't see why, sir.\"\n\n\"Why, because everybody would take care of everybody else.\"\n\n\"Not so well, I doubt, sir.\"\n\n\"Yes, and a great deal better.\"\n\n\"At any rate, that's a long way off; and mean time, _who's_ to take\ncare of the odd man like Joe there, that don't look after hisself?\"\n\n\"Why, God, of course.\"\n\n\"Well, there's just where I'm out. I don't know nothing about that\nbranch, sir.\"\n\nI saw a grateful light mount up in Joe's gloomy eyes as I spoke thus\nupon his side of the question. He said nothing, however; and his cousin\nvolunteering no further information, I did not push any advantage I\nmight have gained.\n\nAt noon I made them leave their work, and come home with me to have\ntheir dinner; they hoped to finish the job before dusk. Harry Cobb and\nI dropped behind, and Joe Harper walked on in front, apparently sunk in\nmeditation.\n\nScarcely were we out of the churchyard, and on the road leading to the\nrectory, when I saw the sexton's daughter meeting us. She had almost\ncome up to Joe before he saw her, for his gaze was bent on the ground,\nand he started. They shook hands in what seemed to me an odd,\nconstrained, yet familiar fashion, and then stood as if they wanted to\ntalk, but without speaking. Harry and I passed, both with a nod of\nrecognition to the young woman, but neither of us had the ill-manners\nto look behind. I glanced at Harry, and he answered me with a queer\nlook. When we reached the turning that would hide them from our view, I\nlooked back almost involuntarily, and there they were still standing.\nBut before we reached the door of the rectory, Joe got up with us.\n\nThere was something remarkable in the appearance of Agnes Coombes, the\nsexton's daughter. She was about six-and-twenty, I should imagine, the\nyoungest of the family, with a sallow, rather sickly complexion,\nsomewhat sorrowful eyes, a smile rare and sweet, a fine figure, tall\nand slender, and a graceful gait. I now saw, I thought, a good\nhair's-breadth further into the smith's affairs. Beyond the\nhair's-breadth, however, all was dark. But I saw likewise that the well\nof truth, whence I might draw the whole business, must be the girl's\nmother.\n\nAfter the men had had their dinner and rested a while, they went back\nto the church, and I went to the sexton's cottage. I found the old man\nseated at the window, with his pot of beer on the sill, and an empty\nplate beside it.\n\n\"Come in, sir,\" he said, rising, as I put my head in at the door. \"The\nmis'ess ben't in, but she'll be here in a few minutes.\"\n\n\"O, it's of no consequence,\" I said. \"Are they all well?\"\n\n\"All comfortable, sir. It be fine dry weather for them, this, sir. It\nbe in winter it be worst for them.\"\n\n\"But it's a snug enough shelter you've got here. It seems such, anyhow;\nthough, to be sure, it is the blasts of winter that find out the weak\nplaces both in house and body.\"\n\n\"It ben't the wind touch _them_\" he said; \"they be safe enough from the\nwind. It be the wet, sir. There ben't much snow in these parts; but\nwhen it du come, that be very bad for them, poor things!\"\n\nCould it be that he was harping on the old theme again?\n\n\"But at least this cottage keeps out the wet,\" I said. \"If not, we must\nhave it seen to.\"\n\n\"This cottage du well enough, sir. It'll last my time, anyhow.\"\n\n\"Then why are you pitying your family for having to live in it?\"\n\n\"Bless your heart, sir! It's not them. They du well enough. It's my\npeople out yonder. You've got the souls to look after, and I've got the\nbodies. That's what it be, sir. To be sure!\"\n\nThe last exclamation was uttered in a tone of impatient surprise at my\nstupidity in giving all my thoughts and sympathies to the living, and\nnone to the dead. I pursued the subject no further, but as I lay in bed\nthat night, it began to dawn upon me as a lovable kind of hallucination\nin which the man indulged. He too had an office in the Church of God,\nand he would magnify that office. He could not bear that there should\nbe no further outcome of his labour; that the burying of the dead out\nof sight should be \"the be-all and the end-all.\" He was God's vicar,\nthe gardener in God's Acre, as the Germans call the churchyard. When\nall others had forsaken the dead, he remained their friend, caring for\nwhat little comfort yet remained possible to them. Hence in all changes\nof air and sky above, he attributed to them some knowledge of the same,\nand some share in their consequences even down in the darkness of the\ntomb. It was his way of keeping up the relation between the living and\nthe dead. Finding I made him no reply, he took up the word again.\n\n\"You've got your part, sir, and I've got mine. You up into the pulpit,\nand I down into the grave. But it'll be all the same by and by.\"\n\n\"I hope it will,\" I answered. \"But when you do go down into your own\ngrave, you'll know a good deal less about it than you do now. You'll\nfind you've got other things to think about. But here comes your wife.\nShe'll talk about the living rather than the dead.\"\n\n\"That's natural, sir. She brought 'em to life, and I buried 'em--at\nleast, best part of 'em. If only I had the other two safe down with the\nrest!\"\n\nI remembered what the old woman had told me--that she had two boys _in_\nthe sea; and I knew therefore what he meant. He regarded his drowned\nboys as still tossed about in the weary wet cold ocean, and would have\ngladly laid them to rest in the warm dry churchyard.\n\nHe wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with the back of his hand,\nand saying, \"Well, I must be off to my gardening,\" left me with his\nwife. I saw then that, humorist as the old man might be, his humour,\nlike that of all true humorists, lay close about the wells of weeping.\n\n\"The old man seems a little out of sorts,\" I said to his wife.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" she answered, with her usual gentleness, a gentleness\nwhich obedient suffering had perfected, \"this be the day he buried our\nNancy, this day two years; and to-day Agnes be come home from her work\npoorly; and the two things together they've upset him a bit.\"\n\n\"I met Agnes coming this way. Where is she?\"\n\n\"I believe she be in the churchyard, sir. I've been to the doctor about\nher.\"\n\n\"I hope it's nothing serious.\"\n\n\"I hope not, sir; but you see--four on 'em, sir!\"\n\n\"Well, she's in God's hands, you know.\"\n\n\"That she be, sir.\"\n\n\"I want to ask you about something, Mrs. Coombes.\"\n\n\"What be that, sir? If I can tell, I will, you may be sure, sir.\"\n\n\"I want to know what's the matter with Joe Harper, the blacksmith.\"\n\n\"They du say it be a consumption, sir.\"\n\n\"But what has he got on his mind?\"\n\n\"He's got nothing on his mind, sir. He be as good a by as ever stepped,\nI assure you, sir.\"\n\n\"But I am sure there is something or other on his mind. He's not so\nhappy as he should be. He's not the man, it seems to me, to be unhappy\nbecause he's ill. A man like him would not be miserable because he was\ngoing to die. It might make him look sad sometimes, but not gloomy as\nhe looks.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, I believe you be right, and perhaps I know summat. But it's\npart guessing.--I believe my Agnes and Joe Harper are as fond upon one\nanother as any two in the county.\"\n\n\"Are they not going to be married then?\"\n\n\"There be the pint, sir. I don't believe Joe ever said a word o' the\nsort to Aggy. She never could ha' kep it from me, sir.\"\n\n\"Why doesn't he then?\"\n\n\"That's the pint again, sir. All as knows him says it's because he be\nin such bad health, and he thinks he oughtn't to go marrying with one\nfoot in the grave. He never said so to me; but I think very likely that\nbe it.\"\n\n\"For that matter, Mrs. Coombes, we've all got one foot in the grave, I\nthink.\"\n\n\"That be very true, sir.\"\n\n\"And what does your daughter think?\"\n\n\"I believe she thinks the same. And so they go on talking to each\nother, quiet-like, like old married folks, not like lovers at all, sir.\nBut I can't help fancying it have something to do with my Aggy's pale\nface.\"\n\n\"And something to do with Joe's pale face too, Mrs. Coombes,\" I said.\n\"Thank you. You've told me more than I expected. It explains\neverything. I must have it out with Joe now.\"\n\n\"O deary me! sir, don't go and tell him I said anything, as if I wanted\nhim to marry my daughter.\"\n\n\"Don't you be afraid. I'll take good care of that. And don't fancy I'm\nfond of meddling with other people's affairs. But this is a case in\nwhich I ought to do something. Joe's a fine fellow.\"\n\n\"That he be, sir. I couldn't wish a better for a son-in-law.\"\n\nI put on my hat.\n\n\"You won't get me into no trouble with Joe, will ye, sir!\"\n\n\"Indeed I will not, Mrs. Coombes. I should be doing a great deal more\nharm than good if I said a word to make him doubt you.\"\n\nI went straight to the church. There were the two men working away in\nthe shadowy tower, and there was Agnes standing beside, knitting like\nher mother, so quiet, so solemn even, that it did indeed look as if she\nwere a long-married wife, hovering about her husband at his work. Harry\nwas saying something to her as I went in, but when they saw me they\nwere silent, and Agnes gently withdrew.\n\n\"Do you think you will get through to-night?\" I asked.\n\n\"Sure of it, sir,\" answered Harry.\n\n\"You shouldn't be sure of anything, Harry. We are told in the New\nTestament that we ought to say _If the Lord will_,\" said Joe.\n\n\"Now, Joe, you're too hard upon Harry,\" I said. \"You don't think that\nthe Bible means to pull a man up every step like that, till he's afraid\nto speak a word. It was about a long journey and a year's residence\nthat the Apostle James was speaking.\"\n\n\"No doubt, sir. But the principle's the same. Harry can no more be sure\nof finishing his work before it be dark, than those people could be of\ngoing their long journey.\"\n\n\"That is perfectly true. But you are taking the letter for the spirit,\nand that, I suspect, in more ways than one. The religion does not lie\nin not being sure about anything, but in a loving desire that the will\nof God in the matter, whatever it be, may be done. And if Harry has not\nlearned yet to care about the will of God, what is the good of coming\ndown upon him that way, as if that would teach him in the least. When\nhe loves God, then, and not till then, will he care about his will. Nor\ndoes the religion lie in saying, _if the Lord will_, every time\nanything is to be done. It is a most dangerous thing to use sacred\nwords often. It makes them so common to our ear that at length, when\nused most solemnly, they have not half the effect they ought to have,\nand that is a serious loss. What the Apostle means is, that we should\nalways be in the mood of looking up to God and having regard to his\nwill, not always writing D.V. for instance, as so many do--most\nirreverently, I think--using a Latin contraction for the beautiful\nwords, just as if they were a charm, or as if God would take offence if\nthey did not make the salvo of acknowledgment. It seems to me quite\nheathenish. Our hearts ought ever to be in the spirit of those words;\nour lips ought to utter them rarely. Besides, there are some things a\nman might be pretty sure the Lord wills.\"\n\n\"It sounds fine, sir; but I'm not sure that I understand what you mean\nto say. It sounds to me like a darkening of wisdom.\"\n\nI saw that I had irritated him, and so had in some measure lost ground.\nBut Harry struck in--\n\n\"How _can_ you say that now, Joe? _I_ know what the parson means well\nenough, and everybody knows I ain't got half the brains you've got.\"\n\n\"The reason is, Harry, that he's got something in his head that stands\nin the way.\"\n\n\"And there's nothing in my head _to_ stand in the way!\" returned Harry,\nlaughing.\n\nThis made me laugh too, and even Joe could not help a sympathetic grin.\nBy this time it was getting dark.\n\n\"I'm afraid, Harry, after all, you won't get through to-night.\"\n\n\"I begin to think so too, sir. And there's Joe saying, 'I told you so,'\nover and over to himself, though he won't say it out like a man.\"\n\nJoe answered only with another grin.\n\n\"I tell you what it is, Harry,\" I said--\"you must come again on Monday.\nAnd on your way home, just look in and tell Joe's mother that I have\nkept him over to-morrow. The change will do him good.\"\n\n\"No, sir, that can't he. I haven't got a clean shirt.\"\n\n\"You can have a shirt of mine,\" I said. \"But I'm afraid you'll want\nyour Sunday clothes.\"\n\n\"I'll bring them for you, Joe--before you're up,\" interposed Harry.\n\"And then you can go to church with Aggy Coombes, you know.\"\n\nHere was just what I wanted.\n\n\"Hold your tongue, Harry,\" said Joe angrily. \"You're talking of what\nyou don't know anything about.\"\n\n\"Well, Joe, I ben't a fool, if I ben't so religious as you be. You\nben't a bad fellow, though you be a Methodist, and I ben't a fool,\nthough I be Harry Cobb.\"\n\n\"What do you mean, Harry? Do hold your tongue.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll tell you what I mean first, and then I'll hold my tongue. I\nmean this--that nobody with two eyes, or one eye, for that matter, in\nhis head, could help seeing the eyes you and Aggy make at each other,\nand why you don't port your helm and board her--I won't say it's more\nthan I know, but I du say it to be more than I think be fair to the\nyoung woman.\"\n\n\"Hold your tongue, Harry.\"\n\n\"I said I would when I'd answered you as to what I meaned. So no more\nat present; but I'll be over with your clothes afore you're up in the\nmorning.\"\n\nAs Harry spoke he was busy gathering his tools.\n\n\"They won't be in the way, will they, sir?\" he said, as he heaped them\ntogether in the furthest corner of the tower.\n\n\"Not in the least,\" I returned. \"If I had my way, all the tools used in\nbuilding the church should be carved on the posts and pillars of it, to\nindicate the sacredness of labour, and the worship of God that lies,\nnot in building the church merely, but in every honest trade honestly\npursued for the good of mankind and the need of the workman. For a\nnecessity of God is laid upon every workman as well as on St. Paul.\nOnly St. Paul saw it, and every workman doesn't, Harry.\"\n\n\"Thank you, sir. I like that way of it. I almost think I could be a\nlittle bit religious after your way of it, sir.\"\n\n\"Almost, Harry!\" growled Joe--not unkindly.\n\n\"Now, you hold your tongue, Joe,\" I said. \"Leave Harry to me. You may\ntake him, if you like, after I've done with him.\"\n\nLaughing merrily, but making no other reply than a hearty good-night,\nHarry strode away out of the church, and Joe and I went home together.\n\nWhen he had had his tea, I asked him to go out with me for a walk.\n\nThe sun was shining aslant upon the downs from over the sea. We rose\nout of the shadowy hollow to the sunlit brow. I was a little in advance\nof Joe. Happening to turn, I saw the light full on his head and face,\nwhile the rest of his body had not yet emerged from the shadow.\n\n\"Stop, Joe,\" I said. \"I want to see you so for a moment.\"\n\nHe stood--a little surprised.\n\n\"You look just like a man rising from the dead, Joe,\" I said.\n\n\"I don't know what you mean, sir,\" he returned.\n\n\"I will describe yourself to you. Your head and face are full of\nsunlight, the rest of your body is still buried in the shadow. Look; I\nwill stand where you are now; and you come here. You will soon see what\nI mean.\"\n\nWe changed places. Joe stared for a moment. Then his face brightened.\n\n\"I see what you mean, sir,\" he said. \"I fancy you don't mean the\nresurrection of the body, but the resurrection of righteousness.\"\n\n\"I do, Joe. Did it ever strike you that the whole history of the\nChristian life is a series of such resurrections? Every time a man\nbethinks himself that he is not walking in the light, that he has been\nforgetting himself, and must repent, that he has been asleep and must\nawake, that he has been letting his garments trail, and must gird up\nthe loins of his mind--every time this takes place, there is a\nresurrection in the world. Yes, Joe; and every time that a man finds\nthat his heart is troubled, that he is not rejoicing in God, a\nresurrection must follow--a resurrection out of the night of troubled\nthoughts into the gladness of the truth. For the truth is, and ever\nwas, and ever must be, gladness, however much the souls on which it\nshines may be obscured by the clouds of sorrow, troubled by the\nthunders of fear, or shot through with the lightnings of pain. Now,\nJoe, will you let me tell you what you are like--I do not know your\nthoughts; I am only judging from your words and looks?\"\n\n\"You may if you like, sir,\" answered Joe, a little sulkily. But I was\nnot to be repelled.\n\nI stood up in the sunlight, so that my eyes caught only about half the\nsun's disc. Then I bent my face towards the earth.\n\n\"What part of me is the light shining on now, Joe?\"\n\n\"Just the top of your head,\" answered he.\n\n\"There, then,\" I returned, \"that is just what you are like--a man with\nthe light on his head, but not on his face. And why not on your face?\nBecause you hold your head down.\"\n\n\"Isn't it possible, sir, that a man might lose the light on his face,\nas you put it, by doing his duty?\"\n\n\"That is a difficult question,\" I replied. \"I must think before I\nanswer it.\"\n\n\"I mean,\" added Joe--\"mightn't his duty be a painful one?\"\n\n\"Yes. But I think that would rather etherealise than destroy the light.\nBehind the sorrow would spring a yet greater light from the very duty\nitself. I have expressed myself badly, but you will see what I\nmean.--To be frank with you, Joe, I do not see that light in your face.\nTherefore I think something must be wrong with you. Remember a good man\nis not necessarily in the right. St. Peter was a good man, yet our Lord\ncalled him Satan--and meant it of course, for he never said what he did\nnot mean.\"\n\n\"How can I be wrong when all my trouble comes from doing my\nduty--nothing else, as far as I know?\"\n\n\"Then,\" I replied, a sudden light breaking in on my mind, \"I doubt\nwhether what you suppose to be your duty can be your duty. If it were,\nI do not think it would make you so miserable. At least--I may be\nwrong, but I venture to think so.\"\n\n\"What is a man to go by, then? If he thinks a thing is his duty, is he\nnot to do it?\"\n\n\"Most assuredly--until he knows better. But it is of the greatest\nconsequence whether the supposed duty be the will of God or the\ninvention of one's own fancy or mistaken judgment. A real duty is\nalways something right in itself. The duty a man makes his for the\ntime, by supposing it to be a duty, may be something quite wrong in\nitself. The duty of a Hindoo widow is to burn herself on the body of\nher husband. But that duty lasts no longer than till she sees that, not\nbeing the will of God, it is not her duty. A real duty, on the other\nhand, is a necessity of the human nature, without seeing and doing\nwhich a man can never attain to the truth and blessedness of his own\nbeing. It was the duty of the early hermits to encourage the growth of\nvermin upon their bodies, for they supposed that was pleasing to God;\nbut they could not fare so well as if they had seen the truth that the\nwill of God was cleanliness. And there may be far more serious things\ndone by Christian people against the will of God, in the fancy of doing\ntheir duty, than such a trifle as swarming with worms. In a word,\nthinking a thing is your duty makes it your duty only till you know\nbetter. And the prime duty of every man is to seek and find, that he\nmay do, the will of God.\"\n\n\"But do you think, sir, that a man is likely to be doing what he ought\nnot, if he is doing what he don't like?\"\n\n\"Not so likely, I allow. But there may be ambition in it. A man must\nnot want to be better than the right. That is the delusion of the\nanchorite--a delusion in which the man forgets the rights of others for\nthe sake of his own sanctity.\"\n\n\"It might be for the sake of another person, and not for the person's\nown sake at all.\"\n\n\"It might be; but except it were the will of God for that other person,\nit would be doing him or her a real injury.\"\n\nWe were coming gradually towards what I wanted to make the point in\nquestion. I wished him to tell me all about it himself, however, for I\nknew that while advice given on request is generally disregarded, to\noffer advice unasked is worthy only of a fool.\n\n\"But how are you to know the will of God in every case?\" asked Joe.\n\n\"By looking at the general laws of life, and obeying them--except there\nbe anything special in a particular case to bring it under a higher\nlaw.\"\n\n\"Ah! but that be just what there is here.\"\n\n\"Well, my dear fellow, that may be; but the special conduct may not be\nright for the special case for all that. The speciality of the case may\nnot be even sufficient to take it from under the ordinary rule. But it\nis of no use talking generals. Let us come to particulars. If you can\ntrust me, tell me all about it, and we may be able to let some light\nin. I am sure there is darkness somewhere.\"\n\n\"I will turn it over in my mind, sir; and if I can bring myself to talk\nabout it, I will. I would rather tell you than anyone else.\"\n\nI said no more. We watched a glorious sunset--there never was a grander\nplace for sunsets--and went home.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nA SMALL ADVENTURE.\n\n\nThe next morning Harry came with the clothes. But Joe did not go to\nchurch. Neither did Agnes make her appearance that morning. They were\nboth present at the evening service, however.\n\nWhen we came out of church, it was cloudy and dark, and the wind was\nblowing cold from the sea. The sky was covered with one cloud, but the\nwaves tossing themselves against the rocks, flashed whiteness out of\nthe general gloom. As the tide rose the wind increased. It was a night\nof surly temper--hard and gloomy. Not a star cracked the blue\nabove--there was no blue; and the wind was _gurly_; I once heard that\nword in Scotland, and never forgot it.\n\nAfter one of our usual gatherings in Connie's room, which were much\nshorter here because of the evening service in summer, I withdrew till\nsupper should be ready.\n\nNow I have always had, as I think I have incidentally stated before, a\ncertain peculiar pleasure in the surly aspects of nature. When I was a\nyoung man this took form in opposition and defiance; since I had begun\nto grow old the form had changed into a sense of safety. I welcomed\nsuch aspects, partly at least, because they roused my faith to look\nthrough and beyond the small region of human conditions in which alone\nthe storm can be and blow, and thus induced a feeling like that of the\nchild who lies in his warm crib and listens to the howling of one of\nthese same storms outside the strong-built house which yet trembles at\nits fiercer onsets: the house is not in danger; or, if it be, that is\nhis father's business, not his. Hence it came that, after supper, I put\non my great-coat and travelling-cap, and went out into the ill-tempered\nnight--speaking of it in its human symbolism.\n\nI meant to have a stroll down to the breakwater, of which I have yet\nsaid little, but which was a favourite resort, both of myself and my\nchildren. At the further end of it, always covered at high water, was\nan outlying cluster of low rocks, in the heart of which the lord of the\nmanor, a noble-hearted Christian gentleman of the old school, had\nconstructed a bath of graduated depth--an open-air swimming-pool--the\nonly really safe place for men who were swimmers to bathe in. Thither I\nwas in the habit of taking my two little men every morning, and bathing\nwith them, that I might develop the fish that was in them; for, as\nGeorge Herbert says:\n\n  \"Man is everything,\n  And more: he is a tree, yet bears no fruit;\n  A beast, yet is, or should be, more;\"\n\nand he might have gone on to say that he is, or should be, a fish as\nwell.\n\nIt will seem strange to any reader who can recall the position of my\nConnie's room, that the nearest way to the breakwater should be through\nthat room; but so it was. I mention the fact because I want my readers\nto understand a certain peculiarity of the room. By the side of the\nwindow which looked out upon the breakwater was a narrow door,\napparently of a closet or cupboard, which communicated, however, with a\nnarrow, curving, wood-built passage, leading into a little wooden hut,\nthe walls of which were by no means impervious to the wind, for they\nwere formed of outside-planks, with the bark still upon them. From this\nhut one or two little windows looked seaward, and a door led out on the\nbit of sward in which lay the flower-bed under Connie's window. From\nthis spot again a door in the low wall and thick hedge led out on the\ndowns, where a path wound along the cliffs that formed the side of the\nbay, till, descending under the storm-tower, it brought you to the root\nof the breakwater.\n\nThis mole stretched its long strong low back to a rock a good way out,\nbreaking the force of the waves, and rendering the channel of a small\nriver, that here flowed into the sea across the sands from the mouth of\nthe canal, a refuge from the Atlantic. But it was a roadway often hard\nto reach. In fair weather even, the wind falling as the vessel rounded\nthe point of the breakwater into the calm of the projecting headlands,\nthe under-current would sometimes dash her helpless on the rocks.\nDuring all this heavenly summer there had been no thought or fear of\nany such disaster. The present night was a hint of what weather would\nyet come.\n\nWhen I went into Connie's room, I found her lying in bed a very picture\nof peace. But my entrance destroyed the picture.\n\n\"Papa,\" she said, \"why have you got your coat on? Surely you are not\ngoing out to-night. The wind is blowing dreadfully.\"\n\n\"Not very dreadfully, Connie. It blew much worse the night we found\nyour baby.\"\n\n\"But it is very dark.\"\n\n\"I allow that; but there is a glimmer from the sea. I am only going on\nthe breakwater for a few minutes. You know I like a stormy night quite\nas much as a fine one.\"\n\n\"I shall be miserable till you come home, papa.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Connie. You don't think your father hasn't sense to take\ncare of himself! Or rather, Connie, for I grant that is poor ground of\ncomfort, you don't think I can go anywhere without my Father to take\ncare of me?\"\n\n\"But there is no occasion--is there, papa?\"\n\n\"Do you think I should be better pleased with my boys if they shrunk\nfrom everything involving the least possibility of danger because there\nwas no occasion for it? That is just the way to make cowards. And I am\ncertain God would not like his children to indulge in such moods of\nself-preservation as that. He might well be ashamed of them. The\nfearful are far more likely to meet with accidents than the courageous.\nBut really, Connie, I am almost ashamed of talking so. It is all your\nfault. There is positively no ground for apprehension, and I hope you\nwon't spoil my walk by the thought that my foolish little girl is\nfrightened.\"\n\n\"I will be good--indeed I will, papa,\" she said, holding up her mouth\nto kiss me.\n\nI left her room, and went through the wooden passage into the bark hut.\nThe wind roared about it, shook it, and pawed it, and sung and whistled\nin the chinks of the planks. I went out and shut the door. That moment\nthe wind seized upon me, and I had to fight with it. When I got on the\npath leading along the edge of the downs, I felt something lighter than\nany feather fly in my face. When I put up my hand, I found my cheek\nwet. Again and again I was thus assailed, but when I got to the\nbreakwater I found what it was. They were flakes of foam, bubbles\nworked up into little masses of adhering thousands, which the wind blew\noff the waters and across the downs, carrying some of them miles\ninland. When I reached the breakwater, and looked along its ridge\nthrough the darkness of the night, I was bewildered to see a whiteness\nlying here and there in a great patch upon its top. They were but\naccumulations of these foam-flakes, like soap-suds, lying so thick that\nI expected to have to wade through them, only they vanished at the\ntouch of my feet. Till then I had almost believed it was snow I saw. On\nthe edge of the waves, in quieter spots, they lay like yeast, foaming\nand working. Now and then a little rush of water from a higher wave\nswept over the top of the broad breakwater, as with head bowed sideways\nagainst the wind, I struggled along towards the rock at its end; but I\nsaid to myself, \"The tide is falling fast, and salt water hurts\nnobody,\" and struggled on over the huge rough stones of the mighty\nheap, outside which the waves were white with wrath, inside which they\nhad fallen asleep, only heaving with the memory of their late unrest. I\nreached the tall rock at length, climbed the rude stair leading up to\nthe flagstaff, and looked abroad, if looking it could be called, into\nthe thick dark. But the wind blew so strong on the top that I was glad\nto descend. Between me and the basin where yesterday morning I had\nbathed in still water and sunshine with my boys, rolled the deathly\nwaves. I wandered on the rough narrow space yet uncovered, stumbling\nover the stones and the rocky points between which they lay, stood here\nand there half-meditating, and at length, finding a sheltered nook in a\nmass of rock, sat with the wind howling and the waves bursting around\nme. There I fell into a sort of brown study--almost a half-sleep.\n\nBut I had not sat long before I came broad awake, for I heard voices,\nlow and earnest. One I recognised as Joe's voice. The other was a\nwoman's. I could not tell what they said for some time, and therefore\nfelt no immediate necessity for disclosing my proximity, but sat\ndebating with myself whether I should speak to them or not. At length,\nin a lull of the wind, I heard the woman say--I could fancy with a\nsigh--\n\n\"I'm sure you'll du what is right, Joe. Don't 'e think o' me, Joe.\"\n\n\"It's just of you that I du think, Aggy. You know it ben't for my sake.\nSurely you know that?\"\n\nThere was no answer for a moment. I was still doubting what I had best\ndo--go away quietly or let them know I was there--when she spoke again.\nThere was a momentary lull now in the noises of both wind and water,\nand I heard what she said well enough.\n\n\"It ben't for me to contradict you, Joe. But I don't think you be going\nto die. You be no worse than last year. Be you now, Joe?\"\n\nIt flashed across me how once before, a stormy night and darkness had\nbrought me close to a soul in agony. Then I was in agony myself; now\nthe world was all fair and hopeful around me--the portals of the world\nbeyond ever opening wider as I approached them, and letting out more of\ntheir glory to gladden the path to their threshold. But here were two\nsouls straying in a mist which faith might roll away, and leave them\nwalking in the light. The moment was come. I must speak.\n\n\"Joe!\" I called out.\n\n\"Who's there?\" he cried; and I heard him start to his feet.\n\n\"Only Mr. Walton. Where are you?\"\n\n\"We can't be very far off,\" he answered, not in a tone of any pleasure\nat finding me so nigh.\n\nI rose, and peering about through the darkness, found that they were a\nlittle higher up on the same rock by which I was sheltered.\n\n\"You mustn't think,\" I said, \"that I have been eavesdropping. I had no\nidea anyone was near me till I heard your voices, and I did not hear a\nword till just the last sentence or two.\"\n\n\"I saw someone go up the Castle-rock,\" said Joe; \"but I thought he was\ngone away again. It will be a lesson to me.\"\n\n\"I'm no tell-tale, Joe,\" I returned, as I scrambled up the rock. \"You\nwill have no cause to regret that I happened to overhear a little. I am\nsure, Joe, you will never say anything you need be ashamed of. But what\nI heard was sufficient to let me into the secret of your trouble. Will\nyou let me talk to Joe, Agnes? I've been young myself, and, to tell the\ntruth, I don't think I'm old yet.\"\n\n\"I am sure, sir,\" she answered, \"you won't be hard on Joe and me. I\ndon't suppose there be anything wrong in liking each other, though we\ncan't be--married.\"\n\nShe spoke in a low tone, and her voice trembled very much; yet there\nwas a certain womanly composure in her utterance. \"I'm sure it's very\nbold of me to talk so,\" she added, \"but Joe will tell you all about it.\"\n\nI was close beside them now, and fancied I saw through the dusk the\nmotion of her hand stealing into his.\n\n\"Well, Joe, this is just what I wanted,\" I said. \"A woman can be braver\nthan a big smith sometimes. Agnes has done her part. Now you do yours,\nand tell me all about it.\"\n\nNo response followed my adjuration. I must help him.\n\n\"I think I know how the matter lies, Joe. You think you are not going\nto live long, and that therefore you ought not to marry. Am I right?\"\n\n\"Not far off it, sir,\" he answered.\n\n\"Now, Joe,\" I said, \"can't we talk as friends about this matter? I have\nno right to intrude into your affairs--none in the least--except what\nfriendship gives me. If you say I am not to talk about it, I shall be\nsilent. To force advice upon you would be as impertinent as useless.\"\n\n\"It's all the same, I'm afraid, sir. My mind has been made up for a\nlong time. What right have I to bring other people into trouble? But I\ntake it kind of you, sir, though I mayn't look over-pleased. Agnes\nwants to hear your way of it. I'm agreeable.\"\n\nThis was not very encouraging. Still I thought it sufficient ground for\nproceeding.\n\n\"I suppose you will allow that the root of all Christian behaviour is\nthe will of God?\"\n\n\"Surely, sir.\"\n\n\"Is it not the will of God, then, that when a man and woman love each\nother, they should marry?\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir--where there be no reasons against it.\"\n\n\"Of course. And you judge you see reason for not doing so, else you\nwould?\"\n\n\"I do see that a man should not bring a woman into trouble for the sake\nof being comfortable himself for the rest of a few weary days.\"\n\nAgnes was sobbing gently behind her handkerchief. I knew how gladly she\nwould be Joe's wife, if only to nurse him through his last illness.\n\n\"Not except it would make her comfortable too, I grant you, Joe. But\nlisten to me. In the first place, you don't know, and you are not\nrequired to know, when you are going to die. In fact, you have nothing\nto do with it. Many a life has been injured by the constant expectation\nof death. It is life we have to do with, not death. The best\npreparation for the night is to work while the day lasts, diligently.\nThe best preparation for death is life. Besides, I have known delicate\npeople who have outlived all their strong relations, and been left\nalone in the earth--because they had possibly taken too much care of\nthemselves. But marriage is God's will, and death is God's will, and\nyou have no business to set the one over against, as antagonistic to,\nthe other. For anything you know, the gladness and the peace of\nmarriage may be the very means intended for your restoration to health\nand strength. I suspect your desire to marry, fighting against the\nfancy that you ought not to marry, has a good deal to do with the state\nof health in which you now find yourself. A man would get over many\nthings if he were happy, that he cannot get over when he is miserable.\"\n\n\"But it's for Aggy. You forget that.\"\n\n\"I do not forget it. What right have you to seek for her another kind\nof welfare than you would have yourself? Are you to treat her as if she\nwere worldly when you are not--to provide for her a comfort which\nyourself you would despise? Why should you not marry because you have\nto die soon?--if you _are_ thus doomed, which to me is by no means\nclear. Why not have what happiness you may for the rest of your\nsojourn? If you find at the end of twenty years that here you are after\nall, you will be rather sorry you did not do as I say.\"\n\n\"And if I find myself dying at the end of six months'?\"\n\n\"You will thank God for those six months. The whole thing, my dear\nfellow, is a want of faith in God. I do not doubt you think you are\ndoing right, but, I repeat, the whole thing comes from want of faith in\nGod. You will take things into your own hands, and order them after a\npreventive and self-protective fashion, lest God should have ordained\nthe worst for you, which worst, after all, would be best met by doing\nhis will without inquiry into the future; and which worst is no evil.\nDeath is no more an evil than marriage is.\"\n\n\"But you don't see it as I do,\" persisted the blacksmith.\n\n\"Of course I don't. I think you see it as it is not.\"\n\nHe remained silent for a little. A shower of spray fell upon us. He\nstarted.\n\n\"What a wave!\" he cried. \"That spray came over the top of the rock. We\nshall have to run for it.\"\n\nI fancied that he only wanted to avoid further conversation.\n\n\"There's no hurry,\" I said. \"It was high water an hour and a half ago.\"\n\n\"You don't know this coast, sir,\" returned he, \"or you wouldn't talk\nlike that.\"\n\nAs he spoke he rose, and going from under the shelter of the rock,\nlooked along.\n\n\"For God's sake, Aggy!\" he cried in terror, \"come at once. Every other\nwave be rushing across the breakwater as if it was on the level.\"\n\nSo saying, he hurried back, caught her by the hand, and began to draw\nher along.\n\n\"Hadn't we better stay where we are?\" I suggested.\n\n\"If you can stand the night in the cold. But Aggy here is delicate; and\nI don't care about being out all night. It's not the tide, sir; it's a\nground swell--from a storm somewhere out at sea. That never asks no\nquestions about tide or no tide.\"\n\n\"Come along, then,\" I said. \"But just wait one minute more. It is\nbetter to be ready for the worst.\"\n\nFor I remembered that the day before I had seen a crowbar lying among\nthe stones, and I thought it might be useful. In a moment or two I had\nfound it, and returning, gave it to Joe. Then I took the girl's\ndisengaged hand. She thanked me in a voice perfectly calm and firm. Joe\ntook the bar in haste, and drew Agnes towards the breakwater.\n\nAny real thought of danger had not yet crossed my mind. But when I\nlooked along the outstretched back of the mole, and saw a dim sheet of\nwhite sweep across it, I felt that there was ground for his anxiety,\nand prepared myself for a struggle.\n\n\"Do you know what to do with the crowbar, Joe?\" I said, grasping my own\nstout oak-stick more firmly.\n\n\"Perfectly,\" answered Joe. \"To stick between the stones and hold on. We\nmust watch our time between the waves.\"\n\n\"You take the command, then, Joe,\" I returned. \"You see better than I\ndo, and you know the ways of that raging wild beast there better than I\ndo. I will obey orders--one of which, no doubt, will be, not for wind\nor sea to lose hold of Agnes--eh, Joe?\"\n\nJoe gave a grim enough laugh in reply, and we started, he carrying his\ncrowbar in his right hand towards the advancing sea, and I my oak-stick\nin my left towards the still water within.\n\n\"Quick march!\" said Joe, and away we went out on the breakwater.\n\nNow the back of the breakwater was very rugged, for it was formed of\nhuge stones, with wide gaps between, where the waters had washed out\nthe cement, and worn their edges. But what impeded our progress secured\nour safety.\n\n\"Halt!\" cried Joe, when we were yet but a few yards beyond the shelter\nof the rocks. \"There's a topper coming.\"\n\nWe halted at the word of command, as a huge wave, with combing crest,\nrushed against the far out-sloping base of the mole, and flung its\nheavy top right over the middle of the mass, a score or two of yards in\nfront of us.\n\n\"Now for it!\" cried Joe. \"Run!\"\n\nWe did run. In my mind there was just sense enough of danger to add to\nthe pleasure of the excitement. I did not know how much danger there\nwas. Over the rough worn stones we sped stumbling.\n\n\"Halt!\" cried the smith once more, and we did halt; but this time, as\nit turned out, in the middle front of the coming danger.\n\n\"God be with us!\" I exclaimed, when the huge billow showed itself\nthrough the night, rushing towards the mole. The smith stuck his\ncrowbar between two great stones. To this he held on with one hand, and\nthrew the other arm round Agnes's waist. I, too, had got my oak firmly\nfixed, held on with one hand, and threw the other arm round Agnes. It\ntook but a moment.\n\n\"Now then!\" cried Joe. \"Here she comes! Hold on, sir. Hold on, Aggy!\"\n\nBut when I saw the height of the water, as it rushed on us up the\nsloping side of the mound, I cried out in my turn, \"Down, Joe! Down on\nyour face, and let it over us easy! Down Agnes!\"\n\nThey obeyed. We threw ourselves across the breakwater, with our heads\nto the coming foe, and I grasped my stick close to the stones with all\nthe power of a hand that was then strong. Over us burst the mighty\nwave, floating us up from the stones where we lay. But we held on, the\nwave passed, and we sprung gasping to our feet.\n\n\"Now, now!\" cried Joe and I together, and, heavy as we were, with the\nwater pouring from us, we flew across the remainder of the heap, and\narrived, panting and safe, at the other end, ere one wave more had\nswept the surface. The moment we were in safety we turned and looked\nback over the danger we had traversed. It was to see a huge billow\nsweep the breakwater from end to end. We looked at each other for a\nmoment without speaking.\n\n\"I believe, sir,\" said Joe at length, with slow and solemn speech, \"if\nyou hadn't taken the command at that moment we should all have been\nlost.\"\n\n\"It seems likely enough, when I look back on it. For one thing, I was\nnot sure that my stick would stand, so I thought I had better grasp it\nlow down.\"\n\n\"We were awfully near death,\" said Joe.\n\n\"Nearer than you thought, Joe; and yet we escaped it. Things don't go\nall as we fancy, you see. Faith is as essential to manhood as\nforesight--believe me, Joe. It is very absurd to trust God for the\nfuture, and not trust him for the present. The man who is not anxious\nis the man most likely to do the right thing. He is cool and collected\nand ready. Our Lord therefore told his disciples that when they should\nbe brought before kings and rulers, they were to take no thought what\nanswer they should make, for it would be given them when the time came.\"\n\nWe were climbing the steep path up to the downs. Neither of my\ncompanions spoke.\n\n\"You have escaped one death together,\" I said at length: \"dare another.\"\n\nStill neither of them returned an answer. When we came near the\nparsonage, I said, \"Now, Joe, you must go in and get to bed at once. I\nwill take Agnes home. You can trust me not to say anything against you?\"\n\nJoe laughed rather hoarsely, and replied: \"As you please, sir. Good\nnight, Aggie. Mind you get to bed as fast as you can.\"\n\nWhen I returned from giving Agnes over to her parents, I made haste to\nchange my clothes, and put on my warm dressing-gown. I may as well\nmention at once, that not one of us was the worse for our ducking. I\nthen went up to Connie's room.\n\n\"Here I am, you see, Connie, quite safe.\"\n\n\"I've been lying listening to every blast of wind since you went out,\npapa. But all I could do was to trust in God.\"\n\n\"Do you call that _all_, Connie? Believe me, there is more power in\nthat than any human being knows the tenth part of yet. It is indeed\n_all_.\"\n\nI said no more then. I told my wife about it that night, but we were\nwell into another month before I told Connie.\n\nWhen I left her, I went to Joe's room to see how he was, and found him\nhaving some gruel. I sat down on the edge of his bed, and said,\n\n\"Well, Joe, this is better than under water. I hope you won't be the\nworse for it.\"\n\n\"I don't much care what comes of me, sir. It will be all over soon.\"\n\n\"But you ought to care what comes of you, Joe. I will tell you why. You\nare an instrument out of which ought to come praise to God, and,\ntherefore, you ought to care for the instrument.\"\n\n\"That way, yes, sir, I ought.\"\n\n\"And you have no business to be like some children who say, 'Mamma\nwon't give me so and so,' instead of asking her to give it them.\"\n\n\"I see what you mean, sir. But really you put me out before the young\nwoman. I couldn't say before her what I meant. Suppose, you know, sir,\nthere was to come a family. It might be, you know.\"\n\n\"Of course. What else would you have?\"\n\n\"But if I was to die, where would she be then?\"\n\n\"In God's hands; just as she is now.\"\n\n\"But I ought to take care that she is not left with a burden like that\nto provide for.\"\n\n\"O, Joe! how little you know a woman's heart! It would just be the\ngreatest comfort she could have for losing you--that's all. Many a\nwoman has married a man she did not care enough for, just that she\nmight have a child of her own to let out her heart upon. I don't say\nthat is right, you know. Such love cannot be perfect. A woman ought to\nlove her child because it is her husband's more than because it is her\nown, and because it is God's more than either's. I saw in the papers\nthe other day, that a woman was brought before the Recorder of London\nfor stealing a baby, when the judge himself said that there was no\nimaginable motive for her action but a motherly passion to possess the\nchild. It is the need of a child that makes so many women take to poor\nmiserable, broken-nosed lap-dogs; for they are self-indulgent, and\ncannot face the troubles and dangers of adopting a child. They would if\nthey might get one of a good family, or from a respectable home; but\nthey dare not take an orphan out of the dirt, lest it should spoil\ntheir silken chairs. But that has nothing to do with our argument. What\nI mean is this, that if Agnes really loves you, as no one can look in\nher face and doubt, she will be far happier if you leave her a\nchild--yes, she will be happier if you only leave her your name for\nhers--than if you died without calling her your wife.\"\n\nI took Joe's basin from him, and he lay down. He turned his face to the\nwall. I waited a moment, but finding him silent, bade him good-night,\nand left the room.\n\nA month after, I married them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nTHE HARVEST.\n\n\nIt was some time before we got the bells to work to our mind, but at\nlast we succeeded. The worst of it was to get the cranks, which at\nfirst required strong pressure on the keys, to work easily enough. But\nneither Joe nor his cousin spared any pains to perfect the attempt,\nand, as I say, at length we succeeded. I took Wynnie down to the\ninstrument and made her try whether she could not do something, and she\nsucceeded in making the old tower discourse loudly and eloquently.\n\nBy this time the thanksgiving for the harvest was at hand: on the\nmorning of that first of all would I summon the folk to their prayers\nwith the sound of the full peal. And I wrote a little hymn of praise to\nthe God of the harvest, modelling it to one of the oldest tunes in that\npart of the country, and I had it printed on slips of paper and laid\nplentifully on the benches. What with the calling of the bells, like\nvoices in the highway, and the solemn meditation of the organ within to\nbear aloft the thoughts of those who heard, and came to the prayer and\nthanksgiving in common, and the message which God had given me to utter\nto them, I hoped that we should indeed keep holiday.\n\nWynnie summoned the parish with the hundredth psalm pealed from aloft,\ndropping from the airy regions of the tower on village and hamlet and\ncottage, calling aloud--for who could dissociate the words from the\nmusic, though the words are in the Scotch psalms?--written none the\nless by an Englishman, however English wits may amuse themselves with\nlaughing at their quaintness--calling aloud,\n\n  \"All people that on earth do dwell\n  Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice;\n  Him serve with mirth, his praise forth tell--\n  Come ye before him and rejoice.\"\n\nThen we sang the psalm before the communion service, making bold in the\nname of the Lord to serve him with _mirth_ as in the old version, and\nnot with the _fear_ with which some editor, weak in faith, has presumed\nto alter the line. Then before the sermon we sang the hymn I had\nprepared--a proceeding justifiable by many an example in the history of\nthe church while she was not only able to number singers amongst her\nclergy, but those singers were capable of influencing the whole heart\nand judgment of the nation with their songs. Ethelwyn played the organ.\nThe song I had prepared was this:\n\n  \"We praise the Life of All;\n  From buried seeds so small\n  Who makes the ordered ranks of autumn stand;\n  Who stores the corn\n  In rick and barn\n  To feed the winter of the land.\n\n  We praise the Life of Light!\n  Who from the brooding night\n  Draws out the morning holy, calm, and grand;\n  Veils up the moon,\n  Sends out the sun,\n  To glad the face of all the land.\n\n  We praise the Life of Work,\n  Who from sleep's lonely dark\n  Leads forth his children to arise and stand,\n  Then go their way,\n  The live-long day,\n  To trust and labour in the land.\n\n  We praise the Life of Good,\n  Who breaks sin's lazy mood,\n  Toilsomely ploughing up the fruitless sand.\n  The furrowed waste\n  They leave, and haste\n  Home, home, to till their Father's land.\n\n  We praise the Life of Life,\n  Who in this soil of strife\n  Casts us at birth, like seed from sower's hand;\n  To die and so\n  Like corn to grow\n  A golden harvest in his land.\"\n\nAfter we had sung this hymn, the meaning of which is far better than\nthe versification, I preached from the words of St. Paul, \"If by any\nmeans I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I\nhad already attained, either were already perfect.\" And this is\nsomething like what I said to them:\n\n\"The world, my friends, is full of resurrections, and it is not always\nof the same resurrection that St. Paul speaks. Every night that folds\nus up in darkness is a death; and those of you that have been out early\nand have seen the first of the dawn, will know it--the day rises out of\nthe night like a being that has burst its tomb and escaped into life.\nThat you may feel that the sunrise is a resurrection--the word\nresurrection just means a rising again--I will read you a little\ndescription of it from a sermon by a great writer and great preacher\ncalled Jeremy Taylor. Listen. 'But as when the sun approaching towards\nthe gates of the morning, he first opens a little eye of heaven and\nsends away the spirits of darkness, and gives light to a cock, and\ncalls up the lark to matins, and by and by gilds the fringes of a\ncloud, and peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns\nlike those which decked the brows of Moses, when he was forced to wear\na veil, because himself had seen the face of God; and still, while a\nman tells the story, the sun gets up higher, till he shows a fair face\nand a full light, and then he shines one whole day, under a cloud\noften, and sometimes weeping great and little showers, and sets\nquickly; so is a man's reason and his life.' Is not this a resurrection\nof the day out of the night? Or hear how Milton makes his Adam and Eve\npraise God in the morning,--\n\n  'Ye mists and exhalations that now rise\n  From hill or streaming lake, dusky or gray,\n  Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,\n  In honour to the world's great Author rise,\n  Whether to deck with clouds the uncoloured sky,\n  Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,\n  Rising or falling still advance his praise.'\n\nBut it is yet more of a resurrection to you. Think of your own\ncondition through the night and in the morning. You die, as it were,\nevery night. The death of darkness comes down over the earth; but a\ndeeper death, the death of sleep, descends on you. A power overshadows\nyou; your eyelids close, you cannot keep them open if you would; your\nlimbs lie moveless; the day is gone; your whole life is gone; you have\nforgotten everything; an evil man might come and do with your goods as\nhe pleased; you are helpless. But the God of the Resurrection is awake\nall the time, watching his sleeping men and women, even as a mother who\nwatches her sleeping baby, only with larger eyes and more full of love\nthan hers; and so, you know not how, all at once you know that you are\nwhat you are; that there is a world that wants you outside of you, and\na God that wants you inside of you; you rise from the death of sleep,\nnot by your own power, for you knew nothing about it; God put his hand\nover your eyes, and you were dead; he lifted his hand and breathed\nlight on you and you rose from the dead, thanked the God who raised you\nup, and went forth to do your work. From darkness to light; from\nblindness to seeing; from knowing nothing to looking abroad on the\nmighty world; from helpless submission to willing obedience,--is not\nthis a resurrection indeed? That St. Paul saw it to be such may be\nshown from his using the two things with the same meaning when he says,\n'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall\ngive thee light.' No doubt he meant a great deal more. No man who\nunderstands what he is speaking about can well mean only one thing at a\ntime.\n\n\"But to return to the resurrections we see around us in nature. Look at\nthe death that falls upon the world in winter. And look how it revives\nwhen the sun draws near enough in the spring to wile the life in it\nonce more out of its grave. See how the pale, meek snowdrops come up\nwith their bowed heads, as if full of the memory of the fierce winds\nthey encountered last spring, and yet ready in the strength of their\nweakness to encounter them again. Up comes the crocus, bringing its\ngold safe from the dark of its colourless grave into the light of its\nparent gold. Primroses, and anemones, and blue-bells, and a thousand\nother children of the spring, hear the resurrection-trumpet of the wind\nfrom the west and south, obey, and leave their graves behind to breathe\nthe air of the sweet heavens. Up and up they come till the year is\nglorious with the rose and the lily, till the trees are not only\nclothed upon with new garments of loveliest green, but the fruit-tree\nbringeth forth its fruit, and the little children of men are made glad\nwith apples, and cherries, and hazel-nuts. The earth laughs out in\ngreen and gold. The sky shares in the grand resurrection. The garments\nof its mourning, wherewith it made men sad, its clouds of snow and hail\nand stormy vapours, are swept away, have sunk indeed to the earth, and\nare now humbly feeding the roots of the flowers whose dead stalks they\nbeat upon all the winter long. Instead, the sky has put on the garments\nof praise. Her blue, coloured after the sapphire-floor on which stands\nthe throne of him who is the Resurrection and the Life, is dashed and\nglorified with the pure white of sailing clouds, and at morning and\nevening prayer, puts on colours in which the human heart drowns itself\nwith delight--green and gold and purple and rose. Even the icebergs\nfloating about in the lonely summer seas of the north are flashing all\nthe glories of the rainbow. But, indeed, is not this whole world itself\na monument of the Resurrection? The earth was without form and void.\nThe wind of God moved on the face of the waters, and up arose this fair\nworld. Darkness was on the face of the deep: God said, 'Let there be\nlight,' and there was light.\n\n\"In the animal world as well, you behold the goings of the\nResurrection. Plainest of all, look at the story of the butterfly--so\nplain that the pagan Greeks called it and the soul by one name--Psyche.\nPsyche meant with them a butterfly or the soul, either. Look how the\ncreeping thing, ugly to our eyes, so that we can hardly handle it\nwithout a shudder, finding itself growing sick with age, straightway\nfalls a spinning and weaving at its own shroud, coffin, and grave, all\nin one--to prepare, in fact, for its resurrection; for it is for the\nsake of the resurrection that death exists. Patiently it spins its\nstrength, but not its life, away, folds itself up decently, that its\nbody may rest in quiet till the new body is formed within it; and at\nlength when the appointed hour has arrived, out of the body of this\ncrawling thing breaks forth the winged splendour of the butterfly--not\nthe same body--a new one built out of the ruins of the old--even as St.\nPaul tells us that it is not the same body _we_ have in the\nresurrection, but a nobler body like ourselves, with all the imperfect\nand evil thing taken away. No more creeping for the butterfly; wings of\nsplendour now. Neither yet has it lost the feet wherewith to alight on\nall that is lovely and sweet. Think of it--up from the toilsome journey\nover the low ground, exposed to the foot of every passer-by, destroying\nthe lovely leaves upon which it fed, and the fruit which they should\nshelter, up to the path at will through the air, and a gathering of\nfood which hurts not the source of it, a food which is but as a tribute\nfrom the loveliness of the flowers to the yet higher loveliness of the\nflower-angel: is not this a resurrection? Its children too shall pass\nthrough the same process, to wing the air of a summer noon, and rejoice\nin the ethereal and the pure.\n\n\"To return yet again from the human thoughts suggested by the symbol of\nthe butterfly\"--\n\nHere let me pause for a moment--and there was a corresponding pause,\nthough but momentary, in the sermon as I spoke it--to mention a\ncurious, and to me at the moment an interesting fact. At this point of\nmy address, I caught sight of a white butterfly, a belated one,\nflitting about the church. Absorbed for a moment, my eye wandered after\nit. It was near the bench where my own people sat, and, for one flash\nof thought, I longed that the butterfly would alight on my Wynnie, for\nI was more anxious about her resurrection at the time than about\nanything else. But the butterfly would not. And then I told myself that\nGod would, and that the butterfly was only the symbol of a grand truth,\nand of no private interpretation, to make which of it was both\nselfishness and superstition. But all this passed in a flash, and I\nresumed my discourse.\n\n--\"I come now naturally to speak of what we commonly call the\nResurrection. Some say: 'How can the same dust be raised again, when it\nmay be scattered to the winds of heaven?' It is a question I hardly\ncare to answer. The mere difficulty can in reason stand for nothing\nwith God; but the apparent worthlessness of the supposition renders the\nquestion uninteresting to me. What is of import is, that I should stand\nclothed upon, with a body which is _my_ body because it serves my ends,\njustifies my consciousness of identity by being, in all that was good\nin it, like that which I had before, while now it is tenfold capable of\nexpressing the thoughts and feelings that move within me. How can I\ncare whether the atoms that form a certain inch of bone should be the\nsame as those which formed that bone when I died? All my life-time I\nnever felt or thought of the existence of such a bone! On the other\nhand, I object to having the same worn muscles, the same shrivelled\nskin with which I may happen to die. Why give me the same body as that?\nWhy not rather my youthful body, which was strong, and facile, and\ncapable? The matter in the muscle of my arm at death would not serve to\nmake half the muscle I had when young. But I thank God that St. Paul\nsays it will _not_ be the same body. That body dies--up springs another\nbody. I suspect myself that those are right who say that this body\nbeing the seed, the moment it dies in the soil of this world, that\nmoment is the resurrection of the new body. The life in it rises out of\nit in a new body. This is not after it is put in the mere earth; for it\nis dead then, and the germ of life gone out of it. If a seed rots, no\nnew body comes of it. The seed dies into a new life, and so does man.\nDying and rotting are two very different things.--But I am not sure by\nany means. As I say, the whole question is rather uninteresting to me.\nWhat do I care about my old clothes after I have done with them? What\nis it to me to know what becomes of an old coat or an old pulpit gown?\nI have no such clinging to the flesh. It seems to me that people\nbelieve their bodies to be themselves, and are therefore very anxious\nabout them--and no wonder then. Enough for me that I shall have eyes to\nsee my friends, a face that they shall know me by, and a mouth to\npraise God withal. I leave the matter with one remark, that I am well\ncontent to rise as Jesus rose, however that was. For me the will of God\nis so good that I would rather have his will done than my own choice\ngiven me.\n\n\"But I now come to the last, because infinitely the most important part\nof my subject--the resurrection for the sake of which all the other\nresurrections exist--the resurrection unto Life. This is the one of\nwhich St. Paul speaks in my text. This is the one I am most\nanxious--indeed, the only one I am anxious to set forth, and impress\nupon you.\n\n\"Think, then, of all the deaths you know; the death of the night, when\nthe sun is gone, when friend says not a word to friend, but both lie\ndrowned and parted in the sea of sleep; the death of the year, when\nwinter lies heavy on the graves of the children of summer, when the\nleafless trees moan in the blasts from the ocean, when the beasts even\nlook dull and oppressed, when the children go about shivering with\ncold, when the poor and improvident are miserable with suffering or\nthink of such a death of disease as befalls us at times, when the man\nwho says, 'Would God it were morning!' changes but his word, and not\nhis tune, when the morning comes, crying, 'Would God it were evening!'\nwhen what life is left is known to us only by suffering, and hope is\namongst the things that were once and are no more--think of all these,\nthink of them all together, and you will have but the dimmest, faintest\npicture of the death from which the resurrection of which I have now to\nspeak, is the rising. I shrink from the attempt, knowing how weak words\nare to set forth _the_ death, set forth _the_ resurrection. Were I to\nsit down to yonder organ, and crash out the most horrible dissonances\nthat ever took shape in sound, I should give you but a weak figure of\nthis death; were I capable of drawing from many a row of pipes an\nexhalation of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet, such as Milton\nhimself could have invaded our ears withal, I could give you but a\nfaint figure of this resurrection. Nevertheless, I must try what I can\ndo in my own way.\n\n\"If into the face of the dead body, lying on the bed, waiting for its\nburial, the soul of the man should begin to dawn again, drawing near\nfrom afar to look out once more at those eyes, to smile once again\nthrough those lips, the change on that face would be indeed great and\nwondrous, but nothing for marvel or greatness to that which passes on\nthe countenance, the very outward bodily face of the man who wakes from\nhis sleep, arises from the dead and receives light from Christ. Too\noften indeed, the reposeful look on the face of the dead body would be\ntroubled, would vanish away at the revisiting of the restless ghost;\nbut when a man's own right true mind, which God made in him, is\nrestored to him again, and he wakes from the death of sin, then comes\nthe repose without the death. It may take long for the new spirit to\ncomplete the visible change, but it begins at once, and will be\nperfected. The bloated look of self-indulgence passes away like the\nleprosy of Naaman, the cheek grows pure, the lips return to the smile\nof hope instead of the grin of greed, and the eyes that made innocence\nshrink and shudder with their yellow leer grow childlike and sweet and\nfaithful. The mammon-eyes, hitherto fixed on the earth, are lifted to\nmeet their kind; the lips that mumbled over figures and sums of gold\nlearn to say words of grace and tenderness. The truculent, repellent,\nself-satisfied face begins to look thoughtful and doubtful, as if\nsearching for some treasure of whose whereabouts it had no certain\nsign. The face anxious, wrinkled, peering, troubled, on whose lines you\nread the dread of hunger, poverty, and nakedness, thaws into a smile;\nthe eyes reflect in courage the light of the Father's care, the back\ngrows erect under its burden with the assurance that the hairs of its\nhead are all numbered. But the face can with all its changes set but\ndimly forth the rising from the dead which passes within. The heart,\nwhich cared but for itself, becomes aware of surrounding thousands like\nitself, in the love and care of which it feels a dawning blessedness\nundreamt of before. From selfishness to love--is not this a rising from\nthe dead? The man whose ambition declares that his way in the world\nwould be to subject everything to his desires, to bring every human\ncare, affection, power, and aspiration to his feet--such a world it\nwould be, and such a king it would have, if individual ambition might\nwork its will! if a man's opinion of himself could be made out in the\nworld, degrading, compelling, oppressing, doing everything for his own\nglory!--and such a glory!--but a pang of light strikes this man to the\nheart; an arrow of truth, feathered with suffering and loss and dismay,\nfinds out--the open joint in his armour, I was going to say--no, finds\nout the joint in the coffin where his heart lies festering in a death\nso dead that itself calls it life. He trembles, he awakes, he rises\nfrom the dead. No more he seeks the slavery of all: where can he find\nwhom to serve? how can he become if but a threshold in the temple of\nChrist, where all serve all, and no man thinks first of himself? He to\nwhom the mass of his fellows, as he massed them, was common and\nunclean, bows before every human sign of the presence of the making\nGod. The sun, which was to him but a candle with which to search after\nhis own ends, wealth, power, place, praise--the world, which was but\nthe cavern where he thus searched--are now full of the mystery of\nloveliness, full of the truth of which sun and wind and land and sea\nare symbols and signs. From a withered old age of unbelief, the dim\neyes of which refuse the glory of things a passage to the heart, he is\nraised up a child full of admiration, wonder, and gladness. Everything\nis glorious to him; he can believe, and therefore he sees. It is from\nthe grave into the sunshine, from the night into the morning, from\ndeath into life. To come out of the ugly into the beautiful; out of the\nmean and selfish into the noble and loving; out of the paltry into the\ngreat; out of the false into the true; out of the filthy into the\nclean; out of the commonplace into the glorious; out of the corruption\nof disease into the fine vigour and gracious movements of health; in a\nword, out of evil into good--is not this a resurrection indeed--_the_\nresurrection of all, the resurrection of Life? God grant that with St.\nPaul we may attain to this resurrection of the dead.\n\n\"This rising from the dead is often a long and a painful process. Even\nafter he had preached the gospel to the Gentiles, and suffered much for\nthe sake of his Master, Paul sees the resurrection of the dead towering\ngrandly before him, not yet climbed, not yet attained unto--a\nmountainous splendour and marvel, still shining aloft in the air of\nexistence, still, thank God, to be attained, but ever growing in height\nand beauty as, forgetting those things that are behind, he presses\ntowards the mark, if by any means he may attain to the resurrection of\nthe dead. Every blessed moment in which a man bethinks himself that he\nhas been forgetting his high calling, and sends up to the Father a\nprayer for aid; every time a man resolves that what he has been doing\nhe will do no more; every time that the love of God, or the feeling of\nthe truth, rouses a man to look first up at the light, then down at the\nskirts of his own garments--that moment a divine resurrection is\nwrought in the earth. Yea, every time that a man passes from resentment\nto forgiveness, from cruelty to compassion, from hardness to\ntenderness, from indifference to carefulness, from selfishness to\nhonesty, from honesty to generosity, from generosity to love,--a\nresurrection, the bursting of a fresh bud of life out of the grave of\nevil, gladdens the eye of the Father watching his children. Awake,\nthen, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give\nthee light. As the harvest rises from the wintry earth, so rise thou up\nfrom the trials of this world a full ear in the harvest of Him who\nsowed thee in the soil that thou mightest rise above it. As the summer\nrises from the winter, so rise thou from the cares of eating and\ndrinking and clothing into the fearless sunshine of confidence in the\nFather. As the morning rises out of the night, so rise thou from the\ndarkness of ignorance to do the will of God in the daylight; and as a\nman feels that he is himself when he wakes from the troubled and\ngrotesque visions of the night into the glory of the sunrise, even so\nwilt thou feel that then first thou knowest what thy life, the gladness\nof thy being, is. As from painful tossing in disease, rise into the\nhealth of well-being. As from the awful embrace of thy own dead body,\nburst forth in thy spiritual body. Arise thou, responsive to the\nindwelling will of the Father, even as thy body will respond to thy\nindwelling soul.\n\n  'White wings are crossing;\n  Glad waves are tossing;\n  The earth flames out in crimson and green:\n\n  Spring is appearing,\n  Summer is nearing--\n  Where hast thou been?\n\n  Down in some cavern,\n  Death's sleepy tavern,\n  Housing, carousing with spectres of night?\n  The trumpet is pealing\n  Sunshine and healing--\n  Spring to the light.'\"\n\nWith this quotation from a friend's poem, I closed my sermon, oppressed\nwith a sense of failure; for ever the marvel of simple awaking, the\nmere type of the resurrection eluded all my efforts to fix it in words.\nI had to comfort myself with the thought that God is so strong that he\ncan work even with our failures.\n\n\n\nEND OF VOL. II.","title":"The Seaboard Parish Volume 2","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":52622}