CONNIE’S WATCH-TOWER.
As I walked home, the rush of the rising tide was in my ears. To my
fancy, the ocean, awaking from a swoon in which its life had ebbed to
its heart, was sending that life abroad to its extremities, and waves
breaking in white were the beats of its reviving pulse, the flashes of
returning light. But so gentle was its motion, and so lovely its hue,
that I could not help contrasting it with its reflex in the mind of her
who took refuge from the tumult of its noises in the hollow of the
old church. To her, let it look as blue as the sky, as peaceful and as
moveless, it was a wild, reckless, false, devouring creature, a prey
to its own moods, and to that of the blind winds which, careless of
consequences, urged it to raving fury. Only, while the sea took this
form to her imagination, she believed in that which held the sea, and
knew that, when it pleased God to part his confining fingers, there
would be no more sea.
When I reached home, I went straight to Connie’s room. Now the house was
one of a class to every individual of which, whatever be its style or
shape, I instantly become attached almost as if it possessed a measure
of the life which it has sheltered. This class of human dwellings
consists of the houses that have _grown_. They have not been, built
after a straight-up-and-down model of uninteresting convenience or
money-loving pinchedness. They must have had some plan, good, bad, or
indifferent, as the case may be, at first, I suppose; but that plan they
have left far behind, having grown with the necessities or ambitions
of succeeding possessors, until the fact that they have a history is
as plainly written on their aspect as on that of any son or daughter of
Adam. These are the houses which the fairies used to haunt, and if there
is any truth in ghost-stories, the houses which ghosts will yet haunt;
and hence perhaps the sense of soothing comfort which pervades us when
we cross their thresholds. You do not know, the moment you have cast
a glance about the hall, where the dining-room, drawing-room, and best
bedroom are. You have got it all to find out, just as the character of a
man; and thus had I to find out this house of my friend Shepherd. It had
formerly been a kind of manor-house, though altogether unlike any
other manor-house I ever saw; for after exercising all my constructive
ingenuity reversed in pulling it to pieces in my mind, I came to the
conclusion that the germ-cell of it was a cottage of the simplest sort
which had grown by the addition of other cells, till it had reached the
development in which we found it.
I have said that the dining-room was almost on the level of the shore.
Certainly some of the flat stones that coped the low wall in front of
it were thrown into the garden before the next winter by the waves. But
Connie’s room looked out on a little flower-garden almost on the downs,
only sheltered a little by the rise of a short grassy slope above it.
This, however, left the prospect, from her window down the bay and
out to sea, almost open. To reach this room I had now to go up but one
simple cottage stair; for the door of the house entered on the first
floor, that is, as regards the building, midway between heaven and
earth. It had a large bay-window; and in this window Connie was lying
on her couch, with the lower sash wide open, through which the breeze
entered, smelling of sea-weed tempered with sweet grasses and the
wall-flowers and stocks that were in the little plot under it. I thought
I could see an improvement in her already. Certainly she looked very
happy.
“O, papa!” she said, “isn’t it delightful?”
“What is, my dear?”
“O, everything. The wind, and the sky, and the sea, and the smell of
the flowers. Do look at that sea-bird. His wings are like the barb of a
terrible arrow. How he goes undulating, neck and body, up and down as he
flies. I never felt before that a bird moves his wings. It always looked
as if the wings flew with the bird. But I see the effort in him.”
“An easy effort, though, I should certainly think.”
“No doubt. But I see that he chooses and means to fly, and so does it.
It makes one almost reconciled to the idea of wings. Do angels really
have wings, papa?”
“It is generally so represented, I think, in the Bible. But whether it
is meant as a natural fact about them, is more than I take upon me
to decide. For one thing, I should have to examine whether in simple
narrative they are ever represented with them, as, I think, in records
of visions they are never represented without them. But wings are
very beautiful things, and I do not exactly see why you should need
reconciling to them.”
Connie gave a little shrug of her shoulders.
“I don’t like the notion of them growing out at my shoulder-blades. And
however would you get on your clothes? If you put them over your wings,
they would be of no use, and would, besides, make you hump-backed; and
if you did not, everything would have to be buttoned round the roots of
them. You could not do it yourself, and even on Wynnie I don’t think
I could bear to touch the things--I don’t mean the feathers, but the
skinny, folding-up bits of them.”
I laughed at her fastidious fancy.
“You want to fly, I suppose?” I said.
“O, yes; I should like that.”
“And you don’t want to have wings?”
“Well, I shouldn’t mind the wings exactly; but however would one be able
to keep them nice?”
“There you go; starting from one thing to another, like a real bird
already. When you can’t answer one thing, off to another, and, from
your new perch on the hawthorn, talk as if you were still on the topmost
branch of the lilac!”
“O, yes, papa! That’s what I’ve heard you say to mamma twenty times.”
“And did I ever say to your mamma anything but the truth? or to you
either, you puss?”
I had not yet discovered that when I used this epithet to my Connie, she
always thought she had gone too far. She looked troubled. I hastened to
relieve her.
“When women have wings,” I said, “their logic will be good.”
“How do you make that out, papa?” she asked, a little re-assured.
“Because then every shadow of feeling that turns your speech aside
from the straight course will be recognised in that speech; the whole
utterance will be instinct not only with the meaning of what you
are thinking, but with the reflex of the forces in you that make the
utterance take this or that shape; just as to a perfect palate, the
source and course of a stream would be revealed in every draught of its
water.
“I have just a glimmering of your meaning, papa. Would you like to have
wings?”
“I should like to fly like a bird, to swim like a fish, to gallop like
a horse, to creep like a serpent, but I suspect the good of all these is
to be got without doing any of them.”
“I know what you mean now, but I can’t put it in words.”
“I mean by a perfect sympathy with the creatures that do these things:
what it may please God to give to ourselves, we can quite comfortably
leave to him. A higher stratum of the same kind is the need we feel of
knowing our fellow-creatures through and through, of walking into and
out of their worlds as if we were, because we are, perfectly at home
in them.--But I am talking what the people who do not understand such
things lump all together as mysticism, which is their name for a kind
of spiritual ash-pit, whither they consign dust and stones, never asking
whether they may not be gold-dust and rubies, all in a heap.--You had
better begin to think about getting out, Connie.”
“Think about it, papa! I have been thinking about it ever since
daylight.”
“I will go and see what your mother is doing then, and if she is ready
to go out with us.”
In a few moments all was arranged. Without killing more than a snail or
two, which we could not take time to beware of, Walter and I--finding
that the window did not open down to the ground in French fashion, for
which there were two good reasons, one the fierceness of the winds
in winter, the other, the fact that the means of egress were elsewise
provided--lifted the sofa, Connie and all, out over the window-sill, and
then there was only a little door in the garden-wall to get her through
before we found ourselves upon the down. I think the ascent of this hill
was the first experience I had--a little to my humiliation, nothing to
my sorrow--that I was descending another hill. I had to set down the
precious burden rather oftener before we reached the brow of the cliffs
than would have been necessary ten years before. But this was all right,
and the newly-discovered weakness then was strength to the power which
carries me about on my two legs now. It is all right still. I shall be
stronger by and by.
We carried her high enough for her to see the brilliant waters lying
many feet below her, with the sea-birds of which we had talked winging
their undulating way between heaven and ocean. It is when first you have
a chance of looking a bird in the face on the wing that you know what
the marvel of flight is. There it hangs or rests, which you please,
borne up, as far as eye or any of the senses can witness, by its own
will alone. This Connie, quicker than I in her observation of nature,
had already observed. Seated on the warm grass by her side, while
neither talked, but both regarded the blue spaces, I saw one of those
same barb-winged birds rest over my head, regarding me from above, as
if doubtful whether I did not afford some claim to his theory of
treasure-trove. I knew at once that what Connie had been saying to me
just before was true.
She lay silent a long time. I too was silent. At length I spoke.
“Are you longing to be running about amongst the rocks, my Connie?”
“No, papa; not a bit. I don’t know how it is, but I don’t think I
ever wished much for anything I knew I could not have. I am enjoying
everything more than I can tell you. I wish Wynnie were as happy as I
am.”
“Why? Do you think she’s not happy, my dear?”
“That doesn’t want any thinking, papa. You can see that.”
“I am afraid you’re right, Connie. What do you think is the cause of
it?”
“I think it is because she can’t wait. She’s always going out to meet
things; and then when they’re not there waiting for her, she thinks
they’re nowhere. But I always think her way is finer than mine. If
everybody were like me, there wouldn’t be much done in the world, would
there, papa?”
“At all events, my dear, your way is wise for you, and I am glad you do
not judge your sister.”
“Judge Wynnie, papa! That would be cool impudence. She’s worth ten of
me. Don’t you think, papa,” she added, after a pause, “that if Mary had
said the smallest word against Martha, as Martha did against Mary, Jesus
would have had a word to say on Martha’s side next?”
“Indeed I do, my dear. And I think that Mary did not sit very long without
asking Jesus if she mightn’t go and help her sister. There is but one
thing needful--that is, the will of God; and when people love that above
everything, they soon come to see that to everything else there are two
sides, and that only the will of God gives fair play, as we call it, to
both of them.”
Another silence followed. Then Connie spoke.
“Is it not strange, papa, that the only time here that makes me want to
get up to look, is nothing of all the grand things round about me? I am
just lying like the convex mirror in the school-room at home, letting
them all paint themselves in me.”
“What is it then that makes you wish to get up and go and see?” I asked
with real curiosity.
“Do you see down there--away across the bay--amongst the rocks at the
other side, a man sitting sketching?”
I looked for some time before I could discover him.
“Your sight is good, Connie: I see the man, but I could not tell what he
was doing.”
“Don’t you see him lifting his head every now and then for a moment, and
then keeping it down for a longer while?”
“I cannot distinguish that. But then I am shortsighted rather, you
know.”
“I wonder how you see so many little things that nobody else seems to
notice, then, papa.”
“That is because I have trained myself to observe. The degree of power
in the sight is of less consequence than the habit of seeing. But you
have not yet told me what it is that makes you desirous of getting up.”
“I want to look over his shoulder, and see what he is doing. Is it not
strange that in the midst of all this plenty of beautifulness, I should
want to rise to look at a few lines and scratches, or smears of colour,
upon a bit of paper?”
“No, my dear; I don’t think it is strange. There a new element of
interest is introduced--the human. No doubt there is deep humanity in
all this around us. No doubt all the world, in all its moods, is human,
as those for whose abode and instruction it was made. No doubt, it would
be void of both beauty and significance to our eyes, were it not that
it is one crowd of pictures of the human mind, blended in one living
fluctuating whole. But these meanings are there in solution as it were.
The individual is a centre of crystallisation to this solution. Around
him meanings gather, are separated from other meanings; and if he be an
artist, by which I mean true painter, true poet, or true musician,
as the case may be he so isolates and represents them, that we see
them--not what nature shows to us, but what nature has shown, to him,
determined by his nature and choice. With it is mingled therefore
so much of his own individuality, manifested both in this choice and
certain modifications determined by his way of working, that you have
not only a representation of an aspect of nature, as far as that may
be with limited powers and materials, but a revelation of the man’s own
mind and nature. Consequently there is a human interest in every true
attempt to reproduce nature, an interest of individuality which does not
belong to nature herself, who is for all and every man. You have just
been saying that you were lying there like a convex mirror reflecting
all nature around you. Every man is such a convex mirror; and his
drawing, if he can make one, is an attempt to show what is in this
little mirror of his, kindled there by the grand world outside. And the
human mirrors being all differently formed, vary infinitely in what they
would thus represent of the same scene. I have been greatly interested
in looking alternately over the shoulders of two artists, both sketching
in colour the same, absolutely the same scene, both trying to represent
it with all the truth in their power. How different, notwithstanding,
the two representations came out!”
“I think I understand you, papa. But look a little farther off. Don’t
you see over the top of another rock a lady’s bonnet. I do believe
that’s Wynnie. I know she took her box of water-colours out with her
this morning, just before you came home. Dora went with her.”
“Can’t you tell by her ribbons, Connie? You seem sharp-sighted enough
to see her face if she would show it. I don’t even see the bonnet. If
I were like some people I know, I should feel justified in denying its
presence, attributing the whole to your fancy, and refusing anything to
superiority of vision.”
“That wouldn’t be like you, papa.”
“I hope not; for I have no fancy for being shut up in my own blindness,
when other people offer me their eyes to eke out the defects of my own
with. But here comes mamma at last.”
Connie’s face brightened as if she had not seen her mother for a
fortnight. My Ethelwyn always brought the home gladness that her name
signified with her. She was a centre of radiating peace.
“Mamma, don’t you think that’s Wynnie’s bonnet over that black rock
there, just beyond where you see that man drawing?”
“You absurd child! How should I know Wynnie’s bonnet at this distance?”
“Can’t you see the little white feather you gave her out of your
wardrobe just before we left? She put it in this morning before she went
out.”
“I think I do see something white. But I want you to look out there,
towards what they call the Chapel Rock, at the other end of that long
mound they call the breakwater. You will soon see a boat appear full of
the coast-guard. I saw them going on board just as I left the house to
come up to you. Their officer came down with his sword, and each of the
men had a cutlass. I wonder what it can mean.”
We looked. But before the boat made its appearance, Connie cried out--
“Look there! What a big boat that is rowing for the land, away
northwards there!”
I turned my eyes in the direction she indicated, and saw a long boat
with some half-dozen oars, full of men, rowing hard, apparently for some
spot on the shore at a considerable distance to the north of our bay.
“Ah!” I said, “that boat has something to do with the coast-guard and
their cutlasses. You’ll see that, as soon as they get out of the bay,
they will row in the same direction.”
So it was. Our boat appeared presently from under the concealment of the
heights on which we were, and made at full speed after the other boat.
“Surely they can’t be smugglers,” I said. “I thought all that was over
and done with.”
In the course of another twenty minutes, during which we watched
their progress, both boats had disappeared behind the headland to the
northward. Then, thinking Connie had had nearly enough of the sea air
for her first experience of its influences, I went and fetched Walter,
and we carried her back as we had brought her. She had not been in the
shadow of her own room for five minutes before she was fast asleep.
It was now nearly time for our early dinner. We always dined early
when we could, that we might eat along with our children. We were
both convinced that the only way to make them behave like ladies and
gentlemen was to have them always with us at meals. We had seen very
unpleasant results in the children of those who allowed them to dine
with no other supervision than the nursery afforded: they were
a constant anxiety and occasional horror to those whom they
visited--snatching like monkeys, and devouring like jackals, as
selfishly as if they were mere animals.
“O! we’ve seen such a nice gentleman!” said Dora, becoming lively under
the influence of her soup.
“Have you, Dora? Where?”
“Sitting on the rocks, taking a portrait of the sea.”
“What makes you say he was a nice gentleman?”
“He had such beautiful boots!” answered Dora, at which there was a great
laugh about the table.
“O! we must run and tell Connie that,” said Harry. “It will make her
laugh.”
“What will you tell Connie, then, Harry?”
“O! what was it, Charlie? I’ve forgotten.”
Another laugh followed at Harry’s expense now, and we were all very
merry, when Dora, who sat opposite to the window, called out, clapping
her hands--
“There’s Niceboots again! There’s Niceboots again!”
The same moment the head of a young man appeared over the wall that
separated the garden from the little beach that lay by the entrance of
the canal. I saw at once that he must be more than ordinarily tall
to show his face, for he was not close to the wall. It was a dark
countenance, with a long beard, which few at that time wore, though now
it is getting not uncommon, even in my own profession--a noble, handsome
face, a little sad, with downbent eyes, which, released from their more
immediate duty towards nature, had now bent themselves upon the earth.
“Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought.”
“I suppose he’s contemplating his boots,” said Wynnie, with apparent
maliciousness.
“That’s too bad of you, Wynnie,” I said, and the child blushed.
“I didn’t mean anything, papa. It was only following up Dora’s wise
discrimination,” said Wynnie.
“He is a fine-looking fellow,” said I, “and ought, with that face and
head, to be able to paint good pictures.”
“I should like to see what he has done,” said Wynnie; “for, by the way
we were sitting, I should think we were attempting the same thing.”
“And what was that then, Wynnie?” I asked.
“A rock,” she answered, “that you could not see from where you were
sitting. I saw you on the top of the cliff.”
“Connie said it was you, by your bonnet. She, too, was wishing she could
look over the shoulder of the artist at work beside you.”
“Not beside me. There were yards and yards of solid rock between us.”
“Space, you see, in removing things from the beholder, seems always
to bring them nearer to each other, and the most differing things are
classed under one name by the man who knows nothing about them. But what
sort of a rock was it you were trying to draw?”
“A strange-looking, conical rock, that stands alone in front of one of
the ridges that project from the shore into the water. Three sea-birds,
with long white wings, were flying about it, and the little waves of
the rising tide were beating themselves against it and breaking in white
plashes. So the rock stood between the blue and white below and the blue
and white above; for, though there were no clouds, the birds gave the
touches of white to the upper sea.”
“Now, Dora,” I said, “I don’t know if you are old enough to understand
me; but sometimes little people are long in understanding, just because
the older people think they can’t, and don’t try them.--Do you see,
Dora, why I want you to learn to draw? Look how Wynnie sees things.
That is, in a great measure, because she draws things, and has, by that,
learned to watch in order to find out. It is a great thing to have your
eyes open.”
Dora’s eyes were large, and she opened them to their full width, as
if she would take in the universe at their little doors. Whether that
indicated that she did not in the least understand what I had been
saying, or that she was in sympathy with it, I cannot tell.
“Now let us go up to Connie, and tell her about the rock and everything
else you have seen since you went out. We are all her messengers sent
out to discover things, and bring back news of them.”
After a little talk with Connie, I retired to the study, which was on
the same floor as her room completing, indeed, the whole of that part
of the house, which, seen from without, looked like a separate building;
for it had a roof of its own, and stood higher up the rock than the rest
of the dwelling. Here I began to glance over the books. To have the
run of another man’s library, especially if it has all been gathered
by himself, is like having a pass-key into the chambers of his thought.
Only, one must be wary, when he opens them, what marks on the books
he takes for those of the present owner. A mistake here would breed
considerable confusion and falsehood in any judgment formed from the
library. I found, however, one thing plain enough, that Shepherd had
kept up that love for an older English literature, which had been one of
the cords to draw us towards each other when we were students together.
There had been one point on which we especially agreed--that a true
knowledge of the present, in literature, as in everything else, could
only be founded upon a knowledge of what had gone before; therefore,
that any judgment, in regard to the literature of the present day, was
of no value which was not guided and influenced by a real acquaintance
with the best of what had gone before, being liable to be dazzled and
misled by novelty of form and other qualities which, whatever might be
the real worth of the substance, were, in themselves, purely ephemeral.
I had taken down a last-century edition of the poems of the brothers
Fletcher, and, having begun to read a lovely passage in “Christ’s
Victory and Triumph,” had gone into what I can only call an intellectual
rage, at the impudence of the editor, who had altered innumerable words
and phrases to suit the degenerate taste of his own time,--when a knock
came to the door, and Charlie entered, breathless with eagerness.
“There’s the boat with the men with the swords in it, and another boat
behind them, twice as big.”
I hurried out upon the road, and there, close under our windows, were
the two boats we had seen in the morning, landing their crews on the
little beach. The second boat was full of weather-beaten men, in all
kinds of attire, some in blue jerseys, some in red shirts, some in
ragged coats. One man, who looked their superior, was dressed in blue
from head to foot.
“What’s the matter?” I asked the officer of the coast-guard, a sedate,
thoughtful-looking man.
“Vessel foundered, sir,” he answered. “Sprung a leak on Sunday morning.
She was laden with iron, and in a heavy ground swell it shifted and
knocked a hole in her. The poor fellows are worn out with the pump and
rowing, upon little or nothing to eat.”
They were trooping past us by this time, looking rather dismal, though
not by any means abject.
“What are you going to do with them now?”
“They’ll be taken in by the people. We’ll get up a little subscription
for them, but they all belong to the society the sailors have for
sending the shipwrecked to their homes, or where they want to go.”
“Well, here’s something to help,” I said.
“Thank you, sir. They’ll be very glad of it.”
“And if there’s anything wanted that I can do for them, you must let me
know.”
“I will, sir. But I don’t think there will be any occasion to trouble
you. You are our new clergyman, I believe.”
“Not exactly that. Only for a little while, till my friend Mr. Shepherd
is able to come back to you.”
“We don’t want to lose Mr. Shepherd, sir. He’s what they call high
in these parts, but he’s a great favourite with all the poor people,
because you see he understands them as if he was of the same flesh and
blood with themselves--as, for that matter, I suppose we all are.”
“If we weren’t there would be nothing to say at all. Will any of these
men be at church to-morrow, do you suppose? I am afraid sailors are not
much in the way of going to church?”
“I am afraid not. You see they are all anxious to get home. Most likely
they’ll be all travelling to-morrow. It’s a pity. It would be a good
chance for saying something to them that they might think of again. But
I often think that, perhaps--it’s only my own fancy, and I don’t set it
up for anything--that sailors won’t be judged exactly like other people.
They’re so knocked about, you see, sir.”
“Of course not. Nobody will be judged like any other body. To his own
Master, who knows all about him, every man stands or falls. Depend upon
it, God likes fair play, to use a homely phrase, far better than any
sailor of them all. But that’s not exactly the question. It seems to me
the question is this: shall we, who know what a blessed thing life is
because we know what God is like, who can trust in him with all our
hearts because he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the friend
of sinners, shall we not try all we can to let them, too, know the
blessedness of trusting in their Father in heaven? If we could only get
them to say the Lord’s prayer, _meaning_ it, think what that would be!
Look here! This can’t be called bribery, for they are in want of it, and
it will show them I am friendly. Here’s another sovereign. Give them
my compliments, and say that if any of them happen to be in Kilkhaven
tomorrow, I shall be quite pleased to welcome them to church. Tell them
I will give them of my best there if they will come. Make the invitation
merrily, you know. No long faces and solemn speech. I will give them the
solemn speech when they come to church. But even there I hope God will
keep the long face far from me. That is fittest for fear and suffering.
And the house of God is the casket that holds the antidote against
all fear and most suffering. But I am preaching my sermon on Saturday
instead of Sunday, and keeping you from your ministration to the poor
fellows. Good-bye.”
“I will give them your message as near as I can,” he said, and we shook
hands and parted.
This was the first experience we had of the might and battle of the
ocean. To our eyes it lay quiet as a baby asleep. On that Sunday morning
there had been no commotion here. Yet now at last, on the Saturday
morning, home come the conquered and spoiled of the sea. As if with a
mock she takes all they have, and flings them on shore again, with her
weeds, and her shells, and her sand. Before the winter was over we had
learned--how much more of that awful power that surrounds the habitable
earth! By slow degrees the sense of its might grew upon us, first by the
vision of its many aspects and moods, and then by more awful things that
followed; for there are few coasts upon which the sea rages so wildly as
upon this, the whole force of the Atlantic breaking upon it. Even when
there is no storm within perhaps hundreds of miles, when all is still as
a church on the land, the storm that raves somewhere out upon the vast
waste, will drive the waves in upon the shore with such fury that not
even a lifeboat could make its way through their yawning hollows, and
their fierce, shattered, and tumbling crests.