I was not altogether comfortable after this conversation. I had tried

to be fair to the young man both in word and thought, but I could not

relish the idea of my daughter falling in love with him, which looked

likely enough, before I knew more about him, and found that _more_ good

and hope-giving. There was but one rational thing left to do, and that

was to cast my care on him that careth for us--on the Father who loved

my child more than even I could love her--and loved the young man too,

and regarded my anxiety, and would take its cause upon himself. After

I had lifted up my heart to him I was at ease, read a canto of Dante’s

_Paradise_, and then went to bed. The prematurity of a conversation with

my wife, in which I found that she was very favourably impressed with

Mr. Percivale, must be pardoned to the forecasting hearts of fathers and

mothers.

As I went out for my walk the next morning, I caught sight of the

sexton, with whom as yet I had had but little communication, busily

trimming some of the newer graves in the churchyard. I turned in through

the nearer gate, which was fashioned like a lych-gate, with seats on the

sides and a stone table in the centre, but had no roof. The one on the

other side of the church was roofed, but probably they had found that

here no roof could resist the sea-blasts in winter. The top of the wall

where the roof should have rested, was simply covered with flat slates

to protect it from the rain.

“Good-morning, Coombes,” I said.

He turned up a wizened, humorous old face, the very type of a

gravedigger’s, and with one hand leaning on the edge of the green mound,

upon which he had been cropping with a pair of shears the too long and

too thin grass, touched his cap with the other, and bade me a cheerful

good-morning in return.

“You’re making things tidy,” I said.

“It take time to make them all comfortable, you see, sir,” he returned,

taking up his shears again and clipping away at the top and sides of the

mound.

“You mean the dead, Coombes?”

“Yes, sir; to be sure, sir.”

“You don’t think it makes much difference to their comfort, do you,

whether the grass is one length or another upon their graves?”

“Well no, sir. I don’t suppose it makes _much_ difference to them.

But it look more comfortable, you know. And I like things to look

comfortable. Don’t you, sir?”

“To be sure I do, Coombes. And you are quite right. The resting-place

of the body, although the person it belonged to be far away, should be

respected.”

“That’s what I think, though I don’t get no credit for it. I du believe

the people hereabouts thinks me only a single hair better than a Jack

Ketch. But I’m sure I du my best to make the poor things comfortable.”

He seemed unable to rid his mind of the idea that the comfort of the

departed was dependent upon his ministrations.

“The trouble I have with them sometimes! There’s now this same one as

lies here, old Jonathan Giles. He have the gout so bad! and just as I

come within a couple o’ inches o’ the right depth, out come the edge of

a great stone in the near corner at the foot of the bed. Thinks I,

he’ll never lie comfortable with that same under his gouty toe. But the

trouble I had to get out that stone! I du assure you, sir, it took me

nigh half the day.--But this be one of the nicest places to lie in all

up and down the coast--a nice gravelly soil, you see, sir; dry, and

warm, and comfortable. Them poor things as comes out of the sea must

quite enjoy the change, sir.”

There was something grotesque in the man’s persistence in regarding the

objects of his interest from this point of view. It was a curious way

for the humanity that was in him to find expression; but I did not like

to let him go on thus. It was so much opposed to all that I believed and

felt about the change from this world to the next!

“But, Coombes,” I said, “why will you go on talking as if it made an

atom of difference to the dead bodies where they were buried? They care

no more about it than your old coat would care where it was thrown after

you had done with it.”

He turned and regarded his coat where it hung beside him on the

headstone of the same grave at which he was working, shook his head with

a smile that seemed to hint a doubt whether the said old coat would be

altogether so indifferent to its treatment when, it was past use as

I had implied. Then he turned again to his work, and after a moment’s

silence began to approach me from another side. I confess he had the

better of me before I was aware of what he was about.

“The church of Boscastle stands high on the cliff. You’ve been to

Boscastle, sir?”

I told him I had not yet, but hoped to go before the summer was over.

“Ah, you should see Boscastle, sir. It’s a wonderful place. That’s where

I was born, sir. When I was a by that church was haunted, sir. It’s a

damp place, and the wind in it awful. I du believe it stand higher than

any church in the country, and have got more wind in it of a stormy

night than any church whatsomever. Well, they said it was haunted; and

sure enough every now and then there was a knocking heard down below.

And this always took place of a stormy night, as if there was some poor

thing down in the low wouts (_vaults_), and he wasn’t comfortable and

wanted to get out. Well, one night it was so plain and so fearful it was

that the sexton he went and took the blacksmith and a ship’s carpenter

down to the harbour, and they go up together, and they hearken all over

the floor, and they open one of the old family wouts that belongs to

the Penhaligans, and they go down with a light. Now the wind it was

a-blowing all as usual, only worse than common. And there to be sure

what do they see but the wout half-full of sea-water, and nows and

thens a great spout coming in through a hole in the rock; for it was

high-water and a wind off the sea, as I tell you. And there was a coffin

afloat on the water, and every time the spout come through, it set it

knocking agen the side o’ the wout, and that was the ghost.”

“What a horrible idea!” I said, with a half-shudder at the unrest of the

dead.

The old man uttered a queer long-drawn sound,--neither a chuckle, a

crow, nor a laugh, but a mixture of all three,--and turned himself yet

again to the work which, as he approached the end of his narration,

he had suspended, that he might make his story _tell_, I suppose, by

looking me in the face. And as he turned he said, “I thought you would

like to be comfortable then as well as other people, sir.”

I could not help laughing to see how the cunning old fellow had caught

me. I have not yet been able to find out how much of truth there was in

his story. From the twinkle of his eye I cannot help suspecting that

if he did not invent the tale, he embellished it, at least, in order to

produce the effect which he certainly did produce. Humour was clearly

his predominant disposition, the reflex of which was to be seen, after a

mild lunar fashion, on the countenance of his wife. Neither could I help

thinking with pleasure, as I turned away, how the merry little old man

would enjoy telling his companions how he had posed the new parson.

Very welcome was he to his laugh for my part. Yet I gladly left the

churchyard, with its sunshine above and its darkness below. Indeed I

had to look up to the glittering vanes on the four pinnacles of the

church-tower, dwelling aloft in the clean sunny air, to get the feeling

of the dark vault, and the floating coffin, and the knocking heard in

the windy church, out of my brain. But the thing that did free me was

the reflection with what supreme disregard the disincarcerated spirit

would look upon any possible vicissitudes of its abandoned vault. For in

proportion as the body of man’s revelation ceases to be in harmony with

the spirit that dwells therein, it becomes a vault, a prison, from which

it must be freedom to escape at length. The house we like best would be

a prison of awful sort if doors and windows were built up. Man’s abode,

as age begins to draw nigh, fares thus. Age is in fact the mason that

builds up the doors and the windows, and death is the angel that breaks

the prison-house and lets the captives free. Thus I got something out of

the sexton’s horrible story.

But before the week was over, death came near indeed--in far other

fashion than any funereal tale could have brought it.

One day, after lunch, I had retired to my study, and was dozing in my

chair, for the day was hot, when I was waked by Charlie rushing into the

room with the cry, “Papa, papa, there’s a man drowning.”

I started up, and hurried down to the drawing-room, which looked out

over the bay. I could see nothing but people running about on the edge

of the quiet waves. No sign of human being was on--the water. But the

one boat belonging to the pilot was coming out from the shelter of the

lock of the canal where it usually lay, and my friend of the coastguard

was running down from the tower on the cliff with ropes in his hand. He

would not stop the boat even for the moment it would need to take him on

board, but threw them in and urged to haste. I stood at the window and

watched. Every now and then I fancied I saw something white heaved up on

the swell of a wave, and as often was satisfied that I had but fancied

it. The boat seemed to be floating about lazily, if not idly. The

eagerness to help made it appear as if nothing was going on. Could it,

after all, have been a false alarm? Was there, after all, no insensible

form swinging about in the sweep of those waves, with life gradually

oozing away? Long, long as it seemed to me, I watched, and still the

boat kept moving from place to place, so far out that I could see

nothing distinctly of the motions of its crew. At length I saw

something. Yes; a long white thing rose from the water slowly, and was

drawn into the boat. It rowed swiftly to the shore. There was but one

place fit to land upon,--a little patch of sand, nearly covered at

high-water, but now lying yellow in the sun, under the window at which

I stood, and immediately under our garden-wall. Thither the boat shot

along; and there my friend of the coastguard, earnest and sad, was

waiting to use, though without hope, every appliance so well known to

him from the frequent occurrence of such necessity in the course of his

watchful duties along miles and miles of stormy coast.

I will not linger over the sad details of vain endeavour. The honoured

head of a family, he had departed and left a good name behind him.

But even in the midst of my poor attentions to the quiet, speechless,

pale-faced wife, who sat at the head of the corpse, I could not help

feeling anxious about the effect on my Connie. It was impossible to keep

the matter concealed from her. The undoubted concern on the faces of

the two boys was enough to reveal that something serious and painful had

occurred; while my wife and Wynnie, and indeed the whole household, were

busy in attending to every remotest suggestion of aid that reached

them from the little crowd gathered about the body. At length it was

concluded, on the verdict of the medical man who had been sent for, that

all further effort was useless. The body was borne away, and I led the

poor lady to her lodging, and remained there with her till I found that,

as she lay on the sofa, the sleep that so often dogs the steps of sorrow

had at length thrown its veil over her consciousness, and put her for

the time to rest. There is a gentle consolation in the firmness of the

grasp of the inevitable, known but to those who are led through the

valley of the shadow. I left her with her son and daughter, and returned

to my own family. They too were of course in the skirts of the cloud.

Had they only heard of the occurrence, it would have had little effect;

but death had appeared to them. Everyone but Connie had seen the dead

lying there; and before the day was over, I wished that she too had

seen the dead. For I found from what she said at intervals, and from the

shudder that now and then passed through her, that her imagination was

at work, showing but the horrors that belong to death; for the enfolding

peace that accompanies it can be known but by sight of the dead. When

I spoke to her, she seemed, and I suppose for the time felt tolerably

quiet and comfortable; but I could see that the words she had heard fall

in the going and coming, and the communications of Charlie and Harry to

each other, had made as it were an excoriation on her fancy, to which

her consciousness was ever returning. And now I became more grateful

than I had yet been for the gift of that gipsy-child. For I felt no

anxiety about Connie so long as she was with her. The presence even of

her mother could not relieve her, for she and Wynnie were both clouded

with the same awe, and its reflex in Connie was distorted by her fancy.

But the sweet ignorance of the baby, which rightly considered is

more than a type or symbol of faith, operated most healingly; for she

appeared in her sweet merry ways--no baby was ever more filled with the

mere gladness of life than Connie’s baby--to the mood in which they

all were, like a little sunny window in a cathedral crypt, telling of a

whole universe of sunshine and motion beyond those oppressed pillars and

low-groined arches. And why should not the baby know best? I believe the

babies do know best. I therefore favoured her having the child more than

I might otherwise have thought good for her, being anxious to get the

dreary, unhealthy impression healed as soon as possible, lest it should,

in the delicate physical condition in which she was, turn to a sore.

But my wife suffered for a time nearly as much as Connie. As long as she

was going about the house or attending to the wants of her family,

she was free; but no sooner did she lay her head on the pillow than in

rushed the cry of the sea, fierce, unkind, craving like a wild beast.

Again and again she spoke of it to me, for it came to her mingled with

the voice of the tempter, saying, “_Cruel chance_,” over and over again.

For although the two words contradict each other when put together thus,

each in its turn would assert itself.

A great part of the doubt in the world comes from the fact that

there are in it so many more of the impressible as compared with the

originating minds. Where the openness to impression is balanced by the

power of production, the painful questions of the world are speedily

met by their answers; where such is not the case, there are often long

periods of suffering till the child-answer of truth is brought to the

birth. Hence the need for every impressible mind to be, by reading or

speech, held in living association with an original mind able to combat

those suggestions of doubt and even unbelief, which the look of things

must often occasion--a look which comes from our inability to gain other

than fragmentary visions of the work that the Father worketh hitherto.

When the kingdom of heaven is at hand, one sign thereof will be that all

clergymen will be more or less of the latter sort, and mere receptive

goodness, no more than education and moral character, will be considered

sufficient reason for a man’s occupying the high position of an

instructor of his fellows. But even now this possession of original

power is not by any means to be limited to those who make public show of

the same. In many a humble parish priest it shows itself at the bedside

of the suffering, or in the admonition of the closet, although as yet

there are many of the clergy who, so far from being able to console

wisely, are incapable of understanding the condition of those that need

consolation.

“It is all a fancy, my dear,” I said to her. “There is nothing more

terrible in this than in any other death. On the contrary, I can hardly

imagine a less fearful one. A big wave falls on the man’s head and stuns

him, and without further suffering he floats gently out on the sea of

the unknown.”

“But it is so terrible for those left behind!”

“Had you seen the face of his widow, so gentle, so loving, so resigned

in its pallor, you would not have thought it so _terrible_.”

But though she always seemed satisfied, and no doubt felt nearly so,

after any conversation of the sort, yet every night she would call out

once and again, “O, that sea, out there!” I was very glad indeed when

Mr. Turner, who had arranged to spend a short holiday with us, arrived.

He was concerned at the news I gave him of the shock both Connie and

her mother had received, and counselled an immediate change, that time

might, in the absence of surrounding associations, obliterate something

of the impression that had been made. The consequence was, that we

resolved to remove our household, for a short time, to some place not

too far off to permit of my attending to my duties at Kilkhaven, but

out of the sight and sound of the sea. It was Thursday when Mr. Turner

arrived, and he spent the next two days in inquiring and looking about

for a suitable spot to which we might repair as early in the week as

possible.

On the Saturday the blacksmith was busy in the church-tower, and I went

in to see how he was getting on.

“You had a sad business here the last week, sir,” he said, after we had

done talking about the repairs.

“A very sad business indeed,” I answered.

“It was a warning to us all,” he said.

“We may well take it so,” I returned. “But it seems to me that we are

too ready to think of such remarkable things only by themselves, instead

of being roused by them to regard everything, common and uncommon, as

ordered by the same care and wisdom.”

“One of our local preachers made a grand use of it.”

I made no reply. He resumed.

“They tell me you took no notice of it last Sunday, sir.”

“I made no immediate allusion to it, certainly. But I preached under the

influence of it. And I thought it better that those who could reflect

on the matter should be thus led to think for themselves than that they

should be subjected to the reception of my thoughts and feelings about

it; for in the main it is life and not death that we have to preach.”

“I don’t quite understand you, sir. But then you don’t care much for

preaching in your church.”

“I confess,” I answered, “that there has been much indifference on that

point. I could, however, mention to you many and grand exceptions. Still

there is, even in some of the best in the church, a great amount of

disbelief in the efficacy of preaching. And I allow that a great deal

of what is called preaching, partakes of its nature only in the remotest

degree. But, while I hold a strong opinion of its value--that is,

where it is genuine--I venture just to suggest that the nature of

the preaching to which the body you belong to has resorted, has had

something to do, by way of a reaction, in driving the church to the

other extreme.”

“How do you mean that, sir?”

“You try to work upon people’s feelings without reference to their

judgment. Anyone who can preach what you call rousing sermons is

considered a grand preacher amongst you, and there is a great danger of

his being led thereby to talk more nonsense than sense. And then when

the excitement goes off, there is no seed left in the soil to grow in

peace, and they are always craving after more excitement.”

“Well, there is the preacher to rouse them up again.”

“And the consequence is that they continue like children--the good ones,

I mean--and have hardly a chance of making a calm, deliberate choice of

that which is good; while those who have been only excited and nothing

more, are hardened and seared by the recurrence of such feeling as is

neither aroused by truth nor followed by action.”

“You daren’t talk like that if you knew the kind of people in this

country that the Methodists, as you call them, have got a hold of. They

tell me it was like hell itself down in those mines before Wesley come

among them.”

“I should be a fool or a bigot to doubt that the Wesleyans have done

incalculable good in the country. And that not alone to the people who

never went to church. The whole Church of England is under obligations

to Methodism such as no words can overstate.”

“I wonder you can say such things against them, then.”

“Now there you show the evil of thinking too much about the party you

belong to. It makes a man touchy; and then he fancies when another is

merely, it may be, analysing a difference, or insisting strongly on some

great truth, that he is talking against his party.”

“But you said, sir, that our clergy don’t care about moving our

judgments, only our feelings. Now I know preachers amongst us of whom

that would be anything but true.”

“Of course there must be. But there is what I say--your party-feeling

makes you touchy. A man can’t always be saying in the press of

utterance, ‘_Of course there are exceptions_.’ That is understood. I

confess I do not know much about your clergy, for I have not had the

opportunity. But I do know this, that some of the best and most liberal

people I have ever known have belonged to your community.”

“They do gather a deal of money for good purposes.”

“Yes. But that was not what I meant by _liberal_. It is far easier to

give money than to be generous in judgment. I meant by _liberal_, able

to see the good and true in people that differ from you--glad to be

roused to the reception of truth in God’s name from whatever quarter

it may come, and not readily finding offence where a remark may have

chanced to be too sweeping or unguarded. But I see that I ought to be

more careful, for I have made you, who certainly are not one of the

quarrelsome people I have been speaking of, misunderstand me.”

“I beg your pardon, sir. I was hasty. But I do think I am more ready to

lose my temper since--”

Here he stopped. A fit of coughing came on, and, to my concern, was

followed by what I saw plainly could be the result only of a rupture in

the lungs. I insisted on his dropping his work and coming home with me,

where I made him rest the remainder of the day and all Sunday, sending

word to his mother that I could not let him go home. When we left on

the Monday morning, we took him with us in the carriage hired for the

journey, and set him down at his mother’s, apparently no worse than

usual.

CHAPTER VII.

AT THE FARM.

Leaving the younger members of the family at home with the servants,

we set out for a farmhouse, some twenty miles off, which Turner had

discovered for us. Connie had stood the journey down so well, and

was now so much stronger, that we had no anxiety about her so far as

regarded the travelling. Through deep lanes with many cottages, and here

and there a very ugly little chapel, over steep hills, up which Turner

and Wynnie and I walked, and along sterile moors we drove, stopping at

roadside inns, and often besides to raise Connie and let her look about

upon the extended prospect, so that it was drawing towards evening

before we arrived at our destination. On the way Turner had warned us

that we were not to expect a beautiful country, although the place

was within reach of much that was remarkable. Therefore we were not

surprised when we drew up at the door of a bare-looking, shelterless

house, with scarcely a tree in sight, and a stretch of undulating fields

on every side.

“A dreary place in winter, Turner,” I said, after we had seen Connie

comfortably deposited in the nice white-curtained parlour, smelling of

dried roses even in the height of the fresh ones, and had strolled out

while our tea--dinner was being got ready for us.

“Not a doubt of it; but just the place I wanted for Miss Connie,” he

replied. “We are high above the sea, and the air is very bracing, and

not, at this season, too cold. A month later I should not on any account

have brought her here.”

“I think even now there is a certain freshness in the wind that calls up

a kind of will in the nerves to meet it.”

“That is precisely what I wanted for you all. You observe there is no

rasp in its touch, however. There are regions in this island of ours

where even in the hottest day in summer you would frequently discover a

certain unfriendly edge in the air, that would set you wondering whether

the seasons had not changed since you were a boy, and used to lie on the

grass half the idle day.”

“I often do wonder whether it may not be so, but I always come to the

conclusion that even this is but an example of the involuntary tendency

of the mind of man towards the ideal. He forgets all that comes between

and divides the hints of perfection scattered here and there along the

scope of his experience. I especially remember one summer day in my

childhood, which has coloured all my ideas of summer and bliss and

fulfilment of content. It is made up of only mossy grass, and the scent

of the earth and wild flowers, and hot sun, and perfect sky--deep and

blue, and traversed by blinding white clouds. I could not have been more

than five or six, I think, from the kind of dress I wore, the very pearl

buttons of which, encircled on their face with a ring of half-spherical

hollows, have their undeniable relation in my memory to the heavens and

the earth, to the march of the glorious clouds, and the tender scent

of the rooted flowers; and, indeed, when I think of it, must, by the

delight they gave me, have opened my mind the more to the enjoyment of

the eternal paradise around me. What a thing it is to please a child!”

“I know what you mean perfectly,” answered Turner. “It is as I get older

that I understand what Wordsworth says about childhood. It is indeed a

mercy that we were not born grown men, with what we consider our wits

about us. They are blinding things those wits we gather. I fancy that

the single thread by which God sometimes keeps hold of a man is such an

impression of his childhood as that of which you have been speaking.”

“I do not doubt it; for conscience is so near in all those memories to

which you refer. The whole surrounding of them is so at variance with

sin! A sense of purity, not in himself, for the child is not feeling

that he is pure, is all about him; and when afterwards the condition

returns upon him,--returns when he is conscious of so much that is evil

and so much that is unsatisfied in him,--it brings with it a longing

after the high clear air of moral well-being.”

“Do you think, then, that it is only by association that nature thus

impresses us? that she has no power of meaning these things?”

“Not at all. No doubt there is something in the recollection of the

associations of childhood to strengthen the power of nature upon us; but

the power is in nature herself, else it would be but a poor weak thing

to what it is. There _is_ purity and state in that sky. There _is_ a

peace now in this wide still earth--not so very beautiful, you own--and

in that overhanging blue, which my heart cries out that it needs and

cannot be well till it gains--gains in the truth, gains in God, who is

the power of truth, the living and causing truth. There is indeed a rest

that remaineth, a rest pictured out even here this night, to rouse my

dull heart to desire it and follow after it, a rest that consists in

thinking the thoughts of Him who is the Peace because the Unity, in

being filled with that spirit which now pictures itself forth in this

repose of the heavens and the earth.”

“True,” said Turner, after a pause. “I must think more about such

things. The science the present day is going wild about will not give us

that rest.”

“No; but that rest will do much to give you that science. A man with

this repose in his heart will do more by far, other capabilities being

equal, to find out the laws that govern things. For all law is living

rest.”

“What you have been saying,” resumed Turner, after another pause,

“reminds me much of one of Wordsworth’s poems. I do not mean the famous

ode.”

“You mean the ‘Ninth Evening Voluntary,’ I know--one of his finest and

truest and deepest poems. It begins, ‘Had this effulgence disappeared.’”

“Yes, that is the one I mean. I shall read it again when I go home.

But you don’t agree with Wordsworth, do you, about our having had an

existence previous to this?”

He gave a little laugh as he asked the question.

“Not in the least. But an opinion held by such men as Plato, Origen,

and Wordsworth, is not to be laughed at, Mr. Turner. It cannot be in its

nature absurd. I might have mentioned Shelley as holding it, too, had

his opinion been worth anything.”

“Then you don’t think much of Shelley?”

“I think his _feeling_ most valuable; his _opinion_ nearly worthless.”

“Well, perhaps I had no business to laugh, at it; but--”

“Do not suppose for a moment that I even lean to it. I dislike it. It

would make me unhappy to think there was the least of sound argument

for it. But I respect the men who have held it, and know there must be

_something_ good in it, else they could not have held it.”

“Are you able then to sympathise with that ode of Wordsworth’s? Does it

not depend for all its worth on the admission of this theory?”

“Not in the least. Is it necessary to admit that we must have had a

conscious life before this life to find meaning in the words,--

‘But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God who is our home’?

Is not all the good in us his image? Imperfect and sinful as we are, is

not all the foundation of our being his image? Is not the sin all ours,

and the life in us all God’s? We cannot be the creatures of God

without partaking of his nature. Every motion of our conscience, every

admiration of what is pure and noble, is a sign and a result of this.

Is not every self-accusation a proof of the presence of his spirit? That

comes not of ourselves--that is not without him. These are the clouds

of glory we come trailing from him. All feelings of beauty and peace and

loveliness and right and goodness, we trail with us from our home. God

is the only home of the human soul. To interpret in this manner what

Wordsworth says, will enable us to enter into perfect sympathy with all

that grandest of his poems. I do not say this is what he meant; but I

think it includes what he meant by being greater and wider than what he

meant. Nor am I guilty of presumption in saying so, for surely the idea

that we are born of God is a greater idea than that we have lived with

him a life before this life. But Wordsworth is not the first among our

religious poets to give us at least what is valuable in the notion. I

came upon a volume amongst my friend Shepherd’s books, with which I had

made no acquaintance before--Henry Vaughan’s poems. I brought it with

me, for it has finer lines, I almost think, than any in George Herbert,

though not so fine poems by any means as his best. When we go into the

house I will read one of them to you.”

“Thank you,” said Turner. “I wish I could have such talk once a week.

The shades of the prison-house, you know, Mr. Walton, are always trying

to close about us, and shut out the vision of the glories we have come

from, as Wordsworth says.”

“A man,” I answered, “who ministers to the miserable necessities of his

fellows has even more need than another to believe in the light and the

gladness--else a poor Job’s comforter will he be. _I_ don’t want to be

treated like a musical snuff-box.”

The doctor laughed.

“No man can _prove_,” he said, “that there is not a being inside the

snuff-box, existing in virtue of the harmony of its parts, comfortable

when they go well, sick when they go badly, and dying when it is

dismembered, or even when it stops.”

“No,” I answered. “No man can prove it. But no man can convince a

human being of it. And just as little can anyone convince me that my

conscience, making me do sometimes what I _don’t_ like, comes from a

harmonious action of the particles of my brain. But it is time we went

in, for by the law of things in general, I being ready for my dinner, my

dinner ought to be ready for me.”

“A law with more exceptions than instances, I fear,” said Turner.

“I doubt that,” I answered. “The readiness is everything, and that we

constantly blunder in. But we had better see whether we are really ready

for it, by trying whether it is ready for us.”

Connie went to bed early, as indeed we all did, and she was rather

better than worse the next morning. My wife, for the first time for

many nights, said nothing about the crying of the sea. The following

day Turner and I set out to explore the neighbourhood. The rest remained

quietly at home.

It was, as I have said, a high bare country. The fields lay side by

side, parted from each other chiefly, as so often in Scotland, by stone

walls; and these stones being of a laminated nature, the walls were not

unfrequently built by laying thin plates on their edges, which gave a

neatness to them not found in other parts of the country as far as I am

aware. In the middle of the fields came here and there patches of yet

unreclaimed moorland.

Now in a region like this, beauty must be looked for below the surface.

There is a probability of finding hollows of repose, sunken spots of

loveliness, hidden away altogether from the general aspect of sternness,

or perhaps sterility, that meets the eye in glancing over the outspread

landscape; just as in the natures of stern men you may expect to find,

if opportunity should be afforded you, sunny spots of tender verdure,

kept ever green by that very sternness which is turned towards the

common gaze--thus existent because they are below the surface, and not

laid bare to the sweep of the cold winds that roam the world. How

often have not men started with amaze at the discovery of some feminine

sweetness, some grace of protection in the man whom they had judged

cold and hard and rugged, inaccessible to the more genial influences of

humanity! It may be that such men are only fighting against the wind,

and keep their hearts open to the sun.

I knew this; and when Turner and I set out that morning to explore, I

expected to light upon some instance of it--some mine or other in which

nature had hidden away rare jewels; but I was not prepared to find such

as I did find. With our hearts full of a glad secret we returned home,

but we said nothing about it, in order that Ethelwyn and Wynnie might

enjoy the discovery even as we had enjoyed it.

There was another grand fact with regard to the neighbourhood about

which we judged it better to be silent for a few days, that the inland

influences might be free to work. We were considerably nearer the ocean

than my wife and daughters supposed, for we had made a great round in

order to arrive from the land-side. We were, however, out of the sound

of its waves, which broke all along the shore, in this part, at the foot

of tremendous cliffs. What cliffs they were we shall soon find.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE KEEVE.

“Now, my dear! now, Wynnie!” I said, after prayers the next morning,

“you must come out for a walk as soon as ever you can get your bonnets

on.”

“But we can’t leave Connie, papa,” objected Wynnie.

“O, yes, you can, quite well. There’s nursie to look after her. What do

you say, Connie?”

For, for some time now, Connie had been able to get up so early, that it

was no unusual thing to have prayers in her room.

“I am entirely independent of help from my family,” returned Connie

grandiloquently. “I am a woman of independent means,” she added. “If you

say another word, I will rise and leave the room.”

And she made a movement as if she would actually do as she had said.

Seized with an involuntary terror, I rushed towards her, and the

impertinent girl burst out laughing in my face--threw herself back on

her pillows, and laughed delightedly.

“Take care, papa,” she said. “I carry a terrible club for rebellious

people.” Then, her mood changing, she added, as if to suppress the tears

gathering in her eyes, “I am the queen--of luxury and self-will--and

I won’t have anybody come near me till dinner-time. I mean to enjoy

myself.”

So the matter was settled, and we went out for our walk. Ethelwyn was

not such a good walker as she had been; but even if she had retained

the strength of her youth, we should not have got on much the better for

it--so often did she and Wynnie stop to grub ferns out of the chinks and

roots of the stone-walls. Now, I admire ferns as much as anybody--that

is, not, I fear, so much as my wife and daughter, but quite enough

notwithstanding--but I do not quite enjoy being pulled up like a fern at

every turn.

“Now, my dear, what is the use of stopping to torture that harmless

vegetable?” I say, but say in vain. “It is much more beautiful where it

is than it will be anywhere where you can put it. Besides, you know they

never come to anything with you. They _always_ die.”

Thereupon my wife reminds me of this fern and that fern, gathered in

such and such places, and now in such and such corners of the garden or

the greenhouse, or under glass-shades in this or that room, of the very

existence of which I am ignorant, whether from original inattention, or

merely from forgetfulness, I do not know. Certainly, out of their own

place I do not care much for them.

At length, partly by the inducement I held out to them of a much greater

variety of ferns where we were bound, I succeeded in getting them over

the two miles in little more than two hours. After passing from the

lanes into the fields, our way led downwards till we reached a very

steep large slope, with a delightful southern exposure, and covered with

the sweetest down-grasses. It was just the place to lie in, as on the

edge of the earth, and look abroad upon the universe of air and floating

worlds.

“Let us have a rest here, Ethel,” I said. “I am sure this is much more

delightful than uprooting ferns. What an awful thing to think that here

we are on this great round tumbling ball of a world, held by the feet,

and lifting up the head into infinite space--without choice or wish of

our own--compelled to think and to be, whether we will or not! Just God

must know it to be very good, or he would not have taken it in his hands

to make individual lives without a possible will of theirs. He must

be our Father, or we are wretched creatures--the slaves of a fatal

necessity! Did it ever strike you, Turner, that each one of us stands on

the apex of the world? With a sphere, you know, it must be so. And thus

is typified, as it seems to me, that each one of us must look up for

himself to find God, and then look abroad to find his fellows.”

“I think I know what you mean,” was all Turner’s reply.

“No doubt,” I resumed, “the apprehension of this truth has, in otherwise

ill-ordered minds, given rise to all sorts of fierce and grotesque

fanaticism. But the minds which have thus conceived the truth, would

have been immeasurably worse without it; nay, this truth affords at last

the only possible door out of the miseries of their own chaos, whether

inherited or the result of their own misconduct.”

“What’s that in the grass?” cried Wynnie, in a tone of alarm.

I looked where she indicated, and saw a slow-worm, or blind-worm, lying

basking in the sun. I rose and went towards it.

“Here’s your stick,” said Turner.

“What for?” I asked. “Why should I kill it? It is perfectly harmless,

and, to my mind, beautiful.”

I took it in my hands, and brought it to my wife. She gave an

involuntary shudder as it came near her.

“I assure you it is harmless,” I said, “though it has a forked tongue.”

And I opened its mouth as I spoke. “I do not think the serpent form is

essentially ugly.”

“It makes me feel ugly,” said Wynnie.

“I allow I do not quite understand the mystery of it,” I said. “But you

never saw lovelier ornamentation than these silvery scales, with all

the neatness of what you ladies call a set pattern, and none of the

stiffness, for there are not two of them the same in form. And you never

saw lovelier curves than this little patient creature, which does not

even try to get away from me, makes with the queer long thin body of

him.”

“I wonder how it can look after its tail, it is so far off,” said

Wynnie.

“It does though--better than you ladies look after your long dresses.

I wonder whether it is descended from creatures that once had feet, and

did not make a good use of them. Perhaps they had wings even, and

would not use them at all, and so lost them. Its ancestors may have had

poison-fangs; it is innocent enough. But it is a terrible thing to be

all feet, is it not? There is an awful significance in the condemnation

of the serpent--‘On thy belly shalt thou go, and eat dust.’ But it is

better to talk of beautiful things. _My_ soul at least has dropped from

its world apex. Let us go on. Come, wife. Come, Turner.”

They did not seem willing to rise. But the glen drew me. I rose, and my

wife followed my example with the help of my hand. She returned to the

subject, however, as we descended the slope.

“Is it possible that in the course of ever so many ages wings and feet

should be both lost?” she said.

“The most presumptuous thing in the world is to pronounce on the

possible and the impossible. I do not know what is possible and what is

impossible. I can only tell a little of what is true and what is untrue.

But I do say this, that between the condition of many decent members of

society and that for the sake of which God made them, there is a gulf

quite as vast as that between a serpent and a bird. I get peeps now and

then into the condition of my own heart, which, for the moment, make

it seem impossible that I should ever rise into a true state of

nature--that is, into the simplicity of God’s will concerning me. The

only hope for ourselves and for others lies in him--in the power the

creating spirit has over the spirits he has made.”

By this time the descent on the grass was getting too steep and slippery

to admit of our continuing to advance in that direction. We turned,

therefore, down the valley in the direction of the sea. It was but a

narrow cleft, and narrowed much towards a deeper cleft, in which we now

saw the tops of trees, and from which we heard the rush of water. Nor

had we gone far in this direction before we came upon a gate in a stone

wall, which led into what seemed a neglected garden. We entered, and

found a path turning and winding, among small trees, and luxuriant

ferns, and great stones, and fragments of ruins down towards the bottom

of the chasm. The noise of falling water increased as we went on, and

at length, after some scrambling and several sharp turns, we found

ourselves with a nearly precipitous wall on each side, clothed with

shrubs and ivy, and creeping things of the vegetable world. Up this

cleft there was no advance. The head of it was a precipice down which

shot the stream from the vale above, pouring out of a deep slit it had

itself cut in the rock as with a knife. Halfway down, it tumbled into

a great basin of hollowed stone, and flowing from a chasm in its side,

which left part of the lip of the basin standing like the arch of a

vanished bridge, it fell into a black pool below, whence it crept as if

half-stunned or weary down the gentle decline of the ravine. It was

a perfect little picture. I, for my part, had never seen such a

picturesque fall. It was a little gem of nature, complete in effect.

The ladies were full of pleasure. Wynnie, forgetting her usual reserve,

broke out in frantic exclamations of delight.

We stood for a while regarding the ceaseless pour of the water down the

precipice, here shot slanting in a little trough of the rock, full of

force and purpose, here falling in great curls of green and gray, with

an expression of absolute helplessness and conscious perdition, as

if sheer to the centre, but rejoicing the next moment to find itself

brought up boiling and bubbling in the basin, to issue in the gathered

hope of experience. Then we turned down the stream a little way, crossed

it by a plank, and stood again to regard it from the opposite side.

Small as the whole affair was--not more than about a hundred and fifty

feet in height--it was so full of variety that I saw it was all my

memory could do, if it carried away anything like a correct picture of

its aspect. I was contemplating it fixedly, when a little stifled cry

from Wynnie made me start and look round. Her face was flushed, yet she

was trying to look unconcerned.

“I thought we were quite alone, papa,” she said; “but I see a gentleman

sketching.”

I looked whither she indicated. A little way down, the bed of the

ravine widened considerably, and was no doubt filled with water in rainy

weather. Now it was swampy--full of reeds and willow bushes. But on

the opposite side of the stream, with a little canal from it going all

around it, lay a great flat rectangular stone, not more than a foot

above the level of the water, and upon a camp-stool in the centre of

this stone sat a gentleman sketching. I had no doubt that Wynnie had

recognised him at once. And I was annoyed, and indeed angry, to think

that Mr. Percivale had followed us here. But while I regarded him, he

looked up, rose very quietly, and, with his pencil in his hand, came

towards us. With no nearer approach to familiarity than a bow, and no

expression of either much pleasure or any surprise, he said--

“I have seen your party for some time, Mr. Walton--since you crossed the

stream; but I would not break in upon your enjoyment with the surprise

which my presence here must cause you.”

I suppose I answered with a bow of some sort; for I could not say with

truth that I was glad to see him. He resumed, doubtless penetrating my

suspicion--

“I have been here almost a week. I certainly had no expectation of the

pleasure of seeing you.”

This he said lightly, though no doubt with the object of clearing

himself. And I was, if not reassured, yet disarmed, by his statement;

for I could not believe, from what I knew of him, that he would be

guilty of such a white lie as many a gentleman would have thought

justifiable on the occasion. Still, I suppose he found me a little

stiff, for presently he said--

“If you will excuse me, I will return to my work.”

Then I felt as if I must say something, for I had shown him no courtesy

during the interview.

“It must be a great pleasure to carry away such talismans with

you--capable of bringing the place back to your mental vision at any

moment.”

“To tell the truth,” he answered, “I am a little ashamed of being found

sketching here. Such bits of scenery are not of my favourite studies.

But it is a change.”

“It is very beautiful here,” I said, in a tone of contravention.

“It is very pretty,” he answered--“very lovely, if you will--not very

beautiful, I think. I would keep that word for things of larger regard.

Beauty requires width, and here is none. I had almost said this place

was fanciful--the work of imagination in her play-hours, not in her

large serious moods. It affects me like the face of a woman only pretty,

about which boys and guardsmen will rave--to me not very interesting,

save for its single lines.”

“Why, then, do you sketch the place?”

“A very fair question,” he returned, with a smile. “Just because it is

soothing from the very absence of beauty. I would far rather, however,

if I were only following my taste, take the barest bit of the moor

above, with a streak of the cold sky over it. That gives room.”

“You would like to put a skylark in it, wouldn’t you?”

“That I would if I knew how. I see you know what I mean. But the mere

romantic I never had much taste for; though if you saw the kind of

pictures I try to paint, you would not wonder that I take sketches of

places like this, while in my heart of hearts I do not care much for

them. They are so different, and just _therefore_ they are good for me.

I am not working now; I am only playing.”

“With a view to working better afterwards, I have no doubt,” I answered.

“You are right there, I hope,” was his quiet reply, as he turned and

walked back to the island.

He had not made a step towards joining us. He had only taken his hat off

to the ladies. He was gaining ground upon me rapidly.

“Have you quarrelled with our new friend, Harry?” said my wife, as I

came up to her.

She was sitting on a stone. Turner and Wynnie were farther off towards

the foot of the fall.

“Not in the least,” I answered, slightly outraged--I did not at first

know why--by the question. “He is only gone to his work, which is a duty

belonging both to the first and second tables of the law.”

“I hope you have asked him to come home to our early dinner, then,” she

rejoined.

“I have not. That remains for you to do. Come, I will take you to him.”

Ethelwyn rose at once, put her hand in mine, and with a little help

soon reached the table-rock. When Percivale saw that she was really on

a visit to him on his island-perch, he rose, and when she came near

enough, held out his hand. It was but a step, and she was beside him in

a moment. After the usual greetings, which on her part, although very

quiet, like every motion and word of hers, were yet indubitably cordial

and kind, she said, “When you get back to London, Mr. Percivale, might

I ask you to allow some friends of mine to call at your studio, and see

your paintings?”

“With all my heart,” answered Percivale. “I must warn you, however, that

I have not much they will care to see. They will perhaps go away less

happy than they entered. Not many people care to see my pictures twice.”

“I would not send you anyone I thought unworthy of the honour,” answered

my wife.

Percivale bowed--one of his stately, old-world bows, which I greatly

liked.

“Any friend of yours--that is guarantee sufficient,” he answered.

There was this peculiarity about any compliment that Percivale paid,

that you had not a doubt of its being genuine.

“Will you come and take an early dinner with us?” said my wife. “My

invalid daughter will be very pleased to see you.”

“I will with pleasure,” he answered, but in a tone of some hesitation,

as he glanced from Ethelwyn to me.

“My wife speaks for us all,” I said. “It will give us all pleasure.”

“I am only afraid it will break in upon your morning’s work,” remarked

Ethelwyn.

“O, that is not of the least consequence,” he rejoined. “In fact, as I

have just been saying to Mr. Walton, I am not working at all at present.

This is pure recreation.”

As he spoke he turned towards his easel, and began hastily to bundle up

his things.

“We’re not quite ready to go yet,” said my wife, loath to leave the

lovely spot. “What a curious flat stone this is!” she added.

“It is,” said Percivale. “The man to whom the place belongs, a worthy

yeoman of the old school, says that this wider part of the channel must

have been the fish-pond, and that the portly monks stood on this stone

and fished in the pond.”

“Then was there a monastery here?” I asked.

“Certainly. The ruins of the chapel, one of the smallest, are on the

top, just above the fall--rather a fearful place to look down from. I

wonder you did not observe them as you came. They say it had a silver

bell in the days of its glory, which now lies in a deep hole under the

basin, half-way between the top and bottom of the fall. But the old man

says that nothing will make him look, or let anyone else lift the huge

stone; for he is much better pleased to believe that it may be there,

than he would be to know it was not there; for certainly, if it were

found, it would not be left there long.”

As he spoke Percivale had continued packing his gear. He now led our

party up to the chapel, and thence down a few yards to the edge of the

chasm, where the water fell headlong. I turned away with that fear of

high places which is one of my many weaknesses; and when I turned again

towards the spot, there was Wynnie on the very edge, looking over into

the flash and tumult of the water below, but with a nervous grasp of the

hand of Percivale, who stood a little farther back.

In going home, the painter led us by an easier way out of the valley,

left his little easel and other things at a cottage, and then walked on

in front between my wife and daughter, while Turner and I followed. He

seemed quite at his ease with them, and plenty of talk and laughter rose

on the way. I, however, was chiefly occupied with finding out Turner’s

impression of Connie’s condition.

“She is certainly better,” he said. “I wonder you do not see it as

plainly as I do. The pain is nearly gone from her spine, and she can

move herself a good deal more, I am certain, than she could when she

left. She asked me yesterday if she might not turn upon one side. ‘Do

you think you could?’ I asked.--‘I think so,’ she answered. ‘At any

rate, I have often a great inclination to try; only papa said I had

better wait till you came.’ I do think she might be allowed a little

more change of posture now.”

“Then you have really some hope of her final recovery?”

“I have _hope_ most certainly. But what is hope in me, you must not

allow to become certainty in you. I am nearly sure, though, that she can

never be other than an invalid; that is, if I am to judge by what I know

of such cases.”

“I am thankful for the hope,” I answered. “You need not be afraid of my

turning upon you, should the hope never pass into sight. I should do so

only if I found that you had been treating me irrationally--inspiring

me with hope which you knew to be false. The element of uncertainty is

essential to hope, and for all true hope, even as hope, man has to be

unspeakably thankful.”

CHAPTER IX.

THE WALK TO CHURCH.

I was glad to be able to arrange with a young clergyman who was on a

visit to Kilkhaven, that he should take my duty for me the next Sunday,

for that was the only one Turner could spend with us. He and I and

Wynnie walked together two miles to church. It was a lovely morning,

with just a tint of autumn in the air. But even that tint, though all

else was of the summer, brought a shadow, I could see, on Wynnie’s face.

“You said you would show me a poem of--Vaughan, I think you said, was

the name of the writer. I am too ignorant of our older literature,” said

Turner.

“I have only just made acquaintance with him,” I answered. “But I

think I can repeat the poem. You shall judge whether it is not like

Wordsworth’s Ode.

‘Happy those early days, when I

Shined in my angel infancy;

Before I understood the place

Appointed for my second race,

Or taught my soul to fancy ought

But a white, celestial thought;

When yet I had not walked above

A mile or two from my first love,

And looking back, at that short space,

Could see a glimpse of his bright face;

When on some gilded cloud or flower

My gazing soul would dwell an hour,

And in those weaker glories spy

Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound

My conscience with a sinful sound,

But felt through all this fleshly dress

Bright shoots of everlastingness.

O how I long to travel back----’”

But here I broke down, for I could not remember the rest with even

approximate accuracy.

“When did this Vaughan live?” asked Turner.

“He was born, I find, in 1621--five years, that is, after Shakspere’s

death, and when Milton was about thirteen years old. He lived to the age

of seventy-three, but seems to have been little known. In politics he

was on the Cavalier side. By the way, he was a medical man, like you,

Turner--an M.D. We’ll have a glance at the little book when we go back.

Don’t let me forget to show it you. A good many of your profession have

distinguished themselves in literature, and as profound believers too.”

“I should have thought the profession had been chiefly remarkable for

such as believe only in the evidence of the senses.”

“As if having searched into the innermost recesses of the body, and not

having found a soul, they considered themselves justified in declaring

there was none.”

“Just so.”

“Well, that is true of the commonplace amongst them, I do believe. You

will find the exceptions have been men of fine minds and characters--not

such as he of whom Chaucer says,

‘His study was but little on the Bible;’

for if you look at the rest of the description of the man, you will find

that he was in alliance with his apothecary for their mutual advantage,

that he was a money-loving man, and that some of Chaucer’s keenest irony

is spent on him in an off-hand, quiet manner. Compare the tone in which

he writes of the doctor of physic, with the profound reverence wherewith

he bows himself before the poor country-parson.”

Here Wynnie spoke, though with some tremor in her voice.

“I never know, papa, what people mean by talking about childhood in that

way. I never seem to have been a bit younger and more innocent than I

am.”

“Don’t you remember a time, Wynnie, when the things about you--the sky

and the earth, say--seemed to you much grander than they seem now? You

are old enough to have lost something.”

She thought for a little while before she answered.

“My dreams were, I know. I cannot say so of anything else.”

I in my turn had to be silent, for I did not see the true answer, though

I was sure there was one somewhere, if I could only find it. All I

could reply, however, even after I had meditated a good while, was--and

perhaps, after all, it was the best thing I could have said:

“Then you must make a good use of your dreams, my child.”

“Why, papa?”

“Because they are the only memorials of childhood you have left.”

“How am I to make a good use of them? I don’t know what to do with my

silly old dreams.”

But she gave a sigh as she spoke that testified her silly old dreams had

a charm for her still.

“If your dreams, my child, have ever testified to you of a condition of

things beyond that which you see around you, if they have been to you

the hints of a wonder and glory beyond what visits you now, you must not

call them silly, for they are just what the scents of Paradise borne

on the air were to Adam and Eve as they delved and spun, reminding them

that they must aspire yet again through labour into that childhood of

obedience which is the only paradise of humanity--into that oneness with

the will of the Father, which our race, our individual selves, need just

as much as if we had personally fallen with Adam, and from which we

fall every time we are disobedient to the voice of the Father within

our souls--to the conscience which is his making and his witness. If you

have had no childhood, my Wynnie, yet permit your old father to say

that everything I see in you indicates more strongly in you than in most

people that it is this childhood after which you are blindly longing,

without which you find that life is hardly to be endured. Thank God for

your dreams, my child. In him you will find that the essence of those

dreams is fulfilled. We are saved by hope, Turner. Never man hoped too

much, or repented that he had hoped. The plague is that we don’t hope in

God half enough. The very fact that hope is strength, and strength the

outcome, the body of life, shows that hope is at one with life, with the

very essence of what says ‘I am’--yea, of what doubts and says ‘Am I?’

and therefore is reasonable to creatures who cannot even doubt save in

that they live.”

By this time, for I have, of course, only given the outlines, or rather

salient points, of our conversation, we had reached the church, where,

if I found the sermon neither healing nor inspiring, I found the prayers

full of hope and consolation. They at least are safe beyond human

caprice, conceit, or incapacity. Upon them, too, the man who is

distressed at the thought of how little of the needful food he had

been able to provide for his people, may fall back for comfort, in the

thought that there at least was what ought to have done them good, what

it was well worth their while to go to church for. But I did think they

were too long for any individual Christian soul, to sympathise with

from beginning to end, that is, to respond to, like organ-tube to the

fingered key, in every touch of the utterance of the general Christian

soul. For my reader must remember that it is one thing to read prayers

and another to respond; and that I had had very few opportunities of

being in the position of the latter duty. I had had suspicions before,

and now they were confirmed--that the present crowding of services was

most inexpedient. And as I pondered on the matter, instead of trying

to go on praying after I had already uttered my soul, which is but a

heathenish attempt after much speaking, I thought how our Lord had given

us such a short prayer to pray, and I began to wonder when or how the

services came to be so heaped the one on the back of the other as they

now were. No doubt many people defended them; no doubt many people could

sit them out; but how many people could pray from beginning to end

of them? On this point we had some talk as we went home. Wynnie was

opposed to any change of the present use on the ground that we should

only have the longer sermons.

“Still,” I said, “I do not think even that so great an evil. A sensitive

conscience will not reproach itself so much for not listening to the

whole of a sermon, as for kneeling in prayer and not praying. I think

myself, however, that after the prayers are over, everyone should be at

liberty to go out and leave the sermon unheard, if he pleases. I think

the result would be in the end a good one both for parson and people. It

would break through the deadness of this custom, this use and wont.

Many a young mind is turned for life against the influences of

church-going--one of the most sacred influences when _pure_, that is,

un-mingled with non-essentials--just by the feeling that he _must_ do so

and so, that he must go through a certain round of duty. It is a willing

service that the Lord wants; no forced devotions are either acceptable

to him, or other than injurious to the worshipper, if such he can be

called.”

After an early dinner, I said to Turner--“Come out with me, and we will

read that poem of Vaughan’s in which I broke down today.”

“O, papa!” said Connie, in a tone of injury, from the sofa.

“What is it, my dear?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t it be as good for us as for Mr. Turner?”

“Quite, my dear. Well, I will keep it for the evening, and meantime

Mr. Turner and I will go and see if we can find out anything about the

change in the church-service.”

For I had thrown into my bag as I left the rectory a copy of _The

Clergyman’s Vade Mecum_--a treatise occupied with the externals of the

churchman’s relations--in which I soon came upon the following passage:

“So then it appears that the common practice of reading all three

together, is an innovation, and if an ancient or infirm clergyman

do read them at two or three several times, he is more strictly

conformable; however, this is much better than to omit any part of the

liturgy, or to read all three offices into one, as is now commonly done,

without any pause or distinction.”

“On the part of the clergyman, you see, Turner,” I said, when I had

finished reading the whole passage to him. “There is no care taken

of the delicate women of the congregation, but only of the ancient or

infirm clergyman. And the logic, to say the least, is rather queer: is

it only in virtue of his antiquity and infirmity that he is to be upheld

in being more strictly conformable? The writer’s honesty has its heels

trodden upon by the fear of giving offence. Nevertheless there should

perhaps be a certain slowness to admit change, even back to a more

ancient form.”

“I don’t know that I can quite agree with you there,” said Turner. “If

the form is better, no one should hesitate to advocate the change. If it

is worse, then slowness is not sufficient--utter obstinacy is the right

condition.”

“You are right, Turner. For the right must be the rule, and where _the

right_ is beyond our understanding or our reach, then _the better_,

as indeed not only right compared with the other, but the sole ascent

towards the right.”

In the evening I took Henry Vaughan’s poems into the common

sitting-room, and to Connie’s great delight read the whole of the

lovely, though unequal little poem, called “The Retreat,” in recalling

which I had failed in the morning. She was especially delighted with the

“white celestial thought,” and the “bright shoots of everlastingness.”

Then I gave a few lines from another yet more unequal poem, worthy in

themselves of the best of the other. I quote the first strophe entire:

CHILDHOOD.

“I cannot reach it; and my striving eye

Dazzles at it, as at eternity.

Were now that chronicle alive,

Those white designs which children drive,

And the thoughts of each harmless hour,

With their content too in my power,

Quickly would I make my path even,

And by mere playing go to heaven.

* * * * *

And yet the practice worldlings call

Business and weighty action all,

Checking the poor child for his play,

But gravely cast themselves away.

* * * * *

An age of mysteries! which he

Must live twice that would God’s face see;

Which angels guard, and with it play,

Angels! which foul men drive away.

How do I study now, and scan

Thee more than ere I studied man,

And only see through a long night

Thy edges and thy bordering light!

O for thy centre and midday!

For sure that is the _narrow way!_”

“For of such is the kingdom of heaven.” said my wife softly, as I closed

the book.

“May I have the book, papa?” said Connie, holding out her thin white

cloud of a hand to take it.

“Certainly, my child. And if Wynnie would read it with you, she will

feel more of the truth of what Mr. Percivale was saying to her about

finish. Here are the finest, grandest thoughts, set forth sometimes

with such carelessness, at least such lack of neatness, that, instead of

their falling on the mind with all their power of loveliness, they are

like a beautiful face disfigured with patches, and, what is worse, they

put the mind out of the right, quiet, unquestioning, open mood, which is

the only fit one for the reception of such true things as are embodied

in the poems. But they are too beautiful after all to be more than a

little spoiled by such a lack of the finish with which Art ends off all

her labours. A gentleman, however, thinks it of no little importance to

have his nails nice as well as his face and his shirt.”

CHAPTER X.

THE OLD CASTLE.

The place Turner had chosen suited us all so well, that after attending

to my duties on the two following Sundays at Kilkhaven, I returned on

the Monday or Tuesday to the farmhouse. But Turner left us in the middle

of the second week, for he could not be longer absent from his charge at

home, and we missed him much. It was some days before Connie was quite

as cheerful again as usual. I do not mean that she was in the least

gloomy--that she never was; she was only a little less merry. But

whether it was that Turner had opened our eyes, or that she had

visibly improved since he allowed her to make a little change in

her posture--certainly she appeared to us to have made considerable

progress, and every now and then we were discovering some little proof

of the fact. One evening, while we were still at the farm, she startled

us by calling out suddenly,--

“Papa, papa! I moved my big toe! I did indeed.”

We were all about her in a moment. But I saw that she was excited, and

fearing a reaction I sought to calm her.

“But, my dear,” I said, as quietly as I could, “you are probably still

aware that you are possessed of two big toes: which of them are we to

congratulate on this first stride in the march of improvement?”

She broke out in the merriest laugh. A pause followed in which her face

wore a puzzled expression. Then she said all at once, “Papa, it is very

odd, but I can’t tell which of them,” and burst into tears. I was afraid

that I had done more harm than good.

“It is not of the slightest consequence, my child,” I said. “You have

had so little communication with the twins of late, that it is no wonder

you should not be able to tell the one from the other.”

She smiled again through her sobs, but was silent, with shining face,

for the rest of the evening. Our hopes took a fresh start, but we heard

no more from her of her power over her big toe. As often as I inquired

she said she was afraid she had made a mistake, for she had not had

another hint of its existence. Still I thought it could not have been a

fancy, and I would cleave to my belief in the good sign.

Percivale called to see us several times, but always appeared anxious

not to intrude more of his society upon us than might be agreeable. He

grew in my regard, however; and at length I asked him if he would assist

me in another surprise which I meditated for my companions, and this

time for Connie as well, and which I hoped would prevent the painful

influences of the sight of the sea from returning upon them when they

went back to Kilkhaven: they must see the sea from a quite different

shore first. In a word I would take them to Tintagel, of the near

position of which they were not aware, although in some of our walks we

had seen the ocean in the distance. An early day was fixed for carrying

out our project, and I proceeded to get everything ready. The only

difficulty was to find a carriage in the neighbourhood suitable for

receiving Connie’s litter. In this, however, I at length succeeded, and

on the morning of a glorious day of blue and gold, we set out for the

little village of Trevenna, now far better known than at the time of

which I write. Connie had been out every day since she came, now in one

part of the fields, now in another, enjoying the expanse of earth and

sky, but she had had no drive, and consequently had seen no variety of

scenery. Therefore, believing she was now thoroughly able to bear it, I

quite reckoned of the good she would get from the inevitable excitement.

We resolved, however, after finding how much she enjoyed the few miles’

drive, that we would not demand more, of her strength that day, and

therefore put up at the little inn, where, after ordering dinner,

Percivale and I left the ladies, and sallied forth to reconnoitre.

We walked through the village and down the valley beyond, sloping

steeply between hills towards the sea, the opening closed at the end by

the blue of the ocean below and the more ethereal blue of the sky above.

But when we reached the mouth of the valley we found that we were not

yet on the shore, for a precipice lay between us and the little beach

below. On the left a great peninsula of rock stood out into the sea,

upon which rose the ruins of the keep of Tintagel, while behind on the

mainland stood the ruins of the castle itself, connected with the other

only by a narrow isthmus. We had read that this peninsula had once been

an island, and that the two parts of the castle were formerly connected

by a drawbridge. Looking up at the great gap which now divided the two

portions, it seemed at first impossible to believe that they had ever

been thus united; but a little reflection cleared up the mystery.

The fact was that the isthmus, of half the height of the two parts

connected by it, had been formed entirely by the fall of portions of the

rock and soil on each side into the narrow dividing space, through which

the waters of the Atlantic had been wont to sweep. And now the fragments

of walls stood on the very verge of the precipice, and showed that

large portions of the castle itself had fallen into the gulf between. We

turned to the left along the edge of the rock, and so by a narrow path

reached and crossed to the other side of the isthmus. We then found that

the path led to the foot of the rock, formerly island, of the keep, and

thence in a zigzag up the face of it to the top. We followed it, and

after a great climb reached a door in a modern battlement. Entering, we

found ourselves amidst grass, and ruins haggard with age. We turned

and surveyed the path by which we had come. It was steep and somewhat

difficult. But the outlook was glorious. It was indeed one of God’s

mounts of vision upon which we stood. The thought, “O that Connie

could see this!” was swelling in my heart, when Percivale broke the

silence--not with any remark on the glory around us, but with the

commonplace question--

“You haven’t got your man with you, I think, Mr. Walton?”

“No,” I answered; “we thought it better to leave him to look after the

boys.”

He was silent for a few minutes, while I gazed in delight.

“Don’t you think,” he said, “it would be possible to bring Miss

Constance up here?”

I almost started at the idea, and had not replied before he resumed:

“It would be something for her to recur to with delight all the rest of

her life.”

“It would indeed. But it is impossible.”

“I do not think so--if you would allow me the honour to assist you. I

think we could do it perfectly between us.”

I was again silent for a while. Looking down on the way we had come, it

seemed an almost dreadful undertaking. Percivale spoke again.

“As we shall come here to-morrow, we need not explore the place now.

Shall we go down at once and observe the whole path, with a view to the

practicability of carrying her up?”

“There can be no objection to that,” I answered, as a little hope, and

courage with it, began to dawn in my heart. “But you must allow it does

not look very practicable.”

“Perhaps it would seem more so to you, if you had come up with the idea

in your head all the way, as I did. Any path seems more difficult in

looking back than at the time when the difficulties themselves have to

be met and overcome.”

“Yes, but then you must remember that we have to take the way back

whether we will or no, if we once take the way forward.”

“True; and now I will go down with the descent in my head as well as

under my feet.”

“Well, there can be no harm in reconnoitring it at least. Let us go.”

“You know we can rest almost as often as we please,” said Percivale, and

turned to lead the way.

It certainly was steep, and required care even in our own descent; but

for a man who had climbed mountains, as I had done in my youth, it could

hardly be called difficult even in middle age. By the time we had got

again into the valley road I was all but convinced of the practicability

of the proposal. I was a little vexed, however, I must confess, that a

stranger should have thought of giving such a pleasure to Connie, when

the bare wish that she might have enjoyed it had alone arisen in my

mind. I comforted myself with the reflection that this was one of the

ways in which we were to be weaned from the world and knit the faster

to our fellows. For even the middle-aged, in the decay of their daring,

must look for the fresh thought and the fresh impulse to the youth which

follows at their heels in the march of life. Their part is to _will_ the

relation and the obligation, and so, by love to and faith in the young,

keep themselves in the line along which the electric current flows, till

at length they too shall once more be young and daring in the strength

of the Lord. A man must always seek to rise above his moods and

feelings, to let them move within him, but not allow them to storm or

gloom around him. By the time we reached home we had agreed to make the

attempt, and to judge by the path to the foot of the rock, which was

difficult in parts, whether we should be likely to succeed, without

danger, in attempting the rest of the way and the following descent.

As soon as we had arrived at this conclusion, I felt so happy in the

prospect that I grew quite merry, especially after we had further agreed

that, both for the sake of her nerves and for the sake of the lordly

surprise, we should bind Connie’s eyes so that she should see

nothing till we had placed her in a certain position, concerning the

preferableness of which we were not of two minds.

“What mischief have you two been about?” said my wife, as we entered our

room in the inn, where the cloth was already laid for dinner. “You look

just like two schoolboys that have been laying some plot, and can hardly

hold their tongues about it.”

“We have been enjoying our little walk amazingly,” I answered. “So much

so, that we mean to set out for another the moment dinner is over.”

“I hope you will take Wynnie with you then.”

“Or you, my love,” I returned.

“No; I will stay with Connie.”

“Very well. You, and Connie too, shall go out to-morrow, for we have

found a place we want to take you to. And, indeed, I believe it was our

anticipation of the pleasure you and she would have in the view that

made us so merry when you accused us of plotting mischief.”

My wife replied only with a loving look, and dinner appearing at this

moment, we sat down a happy party.

When that was over--and a very good dinner it was, just what I like,

homely in material but admirable in cooking--Wynnie and Percivale and

I set out again. For as Percivale and I came back in the morning we had

seen the church standing far aloft and aloof on the other side of the

little valley, and we wanted to go to it. It was rather a steep climb,

and Wynnie accepted Percivale’s offered arm. I led the way, therefore,

and left them to follow--not so far in the rear, however, but that I

could take a share in the conversation. It was some little time before

any arose, and it was Wynnie who led the way into it.

“What kind of things do you like best to paint, Mr. Percivale?” she

asked.

He hesitated for several seconds, which between a question and an answer

look so long, that most people would call them minutes.

“I would rather you should see some of my pictures--I should prefer that

to answering your question,” he said, at length.

“But I have seen some of your pictures,” she returned.

“Pardon me. Indeed you have not, Miss Walton.”

“At least I have seen some of your sketches and studies.”

“Some of my sketches--none of my studies.”

“But you make use of your sketches for your pictures, do you not?”

“Never of such as you have seen. They are only a slight antidote to my

pictures.”

“I cannot understand you.”

“I do not wonder at that. But I would rather, I repeat, say nothing

about my pictures till you see some of them.”

“But how am I to have that pleasure, then?”

“You go to London sometimes, do you not?”

“Very rarely. More rarely still when the Royal Academy is open.”

“That does not matter much. My pictures are seldom to be found there.”

“Do you not care to send them there?”

“I send one, at least, every year. But they are rarely accepted.”

“Why?”

This was a very improper question, I thought; but if Wynnie had thought

so she would not have put it. He hesitated a little before he replied--

“It is hardly for me to say why,” he answered; “but I cannot wonder much

at it, considering the subjects I choose.--But I daresay,” he added, in

a lighter tone, “after all, that has little to do with it, and there

is something about the things themselves that precludes a favourable

judgment. I avoid thinking about it. A man ought to try to look at his

own work as if it were none of his, but not as with the eyes of other

people. That is an impossibility, and the attempt a bewilderment. It is

with his own eyes he must look, with his own judgment he must judge. The

only effort is to get it set far away enough from him to be able to use

his own eyes and his own judgment upon it.”

“I think I see what you mean. A man has but his own eyes and his own

judgment. To look with those of other people is but a fancy.”

“Quite so. You understand me quite.”

He said no more in explanation of his rejection by the Academy. Till we

reached the church, nothing more of significance passed between them.

What a waste, bare churchyard that was! It had two or three lych-gates,

but they had no roofs. They were just small enclosures, with the low

stone tables, to rest the living from the weight of the dead, while the

clergyman, as the keeper of heaven’s wardrobe, came forth to receive

the garment they restored--to be laid aside as having ended its work, as

having been worn done in the winds, and rains, and labours of the world.

Not a tree stood in that churchyard. Hank grass was the sole covering

of the soil heaved up with the dead beneath. What blasts from the awful

space of the sea must rush athwart the undefended garden! The ancient

church stood in the midst, with its low, strong, square tower, and its

long, narrow nave, the ridge bowed with age, like the back of a horse

worn out in the service of man, and its little homely chancel, like a

small cottage that had leaned up against its end for shelter from

the western blasts. It was locked, and we could not enter. But of all

world-worn, sad-looking churches, that one--sad, even in the sunset--was

the dreariest I had ever beheld. Surely, it needed the gospel of the

resurrection fervently preached therein, to keep it from sinking to the

dust with dismay and weariness. Such a soul alone could keep it from

vanishing utterly of dismal old age. Near it was one huge mound of

grass-grown rubbish, looking like the grave where some former church of

the dead had been buried, when it could stand erect no longer before

the onsets of Atlantic winds. I walked round and round it, gathering its

architecture, and peeping in at every window I could reach. Suddenly I

was aware that I was alone. Returning to the other side, I found that

Percivale was seated on the churchyard wall, next the sea--it would have

been less dismal had it stood immediately on the cliffs, but they were

at some little distance beyond bare downs and rough stone walls; he

was sketching the place, and Wynnie stood beside him, looking over his

shoulder. I did not interrupt him, but walked among the graves, reading

the poor memorials of the dead, and wondering how many of the words of

laudation that were inscribed on their tombs were spoken of them while

they were yet alive. Yet, surely, in the lives of those to whom they

applied the least, there had been moments when the true nature, the

nature God had given them, broke forth in faith and tenderness, and

would have justified the words inscribed on their gravestones! I was yet

wandering and reading, and stumbling over the mounds, when my companions

joined me, and, without a word, we walked out of the churchyard. We were

nearly home before one of us spoke.

“That church is oppressive,” said Percivale. “It looks like a great

sepulchre, a place built only for the dead--the church of the dead.”

“It is only that it partakes with the living,” I returned; “suffers with

them the buffetings of life, outlasts them, but shows, like the shield

of the Red-Cross Knight, the ‘old dints of deep wounds.’”

“Still, is it not a dreary place to choose for a church to stand in?”

“The church must stand everywhere. There is no region into which it must

not, ought not to enter. If it refuses any earthly spot, it is shrinking

from its calling. Here this one stands for the sea as for the land,

high-uplifted, looking out over the waters as a sign of the haven from

all storms, the rest in God. And down beneath in its storehouse lie

the bodies of men--you saw the grave of some of them on the other

side--flung ashore from the gulfing sea. It may be a weakness, but one

would rather have the bones of his friend laid in the still Sabbath of

the churchyard earth, than sweeping and swaying about as Milton imagines

the bones of his friend Edward King, in that wonderful ‘Lycidas.’” Then

I told them the conversation I had had with the sexton at Kilkhaven.

“But,” I went on, “these fancies are only the ghostly mists that hang

about the eastern hills before the sun rises. We shall look down on all

that with a smile by and by; for the Lord tells us that if we believe in

him we shall never die.”

By this time we were back once more at the inn. We gave Connie a

description of what we had seen.

“What a brave old church!” said Connie.

The next day I awoke very early, full of the anticipated attempt. I got

up at once, found the weather most promising, and proceeded first of

all to have a look at Connie’s litter, and see that it was quite sound.

Satisfied of this, I rejoiced in the contemplation of its lightness and

strength.

After breakfast I went to Connie’s room, and told her that Mr. Percivale

and I had devised a treat for her. Her face shone at once.

“But we want to do it our own way.”

“Of course, papa,” she answered.

“Will you let us tie your eyes up?”

“Yes; and my ears and my hands too. It would be no good tying my feet,

when I don’t know one big toe from the other.”

And she laughed merrily.

“We’ll try to keep up the talk all the way, so that you sha’n’t weary of

the journey.”

“You’re going to carry me somewhere with my eyes tied up. O! how jolly!

And then I shall see something all at once! Jolly! jolly!--Getting

tired!” she repeated. “Even the wind on my face would be pleasure enough

for half a day. I sha’n’t get tired so soon as you will--you dear, kind

papa! I am afraid I shall be dreadfully heavy. But I sha’n’t jerk your

arms much. I will lie so still!”

“And you won’t mind letting Mr. Percivale help me to carry you?”

“No. Why should I, if he doesn’t mind it? He looks strong enough; and I

am sure he is nice, and won’t think me heavier than I am.”

“Very well, then. I will send mamma and Wynnie to dress you at once; and

we shall set out as soon as you are ready.”

She clapped her hands with delight, then caught me round the neck and

gave me one of my own kisses as she called the best she had, and began

to call as loud as she could on her mamma and Wynnie to come and dress

her.

It was indeed a glorious morning. The wind came in little wafts, like

veins of cool white silver amid the great, warm, yellow gold of the

sunshine. The sea lay before us a mound of blue closing up the end of

the valley, as if overpowered into quietness by the lordliness of the

sun overhead; and the hills between which we went lay like great sheep,

with green wool, basking in the blissful heat. The gleam from the waters

came up the pass; the grand castle crowned the left-hand steep, seeming

to warm its old bones, like the ruins of some awful megatherium in the

lighted air; one white sail sped like a glad thought across the spandrel

of the sea; the shadows of the rocks lay over our path, like transient,

cool, benignant deaths, through which we had to pass again and again

to yet higher glory beyond; and one lark was somewhere in whose little

breast the whole world was reflected as in the convex mirror of a

dewdrop, where it swelled so that he could not hold it, but let it out

again through his throat, metamorphosed into music, which he poured

forth over all as the libation on the outspread altar of worship.

And of all this we talked to Connie as we went; and every now and then

she would clap her hands gently in the fulness of her delight, although

she beheld the splendour only as with her ears, or from the kisses of

the wind on her cheeks. But she seemed, since her accident, to have

approached that condition which Milton represents Samson as longing for

in his blindness, wherein the sight should be

“through all parts diffused,

That she might look at will through every pore.”

I had, however, arranged with the rest of the company, that the moment

we reached the cliff over the shore, and turned to the left to cross the

isthmus, the conversation should no longer be about the things around

us; and especially I warned my wife and Wynnie that no exclamation of

surprise or delight should break from them before Connie’s eyes were

uncovered. I had said nothing to either of them about the difficulties

of the way, that, seeing us take them as ordinary things, they might

take them so too, and not be uneasy.

We never stopped till we reached the foot of the peninsula, _née_

island, upon which the keep of Tintagel stands. There we set Connie

down, to take breath and ease our arms before we began the arduous way.

“Now, now!” said Connie eagerly, lifting her hands in the belief that we

were on the point of undoing the bandage from her eyes.

“No, no, my love, not yet,” I said, and she lay still again, only she

looked more eager than before.

“I am afraid I have tired out you and Mr. Percivale, papa,” she said.

Percivale laughed so amusedly, that she rejoined roguishly--

“O yes! I know every gentleman is a Hercules--at least, he chooses to be

considered one! But, notwithstanding my firm faith in the fact, I have a

little womanly conscience left that is hard to hoodwink.”

There was a speech for my wee Connie to make! The best answer and the

best revenge was to lift her and go on. This we did, trying as well as

we might to prevent the difference of level between us from tilting the

litter too much for her comfort.

“Where _are_ you going, papa?” she said once, but without a sign of

fear in her voice, as a little slip I made lowered my end of the litter

suddenly. “You must be going up a steep place. Don’t hurt yourself, dear

papa.”

We had changed our positions, and were now carrying her, head foremost,

up the hill. Percivale led, and I followed. Now I could see every change

on her lovely face, and it made me strong to endure; for I did find

it hard work, I confess, to get to the top. It lay like a little sunny

pool, on which all the cloudy thoughts that moved in some unseen heaven

cast exquisitely delicate changes of light and shade as they floated

over it. Percivale strode on as if he bore a feather behind him. I did

wish we were at the top, for my arms began to feel like iron-cables,

stiff and stark--only I was afraid of my fingers giving way. My heart

was beating uncomfortably too. But Percivale, I felt almost inclined

to quarrel with him before it was over, he strode on so unconcernedly,

turning every corner of the zigzag where I expected him to propose a

halt, and striding on again, as if there could be no pretence for any

change of procedure. But I held out, strengthened by the play on my

daughter’s face, delicate as the play on an opal--one that inclines more

to the milk than the fire.

When at length we turned in through the gothic door in the battlemented

wall, and set our lovely burden down upon the grass--

“Percivale,” I said, forgetting the proprieties in the affected humour

of being angry with him, so glad was I that we had her at length on the

mount of glory, “why did you go on walking like a castle, and pay no

heed to me?”

“You didn’t speak, did you, Mr. Walton,” he returned, with just a shadow

of solicitude in the question.

“No. Of course not,” I rejoined.

“O, then,” he returned, in a tone of relief, “how could I? You were my

captain: how could I give in so long as you were holding on?”

I am afraid the _Percivale_, without the _Mister_, came again and

again after this, though I pulled myself up for it as often as I caught

myself.

“Now, papa!” said Connie from the grass.

“Not yet, my dear. Wait till your mamma and Wynnie come. Let us go and

meet them, Mr. Percivale.”

“O yes, do, papa. Leave me alone here without knowing where I am or

what kind of a place I am in. I should like to know how it feels. I have

never been alone in all my life.”

“Very well, my dear,” I said; and Percivale and I left her alone in the

ruins.

We found Ethelwyn toiling up with Wynnie helping her all she could.

“Dear Harry,” she said, “how could you think of bringing Connie up such

an awful place? I wonder you dared to do it.”

“It’s done you see, wife,” I answered, “thanks to Mr. Percivale, who has

nearly torn the breath out of me. But now we must get you up, and you

will say that to see Connie’s delight, not to mention your own, is quite

wages for the labour.”

“Isn’t she afraid to find herself so high up?”

“She knows nothing about it yet.”

“You do not mean you have left the child there with her eyes tied up.”

“To be sure. We could not uncover them before you came. It would spoil

half the pleasure.”

“Do let us make haste then. It is surely dangerous to leave her so.”

“Not in the least; but she must be getting tired of the darkness. Take

my arm now.”

“Don’t you think Mrs. Walton had better take my arm,” said Percivale,

“and then you can put your hand on her back, and help her a little that

way.”

We tried the plan, found it a good one, and soon reached the top. The

moment our eyes fell upon Connie, we could see that she had found the

place neither fearful nor lonely. The sweetest ghost of a smile hovered

on her pale face, which shone in the shadow of the old gateway of the

keep, with light from within her own sunny soul. She lay in such still

expectation, that you would have thought she had just fallen asleep

after receiving an answer to a prayer, reminding me of a little-known

sonnet of Wordsworth’s, in which he describes as the type of Death--

“the face of one

Sleeping alone within a mossy cave

With her face up to heaven; that seemed to have

Pleasing remembrance of a thought foregone;

A lovely beauty in a summer grave.”

[Footnote: _Miscellaneous Sonnets_, part i.28.]

But she heard our steps, and her face awoke.

“Is mamma come?”

“Yes, my darling. I am here,” said her mother. “How do you feel?”

“Perfectly well, mamma, thank you. Now, papa!”

“One moment more, my love. Now, Percivale.”

We carried her to the spot we had agreed upon, and while we held her

a little inclined that she might see the better, her mother undid the

bandage from her head.

“Hold your hands over her eyes, a little way from them,” I said to

her as she untied the handkerchief, “that the light may reach them by

degrees, and not blind her.”

Ethelwyn did so for a few moments, then removed them. Still for a moment

or two more, it was plain from her look of utter bewilderment, that all

was a confused mass of light and colour. Then she gave a little cry,

and to my astonishment, almost fear, half rose to a sitting posture. One

moment more and she laid herself gently back, and wept and sobbed.

And now I may admit my reader to a share, though at best but a dim

reflex in my poor words, of the glory that made her weep.

Through the gothic-arched door in the battlemented wall, which stood on

the very edge of the precipitous descent, so that nothing of the descent

was seen, and the door was as a framework to the picture, Connie saw

a great gulf at her feet, full to the brim of a splendour of light and

colour. Before her rose the great ruins of rock and castle, the ruin of

rock with castle; rough stone below, clear green happy grass above, even

to the verge of the abrupt and awful precipice; over it the summer sky

so clear that it must have been clarified by sorrow and thought; at the

foot of the rocks, hundreds of feet below, the blue waters breaking

in white upon the dark gray sands; all full of the gladness of the sun

overflowing in speechless delight, and reflected in fresh gladness from

stone and water and flower, like new springs of light rippling forth

from the earth itself to swell the universal tide of glory--all this

seen through the narrow gothic archway of a door in a wall--up--down--on

either hand. But the main marvel was the look sheer below into the abyss

full of light and air and colour, its sides lined with rock and grass,

and its bottom lined with blue ripples and sand. Was it any wonder that

my Connie should cry aloud when the vision dawned upon her, and then

weep to ease a heart ready to burst with delight? “O Lord God,” I said,

almost involuntarily, “thou art very rich. Thou art the one poet, the

one maker. We worship thee. Make but our souls as full of glory in thy

sight as this chasm is to our eyes glorious with the forms which thou

hast cloven and carved out of nothingness, and we shall be worthy to

worship thee, O Lord, our God.” For I was carried beyond myself with

delight, and with sympathy with Connie’s delight and with the calm

worship of gladness in my wife’s countenance. But when my eye fell on

Wynnie, I saw a trouble mingled with her admiration, a self-accusation,

I think, that she did not and could not enjoy it more; and when I turned

from her, there were the eyes of Percivale fixed on me in wonderment;

and for the moment I felt as David must have felt when, in his dance

of undignified delight that he had got the ark home again, he saw the

contemptuous eyes of Michal fixed on him from the window. But I could

not leave it so. I said to him--coldly I daresay:

“Excuse me, Mr. Percivale; I forgot for the moment that I was not

amongst my own family.”

Percivale took his hat off.

“Forgive my seeming rudeness, Mr. Walton. I was half-envying and

half-wondering. You would not be surprised at my unconscious behaviour

if you had seen as much of the wrong side of the stuff as I have seen in

London.”

I had some idea of what he meant; but this was no time to enter upon a

discussion. I could only say--

“My heart was full, Mr. Percivale, and I let it overflow.”

“Let me at least share in its overflow,” he rejoined, and nothing more

passed on the subject.

For the next ten minutes we stood in absolute silence. We had set Connie

down on the grass again, but propped up so that she could see through

the doorway. And she lay in still ecstasy. But there was more to be seen

ere we descended. There was the rest of the little islet with its crop

of down-grass, on which the horses of all the knights of King Arthur’s

round table might have fed for a week--yes, for a fortnight, without, by

any means, encountering the short commons of war. There were the ruins

of the castle so built of plates of the laminated stone of the rocks on

which they stood, and so woven in or more properly incorporated with the

outstanding rocks themselves, that in some parts I found it impossible

to tell which was building and which was rock--the walls themselves

seeming like a growth out of the island itself, so perfectly were they

in harmony with, and in kind the same as, the natural ground upon which

and of which they had been constructed. And this would seem to me to be

the perfection of architecture. The work of man’s hands should be so in

harmony with the place where it stands that it must look as if it had

grown out of the soil. But the walls were in some parts so thin that one

wondered how they could have stood so long. They must have been built

before the time of any formidable artillery--enough only for defence

from arrows. But then the island was nowhere commanded, and its own

steep cliffs would be more easily defended than any erections upon it.

Clearly the intention was that no enemy should thereon find rest for the

sole of his foot; for if he was able to land, farewell to the notion

of any further defence. Then there was outside the walls the little

chapel--such a tiny chapel! of which little more than the foundation

remained, with the ruins of the altar still standing, and outside the

chancel, nestling by its wall, a coffin hollowed in the rock; then the

churchyard a little way off full of graves, which, I presume, would have

vanished long ago were it not that the very graves were founded on the

rock. There still stood old worn-out headstones of thin slate, but

no memorials were left. Then there was the fragment of arched passage

underground laid open to the air in the centre of the islet; and last,

and grandest of all, the awful edges of the rock, broken by time, and

carved by the winds and the waters into grotesque shapes and threatening

forms. Over all the surface of the islet we carried Connie, and from

three sides of this sea-fortress she looked abroad over “the Atlantic’s

level powers.” It blew a gentle ethereal breeze on the top; but had

there been such a wind as I have since stood against on that fearful

citadel of nature, I should have been in terror lest we should all be

blown, into the deep. Over the edge she peeped at the strange fantastic

needle-rock, and round the corner she peeped to see Wynnie and her

mother seated in what they call Arthur’s chair--a canopied hollow

wrought in the plated rock by the mightiest of all solvents--air and

water; till at length it was time that we should take our leave of the

few sheep that fed over the place, and issuing by the gothic door, wind

away down the dangerous path to the safe ground below.

“I think we had better tie up your eyes again, Connie?” I said.

“Why?” she asked, in wonderment. “There’s nothing higher yet, is there?”

“No, my love. If there were, you would hardly be able for it to-day,

I should think. It is only to keep you from being frightened at the

precipice as you go down.”

“But I sha’n’t be frightened, papa.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because you are going to carry me.”

“But what if I should slip? I might, you know.”

“I don’t mind. I sha’n’t mind being tumbled over the precipice, if you

do it. I sha’n’t be to blame, and I’m sure you won’t, papa.” Then she

drew my head down and whispered in my ear, “If I get as much more by

being killed, as I have got by having my poor back hurt, I’m sure it

will be well worth it.”

I tried to smile a reply, for I could not speak one. We took her just as

she was, and with some tremor on my part, but not a single slip, we bore

her down the winding path, her face showing all the time that, instead

of being afraid, she was in a state of ecstatic delight. My wife, I

could see, was nervous, however; and she breathed a sigh of relief when

we were once more at the foot.

“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” she said.

“So am I,” I returned, as we set down the litter.

“Poor papa! I’ve pulled his arms to pieces! and Mr. Percivale’s too!”

Percivale answered first by taking up a huge piece of stone. Then

turning towards her, he said, “Look here, Miss Connie;” and flung it far

out from the isthmus on which we were resting. We heard it strike on

a rock below, and then fall in a shower of fragments. “My arms are all

right, you see,” he said.

Meantime, Wynnie had scrambled down to the shore, where we had not yet

been. In a few minutes, we still lingering, she came running back to us

out of breath with the news:

“Papa! Mr. Percivale! there’s such a grand cave down there! It goes

right through under the island.”

Connie looked so eager, that Percivale and I glanced at each other, and

without a word, lifted her, and followed Wynnie. It was a little way

that we had to carry her down, but it was very broken, and insomuch

more difficult than the other. At length we stood in the cavern. What a

contrast to the vision overhead!--nothing to be seen but the cool, dark

vault of the cave, long and winding, with the fresh seaweed lying on

its pebbly floor, and its walls wet with the last tide, for every tide

rolled through in rising and falling--the waters on the opposite sides

of the islet greeting through this cave; the blue shimmer of the rising

sea, and the forms of huge outlying rocks, looking in at the further

end, where the roof rose like a grand cathedral arch; and the green

gleam of veins rich with copper, dashing and streaking the darkness in

gloomy little chapels, where the floor of heaped-up pebbles rose and

rose within till it met the descending roof. It was like a going-down

from Paradise into the grave--but a cool, friendly, brown-lighted grave,

which even in its darkest recesses bore some witness to the wind of God

outside, in the occasional ripple of shadowed light, from the play of

the sun on the waves, that, fleeted and reflected, wandered across its

jagged roof. But we dared not keep Connie long in the damp coolness;

and I have given my reader quite enough of description for one hour’s

reading. He can scarcely be equal to more.

My invalids had now beheld the sea in such a different aspect, that I no

longer feared to go back to Kilkhaven. Thither we went three days after,

and at my invitation, Percivale took Turner’s place in the carriage.

CHAPTER XI.

JOE AND HIS TROUBLE.

How bright the yellow shores of Kilkhaven looked after the dark sands

of Tintagel! But how low and tame its highest cliffs after the mighty

rampart of rocks which there face the sea like a cordon of fierce

guardians! It was pleasant to settle down again in what had begun to

look like home, and was indeed made such by the boisterous welcome of

Dora and the boys. Connie’s baby crowed aloud, and stretched forth her

chubby arms at sight of her. The wind blew gently around us, full both

of the freshness of the clean waters and the scents of the down-grasses,

to welcome us back. And the dread vision of the shore had now receded so

far into the past, that it was no longer able to hurt.

We had called at the blacksmith’s house on our way home, and found that

he was so far better as to be working at his forge again. His mother

said he was used to such attacks, and soon got over them. I, however,

feared that they indicated an approaching break-down.

“Indeed, sir,” she said, “Joe might be well enough if he liked. It’s all

his own fault.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “I cannot believe that your son is in any

way guilty of his own illness.”

“He’s a well-behaved lad, my Joe,” she answered; “but he hasn’t learned

what I had to learn long ago.”

“What is that?” I asked.

“To make up his mind, and stick to it. To do one thing or the other.”

She was a woman with a long upper lip and a judicial face, and as she

spoke, her lip grew longer and longer; and when she closed her mouth in

mark of her own resolution, that lip seemed to occupy two-thirds of all

her face under the nose.

“And what is it he won’t do?”

“I don’t mind whether he does it or not, if he would only

make--up--his--mind--and--stick--to--it.”

“What is it you want him to do, then?”

“I don’t want him to do it, I’m sure. It’s no good to me--and wouldn’t

be much to him, that I’ll be bound. Howsomever, he must please himself.”

I thought it not very wonderful that he looked gloomy, if there was

no more sunshine for him at home than his mother’s face indicated. Few

things can make a man so strong and able for his work as a sun indoors,

whose rays are smiles, ever ready to shine upon him when he opens the

door,--the face of wife or mother or sister. Now his mother’s face

certainly was not sunny. No doubt it must have shone upon him when he

was a baby. God has made that provision for babies, who need sunshine

so much that a mother’s face cannot help being sunny to them: why should

the sunshine depart as the child grows older?

“Well, I suppose I must not ask. But I fear your son is very far

from well. Such attacks do not often occur without serious mischief

somewhere. And if there is anything troubling him, he is less likely to

get over it.”

“If he would let somebody make up his mind for him, and then stick to

it--”

“O, but that is impossible, you know. A man must make up his own mind.”

“That’s just what he won’t do.”

All the time she looked naughty, only after a self-righteous fashion. It

was evident that whatever was the cause of it, she was not in sympathy

with her son, and therefore could not help him out of any difficulty he

might be in. I made no further attempt to learn from her the cause

of her son’s discomfort, clearly a deeper cause than his illness. In

passing his workshop, we stopped for a moment, and I made an arrangement

to meet him at the church the next day.

I was there before him, and found that he had done a good deal since we

left. Little remained except to get the keys put to rights, and the rods

attached to the cranks in the box. To-day he was to bring a carpenter, a

cousin of his own, with him.

They soon arrived, and a small consultation followed. The cousin was a

bright-eyed, cheruby-cheeked little man, with a ready smile and white

teeth: I thought he might help me to understand what was amiss in

Joseph’s affairs. But I would not make the attempt except openly. I

therefore said half in a jocular fashion, as with gloomy, self-withdrawn

countenance the smith was fitting one loop into another in two of his

iron rods,--

“I wish we could get this cousin of yours to look a little more

cheerful. You would think he had quarrelled with the sunshine.”

The carpenter showed his white teeth between his rosy lips.

“Well, sir, if you’ll excuse me, you see my cousin Joe is not like the

rest of us. He’s a religious man, is Joe.”

“But I don’t see how that should make him miserable. It hasn’t made me

miserable. I hope I’m a religious man myself. It makes me happy every

day of my life.”

“Ah, well,” returned the carpenter, in a thoughtful tone, as he worked

away gently to get the inside out of the oak-chest without hurting it,

“I don’t say it’s the religion, for I don’t know; but perhaps it’s the

way he takes it up. He don’t look after hisself enough; he’s always

thinking about other people, you see, sir; and it seems to me, sir, that

if you don’t look after yourself, why, who is to look after you? That’s

common sense, _I_ think.”

It was a curious contrast--the merry friendly face, which shone

good-fellowship to all mankind, accusing the sombre, pale, sad, severe,

even somewhat bitter countenance beside him, of thinking too much

about other people, and too little about himself. Of course it might

be correct in a way. There is all the difference between a comfortable,

healthy inclination, and a pained, conscientious principle. It was

a smile very unlike his cousin’s with which Joe heard his remarks on

himself.

“But,” I said, “you will allow, at least, that if everybody would take

Joe’s way of it, there would then be no occasion for taking care of

yourself.”

“I don’t see why, sir.”

“Why, because everybody would take care of everybody else.”

“Not so well, I doubt, sir.”

“Yes, and a great deal better.”

“At any rate, that’s a long way off; and mean time, _who’s_ to take care

of the odd man like Joe there, that don’t look after hisself?”

“Why, God, of course.”

“Well, there’s just where I’m out. I don’t know nothing about that

branch, sir.”

I saw a grateful light mount up in Joe’s gloomy eyes as I spoke thus

upon his side of the question. He said nothing, however; and his cousin

volunteering no further information, I did not push any advantage I

might have gained.

At noon I made them leave their work, and come home with me to have

their dinner; they hoped to finish the job before dusk. Harry Cobb and

I dropped behind, and Joe Harper walked on in front, apparently sunk in

meditation.

Scarcely were we out of the churchyard, and on the road leading to the

rectory, when I saw the sexton’s daughter meeting us. She had almost

come up to Joe before he saw her, for his gaze was bent on the

ground, and he started. They shook hands in what seemed to me an odd,

constrained, yet familiar fashion, and then stood as if they wanted

to talk, but without speaking. Harry and I passed, both with a nod of

recognition to the young woman, but neither of us had the ill-manners to

look behind. I glanced at Harry, and he answered me with a queer look.

When we reached the turning that would hide them from our view, I looked

back almost involuntarily, and there they were still standing. But

before we reached the door of the rectory, Joe got up with us.

There was something remarkable in the appearance of Agnes Coombes, the

sexton’s daughter. She was about six-and-twenty, I should imagine,

the youngest of the family, with a sallow, rather sickly complexion,

somewhat sorrowful eyes, a smile rare and sweet, a fine figure, tall

and slender, and a graceful gait. I now saw, I thought, a good

hair’s-breadth further into the smith’s affairs. Beyond the

hair’s-breadth, however, all was dark. But I saw likewise that the well

of truth, whence I might draw the whole business, must be the girl’s

mother.

After the men had had their dinner and rested a while, they went back

to the church, and I went to the sexton’s cottage. I found the old man

seated at the window, with his pot of beer on the sill, and an empty

plate beside it.

“Come in, sir,” he said, rising, as I put my head in at the door. “The

mis’ess ben’t in, but she’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“O, it’s of no consequence,” I said. “Are they all well?”

“All comfortable, sir. It be fine dry weather for them, this, sir. It be

in winter it be worst for them.”

“But it’s a snug enough shelter you’ve got here. It seems such, anyhow;

though, to be sure, it is the blasts of winter that find out the weak

places both in house and body.”

“It ben’t the wind touch _them_” he said; “they be safe enough from the

wind. It be the wet, sir. There ben’t much snow in these parts; but when

it du come, that be very bad for them, poor things!”

Could it be that he was harping on the old theme again?

“But at least this cottage keeps out the wet,” I said. “If not, we must

have it seen to.”

“This cottage du well enough, sir. It’ll last my time, anyhow.”

“Then why are you pitying your family for having to live in it?”

“Bless your heart, sir! It’s not them. They du well enough. It’s my

people out yonder. You’ve got the souls to look after, and I’ve got the

bodies. That’s what it be, sir. To be sure!”

The last exclamation was uttered in a tone of impatient surprise at my

stupidity in giving all my thoughts and sympathies to the living, and

none to the dead. I pursued the subject no further, but as I lay in bed

that night, it began to dawn upon me as a lovable kind of hallucination

in which the man indulged. He too had an office in the Church of God,

and he would magnify that office. He could not bear that there should

be no further outcome of his labour; that the burying of the dead out

of sight should be “the be-all and the end-all.” He was God’s vicar,

the gardener in God’s Acre, as the Germans call the churchyard. When all

others had forsaken the dead, he remained their friend, caring for what

little comfort yet remained possible to them. Hence in all changes of

air and sky above, he attributed to them some knowledge of the same, and

some share in their consequences even down in the darkness of the tomb.

It was his way of keeping up the relation between the living and the

dead. Finding I made him no reply, he took up the word again.

“You’ve got your part, sir, and I’ve got mine. You up into the pulpit,

and I down into the grave. But it’ll be all the same by and by.”

“I hope it will,” I answered. “But when you do go down into your own

grave, you’ll know a good deal less about it than you do now. You’ll

find you’ve got other things to think about. But here comes your wife.

She’ll talk about the living rather than the dead.”

“That’s natural, sir. She brought ‘em to life, and I buried ‘em--at

least, best part of ‘em. If only I had the other two safe down with the

rest!”

I remembered what the old woman had told me--that she had two boys _in_

the sea; and I knew therefore what he meant. He regarded his drowned

boys as still tossed about in the weary wet cold ocean, and would have

gladly laid them to rest in the warm dry churchyard.

He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with the back of his hand,

and saying, “Well, I must be off to my gardening,” left me with his

wife. I saw then that, humorist as the old man might be, his humour,

like that of all true humorists, lay close about the wells of weeping.

“The old man seems a little out of sorts,” I said to his wife.

“Well, sir,” she answered, with her usual gentleness, a gentleness which

obedient suffering had perfected, “this be the day he buried our Nancy,

this day two years; and to-day Agnes be come home from her work poorly;

and the two things together they’ve upset him a bit.”

“I met Agnes coming this way. Where is she?”

“I believe she be in the churchyard, sir. I’ve been to the doctor about

her.”

“I hope it’s nothing serious.”

“I hope not, sir; but you see--four on ‘em, sir!”

“Well, she’s in God’s hands, you know.”

“That she be, sir.”

“I want to ask you about something, Mrs. Coombes.”

“What be that, sir? If I can tell, I will, you may be sure, sir.”

“I want to know what’s the matter with Joe Harper, the blacksmith.”

“They du say it be a consumption, sir.”

“But what has he got on his mind?”

“He’s got nothing on his mind, sir. He be as good a by as ever stepped,

I assure you, sir.”

“But I am sure there is something or other on his mind. He’s not so

happy as he should be. He’s not the man, it seems to me, to be unhappy

because he’s ill. A man like him would not be miserable because he was

going to die. It might make him look sad sometimes, but not gloomy as he

looks.”

“Well, sir, I believe you be right, and perhaps I know summat. But it’s

part guessing.--I believe my Agnes and Joe Harper are as fond upon one

another as any two in the county.”

“Are they not going to be married then?”