WE were at tea one afternoon on the little low, tiled platform that
marked the site of an old summer-house. Tall hurdles covered with
briar-roses on the further side of the path fenced off the rest of the
garden from us, and the sun had just sunk below the level of the house,
throwing both ourselves and the garden into cool shadow. The servant had
brought out the tea-things, but he presently returned with something of
horror on his face. The old man looked up and saw him.
“What is it, Parker?” he asked.
“There’s been an accident, sir. Tom Awcock at the home farm has been
drawn into some machine, and they say he must lose both arms, and maybe
his life.”
The old man turned quite white, and his eyes grew larger and brighter.
“Is the doctor with him?” he asked, in a perfectly steady voice.
“Yes, sir, and they’ve sent a message, Would you be good enough to step
down? The rector’s away, and Tom’s mother’s crying terrible. But not
yet, sir. About seven o’clock, they say. It won’t be over till then, and
there’s no immediate danger.”
“Tell them I will be there at seven,” said the clergyman.
Parker went back to the house, and presently we heard the footsteps of a
child running down the drive towards the farm.
“How shocking it is!” I said in a moment or two.
“Ah!” said the old man, smiling, “I have learnt my lesson. It is not
really so shocking as you think. Does that sound very hard?”
I said nothing, for it seemed to me that all the consolations of
religion could not soften the horror of such things. If such agonies are
necessary as remedies or atonements, at least they are terrible.
“I learnt my lesson,” the old man went on, “down the road there outside
the hedge––down by the bridge. Would you like to hear it? Or are you
tired of an old dreamer’s stories?” and he smiled at me.
“Now I know you think that I am hard––that I am a little apart maybe
from human life––that I cannot understand the blind misery of those who
suffer in ignorance; yet you would be the first, I believe, to think
that Mrs. Awcock’s consolations are unreal, and that when she tells me
that she knows there is a wise purpose behind, she is only repeating
what is proper to say to a clergyman. But that is not so; that old
threadbare sentence is intensely real to these people, and, I hope, to
myself too. For there is nothing that I desire more than to be a child
like them. It is the apparent purposelessness that distresses you: it is
the certainty of a deliberate purpose that comforts me. Well, shall I
tell you what I saw?”
I was a little distressed at what looked like callousness, but I told
him I would like to hear the story.
“I was standing one evening––it would be about five years ago––in the
field down there near the stream. You remember the bridge there, over
which the road goes, just outside the hedge. I love running water, and I
went slowly up and down by the side of the beck. There were children on
the road, coming back from school, and they stopped on the bridge to
look at the water, as children and old men will. They did not see me, as
the field is a little below the road, and besides their backs were
turned to me. I could see a pink frock or two, and a pair of stout bare
legs. Two girls were taking their brother home––he was between them, a
hand clasped by each of the sisters. I suppose the eldest girl would be
about nine, and the boy five. They were talking solemnly, and I could
hear every word.
“Why are children always supposed to be gay? There is no solemnity in
the world to be compared to the solemnity of a little boy, or of his
sister who has charge of him.
“One of the girls said, ‘Look, Johnny, there are little fishes down
there.’
“‘When I am a man’––––Johnny began, very slowly.
“‘Look, Johnny,’ said the other girl, ‘there’s a blue flower.’
“Up to this I remember every word. But then I began to watch Johnny.
“The girls went on talking, but they leaned over more, and I could not
hear them plainly. Johnny stealthily withdrew a hand from each of his
sisters, and began to look for a stone to throw at the fishes or the
blue flower, I suppose; for man is lord of Creation. I could see him
presently through the hedge digging patiently with his fingers and
loosening a stone that was firm in the road. And at that moment I heard
a far-away shout and the distant bark of a dog.
“The evening was wonderfully still: every leaf hung quiet: and there
were far-off clouds heaping themselves up in the west, tower over tower.
We had a thunderstorm that night, I remember. The brook was quiet, just
slipping noiselessly from pool to pool.
“Still Johnny was digging and the girls were talking. Then out of the
village above us came again far-off noises. I could hear a rumble and
the clatter of hoofs, then a cry or two more, and the nearer terrified
yelp of a dog. But the girls were intent on the brook––and Johnny on the
stone.
“Even now I did not understand what was happening: but I grew
uneasy––and with great difficulty, for I was an old man even then, tried
to scramble up the high bank by the bridge. As I reached the top I saw
that one of the girls had gone. She had run, I suppose, off the bridge
down by the side of the road. The other girl was still standing––but
looking in a frightened way up the hill. Down the hill came the loud
rumble of a cart and the clatter of hoofs, terribly near.
“The girl by the side of the road began to scream to her sister, who
darted off, and then remembered Johnny and turned. Johnny got up too and
ran to the parapet and stood against it.
“I was shouting too by now, through the hedge: but I could do nothing
more, nothing more, because the hedge was high and thick, and I was an
old man. Then in a moment I remembered that shouting would only distract
them, and I stopped. It was useless. I could do absolutely nothing. But
it was very hard.
“Then I saw the galloping body of a horse through the branches, with a
butcher’s cart that rocked behind him. There was no one on the cart.
“Now there was room for the cart to pass the boy safely. By the
wheelmarks, which I looked at afterwards, there were three clear
feet––if only the boy had stood still.
“The girls seemed petrified as they stood, one in act to run, the other
crouching and hiding her face against the hedge. The cart was now within
ten yards, as I could see, though I was still staring at Johnny. Then
this is what I saw.
“Somewhere behind him over the parapet of the bridge there was a figure.
I remember nothing about it except the face and the hands. The face was,
I think, the tenderest I have ever seen. The eyes were downcast, looking
upon the boy’s head with indescribable love, the lips were smiling. One
hand was over the boy’s eyes, the other against his shoulder behind. In
a moment the memory of other stories I had heard came to mind––and I
gave a sob of relief that the boy was safe in such care.
“But as the iron hoofs and rocking wheels came up, the hand on the boy’s
shoulder suddenly pushed him to meet them; and yet those tender eyes and
mouth never flinched, and the child took a step forward in front of the
horse, and was beaten down without a cry: and the cart lurched heavily,
righted itself, and dashed on out of sight.
“When the cloud of dust had passed, the little body lay quiet on the
road, and the two girls were clinging to one another, screaming and
sobbing, but there was nothing else.
“I was as angry at first as an old man could be. I nearly (may He
forgive me for it now!) cursed God and died. But the memory of that
tender face did its work. It was as the face of a mother who nurses her
first-born child, as the face of a child who kisses a wounded creature,
it was as I think the Father’s Face itself must have been, which those
angels always behold, as He looked down upon the Sacrifice of His only
Son.
“Will you forgive me now if I seemed hard a few minutes ago? Perhaps you
still think it was hardness that made me speak as I did. But, for
myself, I hope I may call it by a better name than that.”
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