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THE SEABOARD PARISH
BY GEORGE MAC DONALD, LL.D.
VOL. I.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
I. HOMILETIC
II. CONSTANCE'S BIRTHDAY
III. THE SICK CHAMBER
IV. A SUNDAY EVENING
V. MY DREAM
VI. THE NEW BABY
VII. ANOTHER SUNDAY EVENING
VIII. THEODORA'S DOOM
IX. A SPRING CHAPTER
X. AN IMPORTANT LETTER
XI. CONNIE'S DREAM
XII. THE JOURNEY
XIII. WHAT WE DID WHEN WE ARRIVED
XIV. MORE ABOUT KILKHAVEN
XV. THE OLD CHURCH
XVI. CONNIE'S WATCH-TOWER
XVII. MY FIRST SERMON IN THE SEABOARD PARISH
CHAPTER I.
HOMILETIC.
Dear Friends,--I am beginning a new book like an old sermon; but, as
you know, I have been so accustomed to preach all my life, that
whatever I say or write will more or less take the shape of a sermon;
and if you had not by this time learned at least to bear with my
oddities, you would not have wanted any more of my teaching. And,
indeed, I did not think you would want any more. I thought I had bidden
you farewell. But I am seated once again at my writing-table, to write
for you--with a strange feeling, however, that I am in the heart of
some curious, rather awful acoustic contrivance, by means of which the
words which I have a habit of whispering over to myself as I write
them, are heard aloud by multitudes of people whom I cannot see or
hear. I will favour the fancy, that, by a sense of your presence, I may
speak the more truly, as man to man.
But let me, for a moment, suppose that I am your grandfather, and that
you have all come to beg for a story; and that, therefore, as usually
happens in such cases, I am sitting with a puzzled face, indicating a
more puzzled mind. I know that there are a great many stories in the
holes and corners of my brain; indeed, here is one, there is one,
peeping out at me like a rabbit; but alas, like a rabbit, showing me
almost at the same instant the tail-end of it, and vanishing with a
contemptuous _thud_ of its hind feet on the ground. For I must have
suitable regard to the desires of my children. It is a fine thing to be
able to give people what they want, if at the same time you can give
them what you want. To give people what they want, would sometimes be
to give them only dirt and poison. To give them what you want, might be
to set before them something of which they could not eat a mouthful.
What both you and I want, I am willing to think, is a dish of good
wholesome venison. Now I suppose my children around me are neither
young enough nor old enough to care about a fairy tale, go that will
not do. What they want is, I believe, something that I know about--that
has happened to myself. Well, I confess, that is the kind of thing I
like best to hear anybody talk to me about. Let anyone tell me
something that has happened to himself, especially if he will give me a
peep into how his heart took it, as it sat in its own little room with
the closed door, and that person will, so telling, absorb my attention:
he has something true and genuine and valuable to communicate. They are
mostly old people that can do so. Not that young people have nothing
happen to them; but that only when they grow old, are they able to see
things right, to disentangle confusions, and judge righteous judgment.
Things which at the time appeared insignificant or wearisome, then give
out the light that was in them, show their own truth, interest, and
influence: they are far enough off to be seen. It is not when we are
nearest to anything that we know best what it is. How I should like to
write a story for old people! The young are always having stories
written for them. Why should not the old people come in for a share? A
story without a young person in it at all! Nobody under fifty admitted!
It could hardly be a fairy tale, could it? Or a love story either? I am
not so sure about that. The worst of it would be, however, that hardly
a young person would read it. Now, we old people would not like that.
We can read young people's books and enjoy them: they would not try to
read old men's books or old women's books; they would be so sure of
their being dry. My dear old brothers and sisters, we know better, do
we not? We have nice old jokes, with no end of fun in them; only they
cannot see the fun. We have strange tales, that we know to be true, and
which look more and more marvellous every time we turn them over again;
only somehow they do not belong to the ways of this year--I was going
to say _week_,--and so the young people generally do not care to hear
them. I have had one pale-faced boy, to be sure, who will sit at his
mother's feet, and listen for hours to what took place before he was
born. To him his mother's wedding-gown was as old as Eve's coat of
skins. But then he was young enough not yet to have had a chance of
losing the childhood common to the young and the old. Ah! I should like
to write for you, old men, old women, to help you to read the past, to
help you to look for the future. Now is your salvation nearer than when
you believed; for, however your souls may be at peace, however your
quietness and confidence may give you strength, in the decay of your
earthly tabernacle, in the shortening of its cords, in the weakening of
its stakes, in the rents through which you see the stars, you have yet
your share in the cry of the creation after the sonship. But the one
thing I should keep saying to you, my companions in old age, would be,
"Friends, let us not grow old." Old age is but a mask; let us not call
the mask the face. Is the acorn old, because its cup dries and drops it
from its hold--because its skin has grown brown and cracks in the
earth? Then only is a man growing old when he ceases to have sympathy
with the young. That is a sign that his heart has begun to wither. And
that is a dreadful kind of old age. The heart needs never be old.
Indeed it should always be growing younger. Some of us feel younger, do
we not, than when we were nine or ten? It is not necessary to be able
to play at leapfrog to enjoy the game. There are young creatures whose
turn it is, and perhaps whose duty it would be, to play at leap-frog if
there was any necessity for putting the matter in that light; and for
us, we have the privilege, or if we will not accept the privilege, then
I say we have the duty, of enjoying their leap-frog. But if we must
withdraw in a measure from sociable relations with our fellows, let it
be as the wise creatures that creep aside and wrap themselves up and
lay themselves by that their wings may grow and put on the lovely hues
of their coming resurrection. Such a withdrawing is in the name of
youth. And while it is pleasant--no one knows how pleasant except him
who experiences it--to sit apart and see the drama of life going on
around him, while his feelings are calm and free, his vision clear, and
his judgment righteous, the old man must ever be ready, should the
sweep of action catch him in its skirts, to get on his tottering old
legs, and go with brave heart to do the work of a true man, none the
less true that his hands tremble, and that he would gladly return to
his chimney-corner. If he is never thus called out, let him examine
himself, lest he should be falling into the number of those that say,
"I go, sir," and go not; who are content with thinking beautiful things
in an Atlantis, Oceana, Arcadia, or what it may be, but put not forth
one of their fingers to work a salvation in the earth. Better than such
is the man who, using just weights and a true balance, sells good
flour, and never has a thought of his own.
I have been talking--to my reader is it? or to my supposed group of
grandchildren? I remember--to my companions in old age. It is time I
returned to the company who are hearing my whispers at the other side
of the great thundering gallery. I take leave of my old friends with
one word: We have yet a work to do, my friends; but a work we shall
never do aright after ceasing to understand the new generation. We are
not the men, neither shall wisdom die with us. The Lord hath not
forsaken his people because the young ones do not think just as the old
ones choose. The Lord has something fresh to tell them, and is getting
them ready to receive his message. When we are out of sympathy with the
young, then I think our work in this world is over. It might end more
honourably.
Now, readers in general, I have had time to consider what to tell you
about, and how to begin. My story will be rather about my family than
myself now. I was as it were a little withdrawn, even by the time of
which I am about to write. I had settled into a gray-haired, quite
elderly, yet active man--young still, in fact, to what I am now. But
even then, though my faith had grown stronger, life had grown sadder,
and needed all my stronger faith; for the vanishing of beloved faces,
and the trials of them that are dear, will make even those that look
for a better country both for themselves and their friends, sad, though
it will be with a preponderance of the first meaning of the word _sad_,
which was _settled_, _thoughtful_.
I am again seated in the little octagonal room, which I have made my
study because I like it best. It is rather a shame, for my books cover
over every foot of the old oak panelling. But they make the room all
the pleasanter to the eye, and after I am gone, there is the old oak,
none the worse, for anyone who prefers it to books.
I intend to use as the central portion of my present narrative the
history of a year during part of which I took charge of a friend's
parish, while my brother-in-law, Thomas Weir, who was and is still my
curate, took the entire charge of Marshmallows. What led to this will
soon appear. I will try to be minute enough in my narrative to make my
story interesting, although it will cost me suffering to recall some of
the incidents I have to narrate.