wanted to know more about him.”
The tears were in her eyes, and I was sorry I had treated as significant
what was really not so. But the constant tendency to consider
Christianity as associated of necessity with this or that form of
it, instead of as simply obedience to Christ, had grown more and more
repulsive to me as I had grown myself, for it always seemed like an
insult to my brethren in Christ; hence the least hint of it in my
children I was too ready to be down upon like a most unchristian ogre.
I took her hand in mine, and she was comforted, for she saw in my face
that I was sorry, and yet she could see that there was reason at the
root of my haste.
“But,” said Wynnie, who, I thought afterwards, must have strengthened
herself to speak from the instinctive desire to show Percivale how far
she was from being out of sympathy with what he might suppose formed a
barrier between him and me--“But,” she said, “the lovely feeling in that
poem seems to me, as in all the rest of such poems, to belong only to
the New Testament, and have nothing to do with this world round about
us. These things look as if they were only for drawing and painting and
being glad in, not as if they had relations with all those awful and
solemn things. As soon as I try to get the two together, I lose both of
them.”
“That is because the human mind must begin with one thing and grow to
the rest. At first, Christianity seemed to men to have only to do with
their conscience. That was the first relation, of course. But even with
art it was regarded as having no relation except for the presentment of
its history. Afterwards, men forgot the conscience almost in trying to
make Christianity comprehensible to the understanding. Now, I trust, we
are beginning to see that Christianity is everything or nothing. Either
the whole is a lovely fable setting forth the loftiest longing of the
human soul after the vision of the divine, or it is such a fact as is
the heart not only of theology so called, but of history, politics,
science, and art. The treasures of the Godhead must be hidden in him,
and therefore by him only can be revealed. This will interpret all
things, or it has not yet been. Teachers of men have not taught this,
because they have not seen it. If we do not find him in nature, we may
conclude either that we do not understand the expression of nature, or
have mistaken ideas or poor feelings about him. It is one great business
in our life to find the interpretation which will render this harmony
visible. Till we find it, we have not seen him to be all in all.
Recognising a discord when they touched the notes of nature and society,
the hermits forsook the instrument altogether, and contented themselves
with a partial symphony--lofty, narrow, and weak. Their example, more or
less, has been followed by almost all Christians. Exclusion is so much
the easier way of getting harmony in the orchestra than study, insight,
and interpretation, that most have adopted it. It is for us, and all who
have hope in the infinite God, to widen its basis as we may, to search
and find the true tone and right idea, place, and combination of
instruments, until to our enraptured ear they all, with one voice of
multiform yet harmonious utterance, declare the glory of God and of his
Christ.”
“A grand idea,” said Percivale.
“Therefore likely to be a true one,” I returned. “People find it hard
to believe grand things; but why? If there be a God, is it not likely
everything is grand, save where the reflection of his great thoughts is
shaken, broken, distorted by the watery mirrors of our unbelieving and
troubled souls? Things ought to be grand, simple, and noble. The ages of
eternity will go on showing that such they are and ever have been. God
will yet be victorious over our wretched unbeliefs.”
I was sitting facing the sea, but with my eyes fixed on the sand, boring
holes in it with my stick, for I could talk better when I did not look
my familiar faces in the face. I did not feel thus in the pulpit; there
I sought the faces of my flock, to assist me in speaking to their needs.
As I drew to the close of my last monologue, a colder and stronger blast
from the sea blew in my face. I lifted my head, and saw that the tide
had crept up a long way, and was coming in fast. A luminous fog had sunk
down over the western horizon, and almost hidden the sun, had obscured
the half of the sea, and destroyed all our hopes of a sunset. A certain
veil as of the commonplace, like that which so often settles down over
the spirit of man after a season of vision and glory and gladness, had
dropped over the face of Nature. The wind came in little bitter gusts
across the dull waters. It was time to lift Connie and take her home.
This was the last time we ate together on the open shore.
CHAPTER III.
A PASTORAL VISIT.
The next morning rose neither “cherchef’t in a comely cloud” nor “roab’d
in flames and amber light,” but covered all in a rainy mist, which the
wind mingled with salt spray torn from the tops of the waves. Every now
and then the wind blew a blastful of larger drops against the window of
my study with an angry clatter and clash, as if daring me to go out
and meet its ire. The earth was very dreary, for there were no shadows
anywhere. The sun was hustled away by the crowding vapours; and earth,
sea, and sky were possessed by a gray spirit that threatened wrath. The
breakfast-bell rang, and I went down, expecting to find my Wynnie, who
was always down first to make the tea, standing at the window with a
sad face, giving fit response to the aspect of nature without, her soul
talking with the gray spirit. I did find her at the window, looking out
upon the restless tossing of the waters, but with no despondent answer
to the trouble of nature. On the contrary, her cheek, though neither
rosy nor radiant, looked luminous, and her eyes were flashing out upon
the ebb-tide which was sinking away into the troubled ocean beyond. Does
my girl-reader expect me to tell her next that something had happened?
that Percivale had said something to her? or that, at least, he had just
passed the window, and given her a look which she might interpret as she
pleased? I must disappoint her. It was nothing of the sort. I knew
the heart and feeling of my child. It was only that kind nature was in
sympathy with her mood. The girl was always more peaceful in storm than
in sunshine. I remembered that now. A movement of life instantly began
in her when the obligation of gladness had departed with the light. Her
own being arose to provide for its own needs. She could smile now when
nature required from her no smile in response to hers. And I could not
help saying to myself, “She must marry a poor man some day; she is a
creature of the north, and not of the south; the hot sun of prosperity
would wither her up. Give her a bleak hill-side, and a glint or two of
sunshine between the hailstorms, and she will live and grow; give her
poverty and love, and life will be interesting to her as a romance; give
her money and position, and she will grow dull and haughty. She will
believe in nothing that poet can sing or architect build. She will, like
Cassius, scorn her spirit for being moved to smile at anything.”
I had stood regarding her for a moment. She turned and saw me, and came
forward with her usual morning greeting.
“I beg your pardon, papa: I thought it was Walter.”
“I am glad to see a smile on your face, my love.”
“Don’t think me very disagreeable, papa. I know I am a trouble to you.
But I am a trouble to myself first. I fear I have a discontented mind
and a complaining temper. But I do try, and I will try hard to overcome
it.”
“It will not get the better of you, so long as you do the duty of the
moment. But I think, as I told you before, that you are not very well,
and that your indisposition is going to do you good by making you think
about some things you are ready to think about, but which you might have
banished if you had been in good health and spirits. You are feeling as
you never felt before, that you need a presence in your soul of which
at least you haven’t enough yet. But I preached quite enough to you
yesterday, and I won’t go on the same way to-day again. Only I wanted to
comfort you. Come and give me my breakfast.”
“You do comfort me, papa,” she answered, approaching the table. “I know
I don’t show what I feel as I ought, but you do comfort me much. Don’t
you like a day like this, papa?”
“I do, my dear. I always did. And I think you take after me in that, as
you do in a good many things besides. That is how I understand you so
well.”
“Do I really take after you, papa? Are you sure that you understand me
so well?” she asked, brightening up.
“I know I do,” I returned, replying to her last question.
“Better than I do myself?” she asked with an arch smile.
“Considerably, if I mistake not,” I answered.
“How delightful! To think that I am understood even when I don’t
understand myself!”
“But even if I am wrong, you are yet understood. The blessedness of life
is that we can hide nothing from God. If we could hide anything from
God, that hidden thing would by and by turn into a terrible disease.
It is the sight of God that keeps and makes things clean. But as we are
both, by mutual confession, fond of this kind of weather, what do you
say to going out with me? I have to visit a sick woman.”
“You don’t mean Mrs. Coombes, papa?”
“No, my dear. I did not hear she was ill.”
“O, I daresay it is nothing much. Only old nursey said yesterday she was
in bed with a bad cold, or something of that sort.”
“We’ll call and inquire as we pass,--that is, if you are inclined to go
with me.”
“How can you put an _if_ to that, papa?”
“I have just had a message from that cottage that stands all alone on
the corner of Mr. Barton’s farm--over the cliff, you know--that the
woman is ill, and would like to see me. So the sooner we start the
better.”
“I shall have done my breakfast in five minutes, papa. O, here’s
mamma!--Mamma, I’m going out for a walk in the rain with papa. You won’t
mind, will you?”
“I don’t think it will do you any harm, my dear. That’s all I mind, you
know. It was only once or twice when you were not well that I objected
to it. I quite agree with your papa, that only lazy people are _glad_ to
stay in-doors when it rains.”
“And it does blow so delightfully!” said Wynnie, as she left the room to
put on her long cloak and her bonnet.
We called at the sexton’s cottage, and found him sitting gloomily by the
low window, looking seaward.
“I hope your wife is not _very_ poorly, Coombes,” I said.
“No, sir. She be very comfortable in bed. Bed’s not a bad place to be in
in such weather,” he answered, turning again a dreary look towards the
Atlantic. “Poor things!”
“What a passion for comfort you have, Coombes! How does that come about,
do you think?”
“I suppose I was made so, sir.”
“To be sure you were. God made you so.”
“Surely, sir. Who else?”
“Then I suppose he likes making people comfortable if he makes people
like to be comfortable.”
“It du look likely enough, sir.”
“Then when he takes it out of your hands, you mustn’t think he doesn’t
look after the people you would make comfortable if you could.”
“I must mind my work, you know, sir.”
“Yes, surely. And you mustn’t want to take his out of his hands, and go
grumbling as if you would do it so much better if he would only let you
get _your_ hand to it.”
“I daresay you be right, sir,” he said. “I must just go and have a look
about, though. Here’s Agnes. She’ll tell you about mother.”
He took his spade from the corner, and went out. He often brought his
tools into the cottage. He had carved the handle of his spade all over
with the names of the people he had buried.
“Tell your mother, Agnes, that I will call in the evening and see her,
if she would like to see me. We are going now to see Mrs. Stokes. She is
very poorly, I hear.”
“Let us go through the churchyard, papa,” said Wynnie, “and see what the
old man is doing.”
“Very well, my dear. It is only a few steps round.”
“Why do you humour the sexton’s foolish fancy so much, papa? It is
such nonsense! You taught us it was, surely, in your sermon about the
resurrection?”
“Most certainly, my dear. But it would be of no use to try to get it out
of his head by any argument. He has a kind of craze in that direction.
To get people’s hearts right is of much more importance than convincing
their judgments. Right judgment will follow. All such fixed ideas should
be encountered from the deepest grounds of truth, and not from the
outsides of their relations. Coombes has to be taught that God cares for
the dead more than he does, and _therefore_ it is unreasonable for him
to be anxious about them.”
When we reached the churchyard we found the old man kneeling on a grave
before its headstone. It was a very old one, with a death’s-head and
cross-bones carved upon the top of it in very high relief. With his
pocket-knife he was removing the lumps of green moss out of the hollows
of the eyes of the carven skull. We did not interrupt him, but walked
past with a nod.
“You saw what he was doing, Wynnie? That reminds me of almost the only
thing in Dante’s grand poem that troubles me. I cannot think of it
without a renewal of my concern, though I have no doubt he is as sorry
now as I am that ever he could have written it. When, in the _Inferno,_
he reaches the lowest region of torture, which is a solid lake of ice,
he finds the lost plunged in it to various depths, some, if I remember
rightly, entirely submerged, and visible only through the ice,
transparent as crystal, like the insects found in amber. One man with
his head only above the ice, appeals to him as condemned to the same
punishment to take pity on him, and remove the lumps of frozen tears
from his eyes, that he may weep a little before they freeze again and
stop the relief once more. Dante says to him, ‘Tell me who you are,
and if I do not assist you, I deserve to lie at the bottom of the ice
myself.’ The man tells him who he is, and explains to him one awful
mystery of these regions. Then he says, ‘Now stretch forth thy hand,
and open my eyes.’ ‘And,’ says Dante, I did not open them for him; and
rudeness to him was courtesy.’”
“But he promised, you said.”
“He did; and yet he did not do it. Pity and truth had abandoned him
together. One would think little of it comparatively, were it not that
Dante is so full of tenderness and grand religion. It is very awful, and
may teach us many things.”
“But what made you think of that now?”
“Merely what Coombes was about. The visual image was all. He was
scooping the green moss out of the eyes of the death’s-head on the
gravestone.”
By this time we were on the top of the downs, and the wind was buffeting
us, and every other minute assailing us with a blast of rain. Wynnie
drew her cloak closer about her, bent her head towards the blast, and
struggled on bravely by my side. No one who wants to enjoy a walk in the
rain must carry an umbrella; it is pure folly. When we came to one
of the stone fences, we cowered down by its side for a few moments
to recover our breath, and then struggled on again. Anything like
conversation was out of the question. At length we dropped into a
hollow, which gave us a little repose. Down below the sea was dashing
into the mouth of the glen, or coomb, as they call it there. On the
opposite side of the hollow, the little house to which we were going
stood up against the gray sky.
“I begin to doubt whether I ought to have brought you, Wynnie. It was
thoughtless of me; I don’t mean for your sake, but because your presence
may be embarrassing in a small house; for probably the poor woman may
prefer seeing me alone.”
“I will go back, papa. I sha’n’t mind it a bit.”
“No; you had better come on. I shall not be long with her, I daresay. We
may find some place that you can wait in. Are you wet?”
“Only my cloak. I am as dry as a tortoise inside.”
“Come along, then. We shall soon be there.”
When we reached the house I found that Wynnie would not be in the way.
I left her seated by the kitchen-fire, and was shown into the room where
Mrs. Stokes lay. I cannot say I perceived. But I guessed somehow, the
moment I saw her that there was something upon her mind. She was
a hard-featured woman, with a cold, troubled black eye that rolled
restlessly about. She lay on her back, moving her head from side to
side. When I entered she only looked at me, and turned her eyes away
towards the wall. I approached the bedside, and seated myself by it.
I always do so at once; for the patient feels more at rest than if you
stand tall up before her. I laid my hand on hers.
“Are you very ill, Mrs. Stokes?” I said.
“Yes, very,” she answered with a groan. “It be come to the last with
me.”
“I hope not, indeed, Mrs. Stokes. It’s not come to the last with us, so
long as we have a Father in heaven.”
“Ah! but it be with me. He can’t take any notice of the like of me.”
“But indeed he does, whether you think it or not. He takes notice of
every thought we think, and every deed we do, and every sin we commit.”
I said the last words with emphasis, for I suspected something more than
usual upon her conscience. She gave another groan, but made no reply. I
therefore went on.
“Our Father in heaven is not like some fathers on earth, who, so long
as their children don’t bother them, let them do anything they like. He
will not have them do what is wrong. He loves them too much for that.”
“He won’t look at me,” she said half murmuring, half sighing it out, so
that I could hardly, hear what she said.
“It is because he _is_ looking at you that you are feeling
uncomfortable,” I answered. “He wants you to confess your sins. I
don’t mean to me, but to himself; though if you would like to tell me
anything, and I can help you, I shall be _very_ glad. You know Jesus
Christ came to save us from our sins; and that’s why we call him our
Saviour. But he can’t save us from our sins if we won’t confess that we
have any.”
“I’m sure I never said but what I be a great sinner, as well as other
people.”
“You don’t suppose that’s confessing your sins?” I said. “I once knew a
woman of very bad character, who allowed to me she was a great sinner;
but when I said, ‘Yes, you have done so and so,’ she would not allow one
of those deeds to be worthy of being reckoned amongst her sins. When
I asked her what great sins she had been guilty of, then, seeing these
counted for nothing, I could get no more out of her than that she was a
great sinner, like other people, as you have just been saying.”
“I hope you don’t be thinking I ha’ done anything of that sort,” she
said with wakening energy. “No man or woman dare say I’ve done anything
to be ashamed of.”
“Then you’ve committed no sins?” I returned. “But why did you send for
me? You must have something to say to me.”
“I never did send for you. It must ha’ been my husband.”
“Ah, then I’m afraid I’ve no business here!” I returned, rising. “I
thought you had sent for me.”
She returned no answer. I hoped that by retiring I should set her
thinking, and make her more willing to listen the next time I came. I
think clergymen may do much harm by insisting when people are in a bad
mood, as if they had everything to do, and the Spirit of God nothing at
all. I bade her good-day, hoped she would be better soon, and returned
to Wynnie.
As we walked home together, I said:
“Wynnie, I was right. It would not have done at all to take you into the
sick-room. Mrs. Stokes had not sent for me herself, and rather resented
my appearance. But I think she will send for me before many days are
over.”
CHAPTER IV.
THE ART OF NATURE.
We had a week of hazy weather after this. I spent it chiefly in my study
and in Connie’s room. A world of mist hung over the sea; it refused
to hold any communion with mortals. As if ill-tempered or unhappy, it
folded itself in its mantle and lay still.
What was it thinking about? All Nature is so full of meaning, that we
cannot help fancying sometimes that she knows her own meanings. She
is busy with every human mood in turn--sometimes with ten of them
at once--picturing our own inner world before us, that we may see,
understand, develop, reform it.
I was turning over some such thought in my mind one morning, when Dora
knocked at the door, saying that Mr. Percivale had called, and that
mamma was busy, and would I mind if she brought him up to the study.
“Not in the least, my dear,” I answered; “I shall be very glad to see
him.”
“Not much of weather for your sacred craft, Percivale,” I said as he
entered. “I suppose, if you were asked to make a sketch to-day, it
would be much the same as if a stupid woman were to ask you to take her
portrait?”
“Not quite so bad as that,” said Percivale.
“Surely the human face is more than nature.”
“Nature is never stupid.”
“The woman might be pretty.”
“Nature is full of beauty in her worst moods; while the prettier such
a woman, the more stupid she would look, and the more irksome you would
feel the task; for you could not help making claims upon her which you
would never think of making upon Nature.”
“I daresay you are right. Such stupidity has a good deal to do with
moral causes. You do not ever feel that Nature is to blame.”
“Nature is never ugly. She may be dull, sorrowful, troubled; she may be
lost in tears and pallor, but she cannot be ugly. It is only when you
rise into animal nature that you find ugliness.”
“True in the main only; for no lines of absolute division can be drawn
in nature. I have seen ugly flowers.”
“I grant it; but they are exceptional; and none of them are without
beauty.”
“Surely not. The ugliest soul even is not without some beauty. But I
grant you that the higher you rise the more is ugliness possible, just
because the greater beauty is possible. There is no ugliness to equal in
its repulsiveness the ugliness of a beautiful face.”
A pause followed.
“I presume,” I said, “you are thinking of returning to London now, there
seems so little to be gained by remaining here. When this weather begins
to show itself I could wish myself in my own parish; but I am sure the
change, even through the winter, will be good for my daughter.”
“I must be going soon,” he answered; “but it would be too bad to take
offence at the old lady’s first touch of temper. I mean to wait and
see whether we shall not have a little bit of St. Martin’s summer, as
Shakspere calls it; after which, hail London, queen of smoke and--”
“And what?” I asked, seeing he hesitated.
“‘And soap,’ I was fancying you would say; for you never will allow the
worst of things, Mr. Walton.”
“No, surely I will not. For one thing, the worst has never been seen by
anybody yet. We have no experience to justify it.”
We were chatting in this loose manner when Walter came to the door to
tell me that a messenger had come from Mrs. Stokes.
I went down to see him, and found her husband.
“My wife be very bad, sir,” he said. “I wish you could come and see
her.”
“Does she want to see me?’ I asked.
“She’s been more uncomfortable than ever since you was there last,” he
said.
“But,” I repeated, “has she said she would like to see me?”
“I can’t say it, sir,” answered the man.
“Then it is you who want me to see her?”
“Yes, sir; but I be sure she do want to see you. I know her way, you
see, sir. She never would say she wanted anything in her life; she would
always leave you to find it out: so I got sharp at that, sir.”
“And then would she allow she had wanted it when you got it her?”
“No, never, sir. She be peculiar--my wife; she always be.”
“Does she know that you have come to ask me now?”
“No, sir.”
“Have you courage to tell her?”
The man hesitated.
“If you haven’t courage to tell her,” I resumed, “I have nothing more to
say. I can’t go; or, rather, I will not go.”
“I will tell her, sir.”
“Then you will tell her that I refused to come until she sent for me
herself.”
“Ben’t that rather hard on a dying woman, sir?”
“I have my reasons. Except she send for me herself, the moment I go she
will take refuge in the fact that she did not send for me. I know your
wife’s peculiarity too, Mr. Stokes.”
“Well, I _will_ tell her, sir. It’s time to speak my own mind.”
“I think so. It was time long ago. When she sends for me, if it be in
the middle of the night, I shall be with her at once.”
He left me and I returned to Percivale.
“I was just thinking before you came,” I said, “about the relation of
Nature to our inner world. You know I am quite ignorant of your art, but
I often think about the truths that lie at the root of it.”
“I am greatly obliged to you,” he said, “for talking about these things.
I assure you it is of more service to me than any professional talk. I
always think the professions should not herd together so much as they
do; they want to be shone upon from other quarters.”
“I believe we have all to help each other, Percivale. The sun himself
could give us no light that would be of any service to us but for the
reflective power of the airy particles through which he shines.
But anything I know I have found out merely by foraging for my own
necessities.”
“That is just what makes the result valuable,” he replied. “Tell me what
you were thinking.”
“I was thinking,” I answered, “how everyone likes to see his own
thoughts set outside of him, that he may contemplate them _objectively,_
as the philosophers call it. He likes to see the other side of them, as
it were.”
“Yes, that is, of course, true; else, I suppose, there would be no art
at all.”
“Surely. But that is not the aspect in which I was considering the
question. Those who can so set them forth are artists; and however
they may fail of effecting such a representation of their ideas as will
satisfy themselves, they yet experience satisfaction in the measure in
which they have succeeded. But there are many more men who cannot yet
utter their ideas in any form. Mind, I do expect that, if they will only
be good, they shall have this power some day; for I do think that many
things we call differences in kind, may in God’s grand scale prove to be
only differences in degree. And indeed the artist--by artist, I mean,
of course, architect, musician, painter, poet, sculptor--in many things
requires it just as much as the most helpless and dumb of his brethren,
seeing in proportion to the things that he can do, he is aware of the
things he cannot do, the thoughts he cannot express. Hence arises the
enthusiasm with which people hail the work of an artist; they rejoice,
namely, in seeing their own thoughts, or feelings, or something like
them, expressed; and hence it comes that of those who have money, some
hang their walls with pictures of their own choice, others--”
“I beg your pardon,” said Percivale, interrupting; “but most people, I
fear, hang their walls with pictures of other people’s choice, for they
don’t buy them at all till the artist has got a name.”
“That is true. And yet there is a shadow of choice even there; for they
won’t at least buy what they dislike. And again the growth in popularity
may be only what first attracted their attention--not determined their
choice.”
“But there are others who only buy them for their value in the market.”
“‘Of such is not the talk,’ as the Germans would say. In as far as your
description applies, such are only tradesmen, and have no claim to be
considered now.”
“Then I beg your pardon for interrupting. I am punished more than I
deserve, if you have lost your thread.”
“I don’t think I have. Let me see. Yes. I was saying that people hang
their walls with pictures of their choice; or provide music, &c., of
their choice. Let me keep to the pictures: their choice, consciously or
unconsciously, is determined by some expression that these pictures give
to what is in themselves--the buyers, I mean. They like to see their own
feelings outside of themselves.”
“Is there not another possible motive--that the pictures teach them
something?”
“That, I venture to think, shows a higher moral condition than the
other, but still partakes of the other; for it is only what is in us
already that makes us able to lay hold of a lesson. It is there in the
germ, else nothing from without would wake it up.”
“I do not quite see what all this has to do with Nature and her
influences.”
“One step more, and I shall arrive at it. You will admit that the
pictures and objects of art of all kinds, with which a man adorns the
house he has chosen or built to live in, have thenceforward not a little
to do with the education of his tastes and feelings. Even when he is not
aware of it, they are working upon him,--for good, if he has chosen what
is good, which alone shall be our supposition.”
“Certainly; that is clear.”
“Now I come to it. God, knowing our needs, built our house for our
needs--not as one man may build for another, but as no man can build for
himself. For our comfort, education, training, he has put into form for
us all the otherwise hidden thoughts and feelings of our heart. Even
when he speaks of the hidden things of the Spirit of God, he uses the
forms or pictures of Nature. The world is, as it were, the human, unseen
world turned inside out, that we may see it. On the walls of the house
that he has built for us, God has hung up the pictures--ever-living,
ever-changing pictures--of all that passes in our souls. Form and colour
and motion are there,--ever-modelling, ever-renewing, never wearying.
Without this living portraiture from within, we should have no word to
utter that should represent a single act of the inner world. Metaphysics
could have no existence, not to speak of poetry, not to speak of the
commonest language of affection. But all is done in such spiritual
suggestion, portrait and definition are so avoided, the whole is in
such fluent evanescence, that the producing mind is only aided, never
overwhelmed. It never amounts to representation. It affords but the
material which the thinking, feeling soul can use, interpret, and apply
for its own purposes of speech. It is, as it were, the forms of thought
cast into a lovely chaos by the inferior laws of matter, thence to be
withdrawn by what we call the creative genius that God has given to men,
and moulded, and modelled, and arranged, and built up to its own shapes
and its own purposes.”
“Then I presume you would say that no mere transcript, if I may use the
word, of nature is the worthy work of an artist.”
“It is an impossibility to make a mere transcript. No man can help
seeing nature as he is himself, for she has all in her; but if he sees
no meaning in especial that he wants to give, his portrait of her will
represent only her dead face, not her living impassioned countenance.”
“Then artists ought to interpret nature?”
“Indubitably; but that will only be to interpret themselves--something
of humanity that is theirs, whether they have discovered it already or
not. If to this they can add some teaching for humanity, then indeed
they may claim to belong to the higher order of art, however imperfect
they may be in their powers of representing--however lowly, therefore,
their position may be in that order.”
CHAPTER V.
THE SORE SPOT.
We went on talking for some time. Indeed we talked so long that the
dinner-hour was approaching, when one of the maids came with the message
that Mr. Stokes had called again, wishing to see me. I could not help
smiling inwardly at the news. I went down at once, and found him smiling
too.
“My wife do send me for you this time, sir,” he said. “Between you and
me, I cannot help thinking she have something on her mind she wants to
tell you, sir.”
“Why shouldn’t she tell you, Mr. Stokes? That would be most natural. And
then, if you wanted any help about it, why, of course, here I am.”
“She don’t think well enough of my judgment for that, sir; and I daresay
she be quite right. She always do make me give in before she have done
talking. But she have been a right good wife to me, sir.”
“Perhaps she would have been a better if you hadn’t given in quite so
much. It is very wrong to give in when you think you are right.”
“But I never be sure of it when she talk to me awhile.”
“Ah, then I have nothing to say except that you ought to have been
surer--_sometimes;_ I don’t say _always.”_
“But she do want you very bad now, sir. I don’t think she’ll behave to
you as she did before. Do come, sir.”
“Of course I will--instantly.”
I returned to the study, and asked Percivale if he would like to go with
me. He looked, I thought, as if he would rather not. I saw that it was
hardly kind to ask him.
“Well, perhaps it is better not,” I said; “for I do not know how long I
may have to be with the poor woman. You had better wait here and take
my place at the dinner-table. I promise not to depose you if I should
return before the meal is over.”
He thanked me very heartily. I showed him into the drawing-room, told my
wife where I was going, and not to wait dinner for me--I would take my
chance--and joined Mr. Stokes.
“You have no idea, then,” I said, after we had gone about half-way,
“what makes your wife so uneasy?”
“No, I haven’t,” he answered; “except it be,” he resumed, “that she was
too hard, as I thought, upon our Mary, when she wanted to marry beneath
her, as wife thought.”
“How beneath her? Who was it she wanted to marry?”
“She did marry him, sir. She has a bit of her mother’s temper, you see,
and she would take her own way.”
“Ah, there’s a lesson to mothers, is it not? If they want to have their
own way, they mustn’t give their own temper to their daughters.”
“But how are they to help it, sir?”
“Ah, how indeed? But what is your daughter’s husband?”
“A labourer, sir. He works on a farm out by Carpstone.”
“But you have worked on Mr. Barton’s farm for many years, if I don’t
mistake?”
“I have, sir; but I am a sort of a foreman now, you see.”
“But you weren’t so always; and your son-in-law, whether he work his
way up or not, is, I presume, much where you were when you married Mrs.
Stokes?”
“True as you say, sir; and it’s not me that has anything to say about
it. I never gave the man a nay. But you see, my wife, she always do
be wanting to get her head up in the world; and since she took to the
shopkeeping--”
“The shopkeeping!” I said, with some surprise; “I didn’t know that.”
“Well, you see, sir, it’s only for a quarter or so of the year. You know
it’s a favourite walk for the folks as comes here for the bathing--past
our house, to see the great cave down below; and my wife, she got a
bit of a sign put up, and put a few ginger-beer bottles in the window,
and--”
“A bad place for the ginger-beer,” I said.
“They were only empty ones, with corks and strings, you know, sir. My
wife, she know better than put the ginger-beer its own self in the
sun. But I do think she carry her head higher after that; and a
farm-labourer, as they call them, was none good enough for her
daughter.”
“And hasn’t she been kind to her since she married, then?”
“She’s never done her no harm, sir.”
“But she hasn’t gone to see her very often, or asked her to come and see
you very often, I suppose?”
“There’s ne’er a one o’ them crossed the door of the other,” he
answered, with some evident feeling of his own in the matter.
“Ah; but you don’t approve of that yourself, Stokes?”
“Approve of it? No, sir. I be a farm-labourer once myself; and so I do
want to see my own daughter now and then. But she take after her mother,
she do. I don’t know which of the two it is as does it, but there’s no
coming and going between Carpstone and this.”
We were approaching the house. I told Stokes he had better let her know
I was there; for that, if she had changed her mind, it was not too late
for me to go home again without disturbing her. He came back saying she
was still very anxious to see me.
“Well, Mrs. Stokes, how do you feel to-day?” I asked, by way of opening
the conversation. “I don’t think you look much worse.”
“I he much worse, sir. You don’t know what I suffer, or you wouldn’t
make so little of it. I be very bad.”
“I know you are very ill, but I hope you are not too ill to tell me
why you are so anxious to see me. You have got something to tell me, I
suppose.”
With pale and death-like countenance, she appeared to be fighting more
with herself than with the disease which yet had nearly overcome her.
The drops stood upon her forehead, and she did not speak. Wishing to
help her, if I might, I said--
“Was it about your daughter you wanted to speak to me?”
“No,” she muttered. “I have nothing to say about my daughter. She was my
own. I could do as I pleased with her.”
I thought with myself, we must have a word about that by and by, but
meantime she must relieve her heart of the one thing whose pressure she
feels.
“Then,” I said, “you want to tell me about something that was not your
own?”
“Who said I ever took what was not my own?” she returned fiercely. “Did
Stokes dare to say I took anything that wasn’t my own?”
“No one has said anything of the sort. Only I cannot help thinking, from
your own words and from your own behaviour, that that must be the cause
of your misery.”
“It is very hard that the parson should think such things,” she muttered
again.
“My poor woman,” I said, “you sent for me because you had something to
confess to me. I want to help you if I can. But you are too proud to
confess it yet, I see. There is no use in my staying here. It only does
you harm. So I will bid you good-morning. If you cannot confess to me,
confess to God.”
“God knows it, I suppose, without that.”
“Yes. But that does not make it less necessary for you to confess it.
How is he to forgive you, if you won’t allow that you have done wrong?”
“It be not so easy that as you think. How would you like to say you had
took something that wasn’t your own?”
“Well, I shouldn’t like it, certainly; but if I had it to do, I think I
should make haste and do it, and so get rid of it.”
“But that’s the worst of it; I can’t get rid of it.”
“But,” I said, laying my hand on hers, and trying to speak as kindly
as I could, although her whole behaviour would have been exceedingly
repulsive but for her evidently great suffering, “you have now all but
confessed taking something that did not belong to you. Why don’t you
summon courage and tell me all about it? I want to help you out of the
trouble as easily as ever I can; but I can’t if you don’t tell me what
you’ve got that isn’t yours.”
“I haven’t got anything,” she muttered.
“You had something, then, whatever may have become of it now.”
She was again silent.
“What did you do with it?”
“Nothing.”
I rose and took up my hat. She stretched out her hand, as if to lay hold
of me, with a cry.
“Stop, stop. I’ll tell you all about it. I lost it again. That’s the
worst of it. I got no good of it.”
“What was it?”
“A sovereign,” she said, with a groan. “And now I’m a thief, I suppose.”
“No more a thief than you were before. Rather less, I hope. But do you
think it would have been any better for you if you hadn’t lost it, and
had got some good of it, as you say?”
She was silent yet again.
“If you hadn’t lost it you would most likely have been a great deal
worse for it than you are--a more wicked woman altogether.”
“I’m not a wicked woman.”
“It is wicked to steal, is it not?”
“I didn’t steal it.”
“How did you come by it, then?”
“I found it.”
“Did you try to find out the owner?”
“No. I knew whose it was.”
“Then it was very wicked not to return it. And I say again, that if you
had not lost the sovereign you would have been most likely a more wicked
woman than you are.”
“It was very hard to lose it. I could have given it back. And then I
wouldn’t have lost my character as I have done this day.”
“Yes, you could; but I doubt if you would.”
“I would.”
“Now, if you had it, you are sure you would give it back?”
“Yes, that I would,” she said, looking me so full in the face that I was
sure she meant it.
“How would you give it back? Would you get your husband to take it?”
“No; I wouldn’t trust him.”
“With the story, you mean? You do not wish to imply that he would not
restore it?”
“I don’t mean that. He would do what I told him.”
“How would you return it, then?”
“I should make a parcel of it, and send it.”
“Without saying anything about it?”
“Yes. Where’s the good? The man would have his own.”
“No, he would not. He has a right to your confession, for you have
wronged him. That would never do.”
“You are too hard upon me,” she said, beginning to weep angrily.
“Do you want to get the weight of this sin off your mind?” I said.
“Of course I do. I am going to die. O dear! O dear!”
“Then that is just what I want to help you in. You must confess, or the
weight of it will stick there.”
“But, if I confess, I shall be expected to pay it back?”
“Of course. That is only reasonable.”
“But I haven’t got it, I tell you. I have lost it.”
“Have you not a sovereign in your possession?”
“No, not one.”
“Can’t you ask your husband to let you have one?”
“There! I knew it was no use. I knew you would only make matters worse.
I do wish I had never seen that wicked money.”
“You ought not to abuse the money; it was not wicked. You ought to wish
that you had returned it. But that is no use; the thing is to return it
now. Has your husband got a sovereign?”
“No. He may ha’ got one since I be laid up. But I never can tell him
about it; and I should be main sorry to spend one of his hard earning in
that way, poor man.”
“Well, I’ll tell him, and we’ll manage it somehow.”
I thought for a few moments she would break out in opposition; but she
hid her face with the sheet instead, and burst into a great weeping.
I took this as a permission to do as I had said, and went to the
room-door and called her husband. He came, looking scared. His wife did
not look up, but lay weeping. I hoped much for her and him too from this
humiliation before him, for I had little doubt she needed it.
“Your wife, poor woman,” I said, “is in great distress because--I do not
know when or how--she picked up a sovereign that did not belong to her,
and, instead of returning, put it away somewhere and lost it. This is
what is making her so miserable.”
“Deary me!” said Stokes, in the tone with which he would have spoken to
a sick child; and going up to his wife, he sought to draw down the sheet
from her face, apparently that he might kiss her; but she kept tight
hold of it, and he could not. “Deary me!” he went on; “we’ll soon put
that all to rights. When was it, Jane, that you found it?”
“When we wanted so to have a pig of our own; and I thought I could soon
return it,” she sobbed from under the sheet.
“Deary me! Ten years ago! Where did you find it, old woman?”
“I saw Squire Tresham drop it, as he paid me for some ginger-beer he got
for some ladies that was with him. I do believe I should ha’ given it
back at the time; but he made faces at the ginger-beer, and said it was
very nasty; and I thought, well, I would punish him for it.”
“You see it was your temper that made a thief of you, then,” I said.
“My old man won’t be so hard on me as you, sir. I wish I had told him
first.”
“I would wish that too,” I said, “were it not that I am afraid you might
have persuaded him to be silent about it, and so have made him miserable
and wicked too. But now, Stokes, what is to be done? This money must be
paid. Have you got it?”
The poor man looked blank.
“She will never be at ease till this money is paid,” I insisted.
“Well, sir, I ain’t got it, but I’ll borrow it of someone; I’ll go to
master, and ask him.”
“No, my good fellow, that won’t do. Your master would want to know what
you were going to do with it, perhaps; and we mustn’t let more people
know about it than just ourselves and Squire Tresham. There is no
occasion for that. I’ll tell you what: I’ll give you the money, and you
must take it; or, if you like, I will take it to the squire, and tell
him all about it. Do you authorise me to do this, Mrs. Stokes?”
“Please, sir. It’s very kind of you. I will work hard to pay you again,
if it please God to spare me. I am very sorry I was so cross-tempered to
you, sir; but I couldn’t bear the disgrace of it.”
She said all this from under the bed-clothes.
“Well, I’ll go,” I said; “and as soon as I’ve had my dinner I’ll get
a horse and ride over to Squire Tresham’s. I’ll come back to-night and
tell you about it. And now I hope you will be able to thank God for
forgiving you this sin; but you must not hide and cover it up, but
confess it clean out to him, you know.”
She made me no answer, but went on sobbing.
I hastened home, and as I entered sent Walter to ask the loan of a horse
which a gentleman, a neighbour, had placed at my disposal.
When I went into the dining-room, I found that they had not sat down to
dinner. I expostulated: it was against the rule of the house, when my
return was uncertain.
“But, my love,” said my wife, “why should you not let us please
ourselves sometimes? Dinner is so much nicer when you are with us.”
“I am very glad you think so,” I answered. “But there are the children:
it is not good for growing creatures to be kept waiting for their
meals.”
“You see there are no children; they have had their dinner.”
“Always in the right, wife; but there’s Mr. Percivale.”
“I never dine till seven o’clock, to save daylight,” he said.
“Then I am beaten on all points. Let us dine.”
During dinner I could scarcely help observing how Percivale’s eyes
followed Wynnie, or, rather, every now and then settled down upon her
face. That she was aware, almost conscious of this, I could not doubt.
One glance at her satisfied me of that. But certain words of the apostle
kept coming again and again into my mind; for they were winged words
those, and even when they did not enter they fluttered their wings at my
window: “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” And I kept reminding myself
that I must heave the load of sin off me, as I had been urging poor Mrs.
Stokes to do; for God was ever seeking to lift it, only he could not
without my help, for that would be to do me more harm than good by
taking the one thing in which I was like him away from me--my action.
Therefore I must have faith in him, and not be afraid; for surely all
fear is sin, and one of the most oppressive sins from which the Lord
came to save us.
Before dinner was over the horse was at the door. I mounted, and set out
for Squire Tresham’s.
I found him a rough but kind-hearted elderly man. When I told him
the story of the poor woman’s misery, he was quite concerned at her
suffering. When I produced the sovereign he would not receive it at
first, but requested me to take it back to her and say she must keep it
by way of an apology for his rudeness about her ginger-beer; for I took
care to tell him the whole story, thinking it might be a lesson to him
too. But I begged him to take it; for it would, I thought, not only
relieve her mind more thoroughly, but help to keep her from coming to
think lightly of the affair afterwards. Of course I could not tell him
that I had advanced the money, for that would have quite prevented him
from receiving it. I then got on my horse again, and rode straight to
the cottage.
“Well, Mrs. Stokes,” I said, “it’s all over now. That’s one good thing
done. How do you feel yourself now?”
“I feel better now, sir. I hope God will forgive me.”
“God does forgive you. But there are more things you need forgiveness
for. It is not enough to get rid of one sin. We must get rid of all
our sins, you know. They’re not nice things, are they, to keep in
our hearts? It is just like shutting up nasty corrupting things, dead
carcasses, under lock and key, in our most secret drawers, as if they
were precious jewels.”
“I wish I could be good, like some people, but I wasn’t made so. There’s
my husband now. I do believe he never do anything wrong in his life. But
then, you see, he would let a child take him in.”
“And far better too. Infinitely better to be taken in. Indeed there is
no harm in being taken in; but there is awful harm in taking in.”
She did not reply, and I went on:
“I think you would feel a good deal better yet, if you would send for
your daughter and her husband now, and make it up with them, especially
seeing you are so ill.”
“I will, sir. I will directly. I’m tired of having my own way. But I was
made so.”
“You weren’t made to continue so, at all events. God gives us the
necessary strength to resist what is bad in us. He is making at you now;
only you must give in, else he cannot get on with the making of you.
I think very likely he made you ill now, just that you might bethink
yourself, and feel that you had done wrong.”
“I have been feeling that for many a year.”
“That made it the more needful to make you ill; for you had been feeling
your duty, and yet not doing it; and that was worst of all. You know
Jesus came to lift the weight of our sins, our very sins themselves, off
our hearts, by forgiving them and helping us to cast them away from us.
Everything that makes you uncomfortable must have sin in it somewhere,
and he came to save you from it. Send for your daughter and her husband,
and when you have done that you will think of something else to set
right that’s wrong.”
“But there would be no end to that way of it, sir.”
“Certainly not, till everything was put right.”
“But a body might have nothing else to do, that way.”
“Well, that’s the very first thing that has to be done. It is our
business in this world. We were not sent here to have our own way and
try to enjoy ourselves.”
“That is hard on a poor woman that has to work for her bread.”
“To work for your bread is not to take your own way, for it is God’s
way. But you have wanted many things your own way. Now, if you would
just take his way, you would find that he would take care you should
enjoy your life.”
“I’m sure I haven’t had much enjoyment in mine.”
“That was just because you would not trust him with his own business,
but must take it into your hands. If you will but do his will, he will
take care that you have a life to be very glad of and very thankful for.
And the longer you live, the more blessed you will find it. But I must
leave you now, for I have talked to you long enough. You must try and
get a sleep. I will come and see you again to-morrow, if you like.”
“Please do, sir; I shall be very grateful.”
As I rode home I thought, if the lifting of one sin off the human heart
was like a resurrection, what would it be when every sin was lifted from
every heart! Every sin, then, discovered in one’s own soul must be a
pledge of renewed bliss in its removing. And when the thought came again
of what St. Paul had said somewhere, “whatsoever is not of faith is
sin,” I thought what a weight of sin had to be lifted from the earth,
and how blessed it might be. But what could I do for it? I could just
begin with myself, and pray God for that inward light which is his
Spirit, that so I might see him in everything and rejoice in everything
as his gift, and then all things would be holy, for whatsoever is of
faith must be the opposite of sin; and that was my part towards heaving
the weight of sin, which, like myriads of gravestones, was pressing
the life out of us men, off the whole world. Faith in God is life and
righteousness--the faith that trusts so that it will obey--none
other. Lord, lift the people thou hast made into holy obedience and
thanksgiving, that they may be glad in this thy world.
CHAPTER VI.
THE GATHERING STORM.
The weather cleared up again the next day, and for a fortnight it was
lovely. In this region we saw less of the sadness of the dying year than
in our own parish, for there being so few trees in the vicinity of the
ocean, the autumn had nowhere to hang out her mourning flags. But there,
indeed, so mild is the air, and so equable the temperature all the
winter through, compared with the inland counties, that the bitterness
of the season is almost unknown. This, however, is no guarantee against
furious storms of wind and rain.
Not long after the occurrence last recorded, Turner paid us another
visit. I confess I was a little surprised at his being able to get away
so soon again; for of all men a country surgeon can least easily find
time for a holiday; but he had managed it, and I had no doubt, from what
I knew of him, had made thorough provision for his cure in his absence.
He brought us good news from home. Everything was going on well. Weir
was working as hard as usual; and everybody agreed that I could not have
got a man to take my place better.
He said he found Connie much improved; and, from my own observations, I
was sure he was right. She was now able to turn a good way from one
side to the other, and finding her health so steady besides, Turner
encouraged her in making gentle and frequent use of her strength,
impressing it upon her, however, that everything depended on avoiding
everything like a jerk or twist of any sort. I was with them when he
said this. She looked up at him with a happy smile.
“I will do all I can, Mr. Turner,” she said, “to get out of people’s way
as soon as possible.”
Perhaps she saw something in our faces that made her add--
“I know you don’t mind the bother I am; but I do. I want to help, and
not be helped--more than other people--as soon as possible. I will
therefore be as gentle as mamma and as brave as papa, and see if we
don’t get well, Mr. Turner. I mean to have a ride on old Spry next
summer.--I do,” she added, nodding her pretty head up from the pillow,
when she saw the glance the doctor and I exchanged. “Look here,” she
went on, poking the eider-down quilt up with her foot.
“Magnificent!” said Turner; “but mind, you must do nothing out of
bravado. That won’t do at all.”
“I have done,” said Connie, putting on a face of mock submission.
That day we carried her out for a few minutes, but hardly laid her down,
for we were afraid of the damp from the earth. A few feet nearer or
farther from the soil will make a difference. It was the last time for
many weeks. Anyone interested in my Connie need not be alarmed: it was
only because of the weather, not because of her health.
One day I was walking home from a visit I had been paying to Mrs.
Stokes. She was much better, in a fair way to recover indeed, and her
mental health was improved as well. Her manner to me was certainly very
different, and the tone of her voice, when she spoke to her husband
especially, was changed: a certain roughness in it was much modified,
and I had good hopes that she had begun to climb up instead of sliding
down the hill of difficulty, as she had been doing hitherto.
It was a cold and gusty afternoon. The sky eastward and overhead was
tolerably clear when I set out from home; but when I left the cottage
to return, I could see that some change was at hand. Shaggy vapours of
light gray were blowing rapidly across the sky from the west. A wind was
blowing fiercely up there, although the gusts down below came from
the east. The clouds it swept along with it were formless, with loose
fringes--disreputable, troubled, hasty clouds they were, looking like
mischief. They reminded me of Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind,” in which
he compares the “loose clouds” to hair, and calls them “the locks of the
approaching storm.” Away to the west, a great thick curtain of fog, of a
luminous yellow, covered all the sea-horizon, extending north and south
as far as the eye could reach. It looked ominous. A surly secret seemed
to lie in its bosom. Now and then I could discern the dim ghost of a
vessel through it, as tacking for north or south it came near enough to
the edge of the fog to show itself for a few moments, ere it retreated
again into its bosom. There was exhaustion, it seemed to me, in the air,
notwithstanding the coolness of the wind, and I was glad when I found
myself comfortably seated by the drawing-room fire, and saw Wynnie
bestirring herself to make the tea.
“It looks stormy, I think, Wynnie,” I said.
Her eye lightened, as she looked out to sea from the window.
“You seem to like the idea of it,” I added.
“You told me I was like you, papa; and you look as if you liked the idea
of it too.”
“_Per se_, certainly, a storm is pleasant to me. I should not like a
world without storms any more than I should like that Frenchman’s
idea of the perfection of the earth, when all was to be smooth as a
trim-shaven lawn, rocks and mountains banished, and the sea breaking on
the shore only in wavelets of ginger-beer or lemonade, I forget
which. But the older you grow, the more sides of a thing will present
themselves to your contemplation. The storm may be grand and exciting in
itself, but you cannot help thinking of the people that are in it. Think
for a moment of the multitude of vessels, great and small, which are
gathered within the skirts of that angry vapour out there. I fear the
toils of the storm are around them. Look at the barometer in the hall,
my dear, and tell me what it says.”
She went and returned.
“It was not very low, papa--only at rain; but the moment I touched it,
the hand dropped an inch.”
“Yes, I thought so. All things look stormy. It may not be very bad here,
however.”
“That doesn’t make much difference though, does it, papa?”
“No further than that being creatures in time and space, we must think
of things from our own standpoint.”
“But I remember very well how, when we were children, you would not let
nurse teach us Dr. Watts’s hymns for children, because you said they
tended to encourage selfishness.”
“Yes; I remember it very well. Some of them make the contrast
between the misery of others and our own comforts so immediately the
apparent--mind, I only say apparent--ground of thankfulness, that they
are not fit for teaching. I do think that if you could put Dr. Watts to
the question, he would abjure any such intention, saying that only
he meant to heighten the sense of our obligation. But it does tend
to selfishness and, what is worse, self-righteousness, and is very
dangerous therefore. What right have I to thank God that I am not as
other men are in anything? I have to thank God for the good things he
has given to me; but how dare I suppose that he is not doing the same
for other people in proportion to their capacity? I don’t like to appear
to condemn Dr. Watts’s hymns. Certainly he has written the very worst
hymns I know; but he has likewise written the best--for public worship,
I mean.”
“Well, but, papa, I have heard you say that any simple feeling that
comes of itself cannot be wrong in itself. If I feel a delight in the
idea of a storm, I cannot help it coming.”
“I never said you could, my dear. I only said that as we get older,
other things we did not feel at first come to show themselves more to
us, and impress us more.”
Thus my child and I went on, like two pendulums crossing each other in
their swing, trying to reach the same dead beat of mutual intelligence.
“But,” said Wynnie, “you say everybody is in God’s hands as well as we.”
“Yes, surely, my dear; as much out in yon stormy haze as here beside the
fire.”
“Then we ought not to be miserable about them, even if there comes a
storm, ought we?”
“No, surely. And, besides, I think if we could help any of them, the
very persons that enjoyed the storm the most would be the busiest to
rescue them from it. At least, I fancy so. But isn’t the tea ready?”
“Yes, papa. I’ll just go and tell mamma.”
When she returned with her mother, and the children had joined us,
Wynnie resumed the talk.
“I know what I am going to say is absurd, papa, and yet I don’t see my
way out of it--logically, I suppose you would call it. What is the use
of taking any trouble about them if they are in God’s hands? Why should
we try to take them out of God’s hands?”
“Ah, Wynnie! at least you do not seek to hide your bad logic, or
whatever you call it. Take them out of God’s hands! If you could do
that, it would be perdition indeed. God’s hands is the only safe place
in the universe; and the universe is in his hands. Are we not in God’s
hands on the shore because we say they are in his hands who go down to
the sea in ships? If we draw them on shore, surely they are not out of
God’s hands.”
“I see--I see. But God could save them without us.”
“Yes; but what would become of us then? God is so good to us, that we
must work our little salvation in the earth with him. Just as a father
lets his little child help him a little, that the child may learn to
be and to do, so God puts it in our hearts to save this life to our
fellows, because we would instinctively save it to ourselves, if we
could. He requires us to do our best.”
“But God may not mean to save them.”
“He may mean them to be drowned--we do not know. But we know that we
must try our little salvation, for it will never interfere with God’s
great and good and perfect will. Ours will be foiled if he sees that
best.”
“But people always say, when anyone escapes unhurt from an accident, ‘by
the mercy of God.’ They don’t say it is by the mercy of God when he is
drowned.”
“But _people_ cannot be expected, ought not, to say what they do not
feel. Their own first sensation of deliverance from impending death
would break out in a ‘thank God,’ and therefore they say it is God’s
mercy when another is saved. If they go farther, and refuse to consider
it God’s mercy when a man is drowned, that is just the sin of the
world--the want of faith. But the man who creeps out of the drowning,
choking billows into the glory of the new heavens and the new earth--do
you think his thanksgiving for the mercy of God which has delivered him
is less than that of the man who creeps, exhausted and worn, out of the
waves on to the dreary, surf-beaten shore? In nothing do we show less
faith than the way in which we think and speak about death. ‘O Death,
where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?’ says the apostle.
‘Here, here, here,’ cry the Christian people, ‘everywhere. It is an
awful sting, a fearful victory. But God keeps it away from us many a
time when we ask him--to let it pierce us to the heart, at last, to be
sure; but that can’t be helped.’ I mean this is how they feel in their
hearts who do not believe that God is as merciful when he sends death
as when he sends life; who, Christian people as they are, yet look upon
death as an evil thing which cannot be avoided, and would, if they might
live always, be content to live always. Death or Life--each is God’s;
for he is not the God of the dead, but of the living: there are no dead,
for all live to him.”
“But don’t you think we naturally shrink from death, Harry?” said my
wife.
“There can be no doubt about that, my dear.”
“Then, if it be natural, God must have meant that it should be so.”
“Doubtless, to begin with, but not to continue or end with. A child’s
sole desire is for food--the very best possible to begin with. But how
would it be if the child should reach, say, two years of age, and refuse
to share this same food with his little brother? Or what comes of the
man who never so far rises above the desire for food that _nothing_
could make him forget his dinner-hour? Just so the life of Christians
should be strong enough to overcome the fear of death. We ought to love
and believe him so much, that when he says we shall not die, we should
at least believe that death must be something very different from what
it looks to us to be--so different, that what we mean by the word does
not apply to the reality at all; and so Jesus cannot use the word,
because it would seem to us that he meant what we mean by it, which he,
seeing it all round, cannot mean.”
“That does seem quite reasonable,” said Ethelwyn.
Turner had taken no part in the conversation. He, too, had just come in
from a walk over the hills. He was now standing looking out at the sea.
“She looks uneasy, does she not?” I said.
“You mean the Atlantic?” he returned, looking round. “Yes, I think so.
I am glad she is not a patient of mine. I fear she is going to be very
feverish, probably delirious before morning. She won’t sleep much, and
will talk rather loud when the tide comes in.”
“Disease has often an ebb and flow like the tide, has it not?”
“Often. Some diseases are like a plant that has its time to grow and
blossom, then dies; others, as you say, ebb and flow again and again
before they vanish.”
“It seems to me, however, that the ebb and flow does not belong to the
disease, but to Nature, which works through the disease. It seems to
me that my life has its tides, just like the ocean, only a little
more regularly. It is high water with me always in the morning and the
evening; in the afternoon life is at its lowest; and I believe it is
lowest again while we sleep, and hence it comes that to work the brain
at night has such an injurious effect on the system. But this is perhaps
all a fancy.”
“There may be some truth in it. But I was just thinking when you spoke
to me what a happy thing it is that the tide does not vary by an even
six hours, but has the odd minutes; whence we see endless changes in the
relation of the water to the times of the day. And then the spring-tides
and the neap-tides! What a provision there is in the world for change!”
“Yes. Change is one of the forms that infinitude takes for the use of us
human immortals. But come and have some tea, Turner. You will not care
to go out again. What shall we do this evening? Shall we all go to
Connie’s room and have some Shakspere?”
“I could wish nothing better. What play shall we have?”
“Let us have the _Midsummer Night’s Dream,”_ said Ethelwyn.
“You like to go by contraries, apparently, Ethel. But you’re quite
right. It is in the winter of the year that art must give us its summer.
I suspect that most of the poetry about spring and summer is written
in the winter. It is generally when we do not possess that we lay full
value upon what we lack.”
“There is one reason,” said Wynnie with a roguish look, “why I like that
play.”
“I should think there might be more than one, Wynnie.”
“But one reason is enough for a woman at once; isn’t it, papa?”
“I’m not sure of that. But what is your reason?”
“That the fairies are not allowed to play any tricks with the women.
_They_ are true throughout.”
“I might choose to say that was because they were not tried.”
“And I might venture to answer that Shakspere--being true to nature
always, as you say, papa--knew very well how absurd it would be to
represent a woman’s feelings as under the influence of the juice of a
paltry flower.”
“Capital, Wynnie!” said her mother; and Turner and I chimed in with our
approbation.
“Shall I tell you what I like best in the play?” said Turner. “It is the
common sense of Theseus in accounting for all the bewilderments of the
night.”
“But,” said Ethelwyn, “he was wrong after all. What is the use of common
sense if it leads you wrong? The common sense of Theseus simply amounted
to this, that he would only believe his own eyes.”
“I think Mrs. Walton is right, Turner,” I said. “For my part, I have
more admired the open-mindedness of Hippolyta, who would yield more
weight to the consistency of the various testimony than could be
altogether counterbalanced by the negation of her own experience. Now
I will tell you what I most admire in the play: it is the reconciling
power of the poet. He brings together such marvellous contrasts, without
a single shock or jar to your feeling of the artistic harmony of the
conjunction. Think for a moment--the ordinary commonplace courtiers;
the lovers, men and women in the condition of all conditions in which
fairy-powers might get a hold of them; the quarrelling king and queen of
Fairyland, with their courtiers, Blossom, Cobweb, and the rest, and the
court-jester, Puck; the ignorant, clownish artisans, rehearsing their
play,--fairies and clowns, lovers and courtiers, are all mingled in one
exquisite harmony, clothed with a night of early summer, rounded in by
the wedding of the king and queen. But I have talked enough about it.
Let us get our books.”
As we sat in Connie’s room, delighting ourselves with the reflex of
the poet’s fancy, the sound of the rising tide kept mingling with the
fairy-talk and the foolish rehearsal. “Musk roses,” said Titania;
and the first of the blast, going round by south to west, rattled the
window. “Good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow,” said Bottom; and the
roar of the waters was in our ears. “So doth the woodbine the sweet
honeysuckle Gently entwist,” said Titania; and the blast poured the rain
in a spout against the window. “Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth
like bells,” said Theseus; and the wind whistled shrill through the
chinks of the bark-house opening from the room. We drew the curtains
closer, made up the fire higher, and read on. It was time for supper ere
we had done; and when we left Connie to have hers and go to sleep, it
was with the hope that, through all the rising storm, she would dream of
breeze-haunted summer woods.
CHAPTER VII.
THE GATHERED STORM.
I woke in the middle of the night and the darkness to hear the wind
howling. It was wide awake now, and up with intent. It seized the house,
and shook it furiously; and the rain kept pouring, only I could not hear
it save in the _rallentondo_ passages of the wind; but through all the
wind I could hear the roaring of the big waves on the shore. I did not
wake my wife; but I got up, put on my dressing-gown, and went softly to
Connie’s room, to see whether she was awake; for I feared, if she were,
she would be frightened. Wynnie always slept in a little bed in the
same room. I opened the door very gently, and peeped in. The fire was
burning, for Wynnie was an admirable stoker, and could generally keep
the fire in all night. I crept to the bedside: there was just light
enough to see that Connie was fast asleep, and that her dreams were not
of storms. It was a marvel how well the child always slept. But, as
I turned to leave the room, Wynnie’s voice called me in a whisper.
Approaching her bed, I saw her wide eyes, like the eyes of the darkness,
for I could scarcely see anything of her face.
“Awake, darling?” I said.
“Yes, papa. I have been awake a long time; but isn’t Connie sleeping
delightfully? She does sleep so well! Sleep is surely very good for
her.”
“It is the best thing for us all, next to God’s spirit, I sometimes
think, my dear. But are you frightened by the storm? Is that what keeps
you awake?”
“I don’t think that is what keeps me awake; but sometimes the house
shakes so that I do feel a little nervous. I don’t know how it is. I
never felt afraid of anything natural before.”
“What our Lord said about not being afraid of anything that could only
hurt the body applies here, and in all the terrors of the night. Think
about him, dear.”
“I do try, papa. Don’t you stop; you will get cold. It is a dreadful
storm, is it not? Suppose there should be people drowning out there
now!”
“There may be, my love. People are dying almost every other moment,
I suppose, on the face of the earth. Drowning is only an easy way of
dying. Mind, they are all in God’s hands.”
“Yes, papa. I will turn round and shut my eyes, and fancy that his hand
is over them, making them dark with his care.”
“And it will not be fancy, my darling, if you do. You remember those
odd but no less devout lines of George Herbert? Just after he says, so
beautifully, ‘And now with darkness closest weary eyes,’ he adds:
Thus in thy ebony box
Thou dost enclose us, till the day
Put our amendment in our way,
And give new wheels to our disordered clocks.”
“He is very fond of boxes, by the way. So go to sleep, dear. You are a
good clock of God’s making; but you want new wheels, according to our
beloved brother George Herbert. Therefore sleep. Good-night.”
This was tiresome talk--was it--in the middle of the night, reader?
Well, but my child did not think so, I know.
Dark, dank, weeping, the morning dawned. All dreary was the earth and
sky. The wind was still hunting the clouds across the heavens. It lulled
a little while we sat at breakfast, but soon the storm was up again,
and the wind raved. I went out. The wind caught me as if with invisible
human hands, and shook me. I fought with it, and made my way into
the village. The streets were deserted. I peeped up the inn-yard as I
passed: not a man or horse was to be seen. The little shops looked as if
nobody had crossed their thresholds for a week. Not a door was open.
One child came out of the baker’s with a big loaf in her apron. The wind
threatened to blow the hair off her head, if not herself first into the
canal. I took her by the hand and led her, or rather, let her lead
me home, while I kept her from being carried away by the wind. Having
landed her safely inside her mother’s door, I went on, climbed the
heights above the village, and looked abroad over the Atlantic. What a
waste of aimless tossing to and fro! Gray mist above, full of falling
rain; gray, wrathful waters underneath, foaming and bursting as billow
broke upon billow. The tide was ebbing now, but almost every other wave
swept the breakwater. They burst on the rocks at the end of it, and
rushed in shattered spouts and clouds of spray far into the air over
their heads. “Will the time ever come,” I thought, “when man shall be
able to store up even this force for his own ends? Who can tell?” The
solitary form of a man stood at some distance gazing, as I was gazing,
out on the ocean. I walked towards him, thinking with myself who it
could be that loved Nature so well that he did not shrink from her even
in her most uncompanionable moods. I suspected, and soon found I was
right; it was Percivale.
“What a clashing of water-drops!” I said, thinking of a line somewhere
in Coleridge’s Remorse. “They are but water-drops, after all, that make
this great noise upon the rocks; only there is a great many of them.”
“Yes,” said Percivale. “But look out yonder. You see a single sail,
close-reefed--that is all I can see--away in the mist there? As soon as
you think of the human struggle with the elements, as soon as you know
that hearts are in the midst of it, it is a clashing of water-drops no
more. It is an awful power, with which the will and all that it rules
have to fight for the mastery, or at least for freedom.”
“Surely you are right. It is the presence of thought, feeling, effort
that gives the majesty to everything. It is even a dim attribution of
human feelings to this tormented, passionate sea that gives it much
of its awe; although, as we were saying the other day, it is only _a
picture_ of the troubled mind. But as I have now seen how matters are
with the elements, and have had a good pluvial bath as well, I think I
will go home and change my clothes.”
“I have hardly had enough of it yet,” returned Percivale. “I shall have
a stroll along the heights here, and when the tide has fallen a little
way from the foot of the cliffs I shall go down on the sands and watch
awhile there.”
“Well, you’re a younger man than I am; but I’ve seen the day, as Lear
says. What an odd tendency we old men have to boast of the past: we
would be judged by the past, not by the present. We always speak of
the strength that is withered and gone, as if we had some claim upon it
still. But I am not going to talk in this storm. I am always talking.”
“I will go with you as far as the village, and then I will turn and take
my way along the downs for a mile or two; I don’t mind being wet.”
“I didn’t once.”
“Don’t you think,” resumed Percivale, “that in some sense the old
man--not that I can allow _you_ that dignity yet, Mr. Walton--has a right
to regard the past as his own?”
“That would be scanned,” I answered, as we walked towards the village.
“Surely the results of the past are the man’s own. Any action of the
man’s, upon which the life in him reposes, remains his. But suppose a
man had done a good deed once, and instead of making that a foundation
upon which to build more good, grew so vain of it that he became
incapable of doing anything more of the same sort, you could not say
that the action belonged to him still. Therein he has severed his
connection with the past. Again, what has never in any deep sense been a
man’s own, cannot surely continue to be his afterwards. Thus the things
that a man has merely possessed once, the very people who most admired
him for their sakes when he had them, give him no credit for after he
has lost them. Riches that have taken to themselves wings leave with
the poor man only a surpassing poverty. Strength, likewise, which can so
little depend on any exercise of the will in man, passes from him with
the years. It was not his all the time; it was but lent him, and had
nothing to do with his inward force. A bodily feeble man may put forth
a mighty life-strength in effort, and show nothing to the eyes of his
neighbour; while the strong man gains endless admiration for what he
could hardly help. But the effort of the one remains, for it was his
own; the strength of the other passes from him, for it was never his
own. So with beauty, which the commonest woman acknowledges never to
have been hers in seeking to restore it by deception. So, likewise, in a
great measure with intellect.”
“But if you take away intellect as well, what do you leave a man that
can in any way be called his own?”
“Certainly his intellect is not his own. One thing only is his own--to
will the truth. This, too, is as much God’s gift as everything else: I
ought to say is more God’s gift than anything else, for he gives it to
be the man’s own more than anything else can be. And when he wills
the truth, he has God himself. Man _can_ possess God: all other things
follow as necessary results. What poor creatures we should have been if
God had not made us to do something--to look heavenwards--to lift up the
hands that hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees! Something like
this was in the mind of the prophet Jeremiah when he said, ‘Thus saith
the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the
mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches;
but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and
knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment,
and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the
Lord.’ My own conviction is, that a vague sense of a far higher life
in ourselves than we yet know anything about is at the root of all our
false efforts to be able to think something of ourselves. We cannot
commend ourselves, and therefore we set about priding ourselves. We have
little or no strength of mind, faculty of operation, or worth of will,
and therefore we talk of our strength of body, worship the riches we
have, or have not, it is all one, and boast of our paltry intellectual
successes. The man most ambitious of being considered a universal genius
must at last confess himself a conceited dabbler, and be ready to part
with all he knows for one glimpse more of that understanding of God
which the wise men of old held to be essential to every man, but which
the growing luminaries of the present day will not allow to be even
possible for any man.”
We had reached the brow of the heights, and here we parted. A fierce
blast of wind rushed at me, and I hastened down the hill. How dreary the
streets did look!--how much more dreary than the stormy down! I saw no
living creature as I returned but a terribly draggled dog, a cat that
seemed to have a bad conscience, and a lovely little girl-face, which,
forgetful of its own rights, would flatten the tip of the nose belonging
to it against a window-pane. Every rain-pool was a mimic sea, and had a
mimic storm within its own narrow bounds. The water went hurrying down
the kennels like a long brown snake anxious to get to its hole and hide
from the tormenting wind, and every now and then the rain came in full
rout before the conquering blast.
When I got home, I peeped in at Connie’s door the first thing, and saw
that she was raised a little more than usual; that is, the end of
the conch against which she leaned was at a more acute angle. She was
sitting staring, rather than gazing, out at the wild tumult which she
could see over the shoulder of the down on which her window immediately
looked. Her face was paler and keener than usual.
“Why, Connie, who set you up so straight?”
“Mr. Turner, papa. I wanted to see out, and he raised me himself. He
says I am so much better, I may have it in the seventh notch as often as
I like.”
“But you look too tired for it. Hadn’t you better lie down again?”
“It’s only the storm, papa.”
“The more reason you should not see it if it tires you so.”
“It does not tire me, papa. Only I keep constantly wondering what is
going to come out of it. It looks so as if something must follow.”
“You didn’t hear me come into your room last night, Connie. The
storm was raging then as loud as it is now, but you were out of its
reach--fast asleep. Now it is too much for you. You must lie down.”
“Very well, papa.”
I lowered the support, and when I returned from changing my wet garments
she was already looking much better.
After dinner I went to my study, but when evening began to fall I went
out again. I wanted to see how our next neighbours, the sexton and
his wife, were faring. The wind had already increased in violence.
It threatened to blow a hurricane. The tide was again rising, and was
coming in with great rapidity. The old mill shook to the foundation as
I passed through it to reach the lower part where they lived. When I
peeped in from the bottom of the stair, I saw no one; but, hearing the
steps of someone overhead, I called out.
Agnes’s voice made answer, as she descended an inner stair which led to
the bedrooms above--
“Mother’s gone to church, sir.”
“Gone to church!” I said, a vague pang darting through me as I thought
whether I had forgotten any service; but the next moment I recalled
what the old woman had herself told me of her preference for the church
during a storm.
“O yes, Agnes, I remember!” I said; “your mother thinks the weather bad
enough to take to the church, does she? How do you come to be here now?
Where is your husband?”
“He’ll be here in an hour or so, sir. He don’t mind the wet. You see,
we don’t like the old people to be left alone when it blows what the
sailors call ‘great guns.’”
“And what becomes of his mother then?”
“There don’t be any sea out there, sir. Leastways,” she added with a
quiet smile, and stopped.
“You mean, I suppose, Agnes, that there is never any perturbation of the
elements out there?”
She laughed; for she understood me well enough. The temper of Joe’s
mother was proverbial.
“But really, sir,” she said, “she don’t mind the weather a bit; and
though we don’t live in the same cottage with her, for Joe wouldn’t hear
of that, we see her far oftener than we see my mother, you know.”
“I’m sure it’s quite fair, Agnes. Is Joe very sorry that he married you,
now?”
She hung her head, and blushed so deeply through all her sallow
complexion, that I was sorry I had teased her, and said so. This brought
a reply.
“I don’t think he be, sir. I do think he gets better. He’s been working
very hard the last week or two, and he says it agrees with him.”
“And how are you?”
“Quite well, thank you, sir.”
I had never seen her look half so well. Life was evidently a very
different thing to both of them now. I left her, and took my way to the
church.
When I reached the churchyard, there, in the middle of the rain and the
gathering darkness, was the old man busy with the duties of his calling.
A certain headstone stood right under a drip from the roof of the
southern transept; and this drip had caused the mould at the foot of
the stone, on the side next the wall, to sink, so that there was a
considerable crack between the stone and the soil. The old man had cut
some sod from another part of the churchyard, and was now standing,
with the rain pouring on him from the roof, beating this sod down in the
crack. He was sheltered from the wind by the church, but he was as
wet as he could be. I may mention that he never appeared in the least
disconcerted when I came upon him in the discharge of his functions: he
was so content with his own feeling in the matter, that no difference of
opinion could disturb him.
“This will never do, Coombes,” I said. “You will get your death of cold.
You must be as full of water as a sponge. Old man, there’s rheumatism in
the world!”
“It be only my work, sir. But I believe I ha’ done now for a night. I
think he’ll be a bit more comfortable now. The very wind could get at
him through that hole.”
“Do go home, then,” I said, “and change your clothes. Is your wife in
the church?”
“She be, sir. This door, sir--this door,” he added, as he saw me going
round to the usual entrance. “You’ll find her in there.”
I lifted the great latch and entered. I could not see her at first,
for it was much darker inside the church. It felt very quiet in there
somehow, although the place was full of the noise of winds and waters.
Mrs. Coombes was not sitting on the bell-keys, where I looked for
her first, for the wind blew down the tower in many currents and
draughts--how it did roar up there--as if the louvres had been
a windsail to catch the wind and send it down to ventilate the
church!--she was sitting at the foot of the chancel-rail, with her
stocking as usual.
The sight of her sweet old face, lighted up by a moonlike smile as I
drew near her, in the middle of the ancient dusk filled with sounds, but
only sounds of tempest, gave me a sense of one dwelling in the secret
place of the Most High, such as I shall never forget. It was no time to
say much, however.
“How long do you mean to stay here, Mrs. Coombes?” I asked. “Not all
night?”
“No, not all night, surely, sir. But I hadn’t thought o’ going yet for a
bit.”
“Why there’s Coombes out there, wet to the skin; and I’m afraid he’ll
go on pottering at the churchyard bed-clothes till he gets his bones as
full of rheumatism as they can hold.”
“Deary me! I didn’t know as my old man was there. He tould me he had
them all comforble for the winter a week ago. But to be sure there’s
always some mendin’ to do.”
I heard the voice of Joe outside, and the next moment he came into the
church. After speaking to me, he turned to Mrs. Coombes.
“You be comin’ home with me, mother. This will never do. Father’s as wet
as a mop. I ha’ brought something for your supper, and Aggy’s a-cookin’
of it; and we’re going to be comfortable over the fire, and have a
chapter or two of the New Testament to keep down the noise of the sea.
There! Come along.”
The old woman drew her cloak over her head, put her knitting carefully
in her pocket, and stood aside for me to lead the way.
“No, no,” I said; “I’m the shepherd and you’re the sheep, so I’ll drive
you before me--at least, you and Coombes. Joe here will be offended if I
take on me to say I am _his_ shepherd.”
“Nay, nay, don’t say that, sir. You’ve been a good shepherd to me when
I was a very sulky sheep. But if you’ll please to go, sir, I’ll lock the
door behind; for you know in them parts the shepherd goes first and the
sheep follow the shepherd. And I’ll follow like a good sheep,” he added,
laughing.
“You’re right, Joe,” I said, and took the lead without more ado.
I was struck by his saying _them parts_, which seemed to indicate
a habit of pondering on the places as well as circumstances of the
gospel-story. The sexton joined us at the door, and we all walked to his
cottage, Joe taking care of his mother-in-law and I taking what care I
could of Coombes by carrying his tools for him. But as we went I feared
I had done ill in that, for the wind blew so fiercely that I thought
the thin feeble little man would have got on better if he had been more
heavily weighted against it. But I made him take a hold of my arm, and
so we got in. The old man took his tools from me and set them down
in the mill, for the roof of which I felt some anxiety as we passed
through, so full of wind was the whole space. But when we opened the
inner door the welcome of a glowing fire burst up the stair as if
that had been a well of warmth and light below. I went down with them.
Coombes departed to change his clothes, and the rest of us stood round
the fire, where Agnes was busy cooking something like white puddings for
their supper.
“Did you hear, sir,” said Joe, “that the coastguard is off to the
Goose-pot? There’s a vessel ashore there, they say. I met them on the
road with the rocket-cart.”
“How far off is that, Joe?”
“Some five or six miles, I suppose, along the coast nor’ards.”
“What sort of a vessel is she?”
“That I don’t know. Some say she be a schooner, others a brigantine. The
coast-guard didn’t know themselves.”
“Poor things!” said Mrs. Coombes. “If any of them comes ashore, they’ll
be sadly knocked to pieces on the rocks in a night like this.”
She had caught a little infection of her husband’s mode of thought.
“It’s not likely to clear up before morning, I fear; is it, Joe?”
“I don’t think so, sir. There’s no likelihood.”
“Will you condescend to sit down and take a share with us, sir?” said
the old woman.
“There would be no condescension in that, Mrs. Coombes. I will another
time with all my heart; but in such a night I ought to be at home with
my own people. They will be more uneasy if I am away.”
“Of coorse, of coorse, sir.”
“So I’ll bid you good-night. I wish this storm were well over.”
I buttoned my great-coat, pulled my hat down on my head, and set out.
It was getting on for high water. The night was growing very dark. There
would be a moon some time, but the clouds were so dense she could not do
much while they came between. The roaring of the waves on the shore
was terrible; all I could see of them now was the whiteness of their
breaking, but they filled the earth and the air with their furious
noises. The wind roared from the sea; two oceans were breaking on the
land, only to the one had been set a hitherto--to the other none. Ere
the night was far gone, however, I had begun to doubt whether the ocean
itself had not broken its bars.
I found the whole household full of the storm. The children kept
pressing their faces to the windows, trying to pierce, as by force of
will, through the darkness, and discover what the wild thing out there
was doing. They could see nothing: all was one mass of blackness and
dismay, with a soul in it of ceaseless roaring. I ran up to Connie’s
room, and found that she was left alone. She looked restless, pale, and
frightened. The house quivered, and still the wind howled and whistled
through the adjoining bark-hut.
“Connie, darling, have they left you alone?” I said.
“Only for a few minutes, papa. I don’t mind it.”
“Don’t he frightened at the storm, my dear. He who could walk on the
sea of Galilee, and still the storm of that little pool, can rule the
Atlantic just as well. Jeremiah says he ‘divideth the sea when the waves
thereof roar.’”
The same moment Dora came running into the room.
“Papa,” she cried, “the spray--such a lot of it--came dashing on the
windows in the dining-room. Will it break them?”
“I hope not, my dear. Just stay with Connie while I run down.”
“O, papa! I do want to see.”
“What do you want to see, Dora?”
“The storm, papa.”
“It is as black as pitch. You can’t see anything.”
“O, but I want to--to--be beside it.”
“Well, you sha’n’t stay with Connie, if you are not willing. Go along.
Ask Wynnie to come here.”
The child was so possessed by the commotion without that she did not
seem even to see my rebuke, not to say feel it. She ran off, and Wynnie
presently came. I left her with Connie, put on a long waterproof cloak,
and went down to the dining-room. A door led from it immediately on
to the little green in front of the house, between it and the sea. The
dining-room was dark, for they had put out the lights that they might
see better from the windows. The children and some of the servants were
there looking out. I opened the door cautiously. It needed the strength
of two of the women to shut it behind me. The moment I opened it a great
sheet of spray rushed over me. I went down the little grassy slope. The
rain had ceased, and it was not quite so dark as I had expected. I could
see the gleaming whiteness all before me. The next moment a wave rolled
over the low wall in front of me, breaking on it and wrapping me round
in a sheet of water. Something hurt me sharply on the leg; and I found,
on searching, that one of the large flat stones that lay for coping
on the top of the wall was on the grass beside me. If it had struck me
straight, it must have broken my leg.
There came a little lull in the wind, and just as I turned to go into
the house again, I thought I heard a gun. I stood and listened, but
heard nothing more, and fancied I must have been mistaken. I returned
and tapped at the door; but I had to knock loudly before they heard me
within. When I went up to the drawing-room, I found that Percivale had
joined our party. He and Turner were talking together at one of the
windows.
“Did you hear a gun?” I asked them.
“No. Was there one?”
“I’m not sure. I half-fancied I heard one, but no other followed. There
will be a good many fired to-night, though, along this awful coast.”
“I suppose they keep the life-boat always ready,” said Turner.
“No life-boat even, I fear, would live in such a sea,” I said,
remembering what the officer of the coast-guard had told me.
“They would try, though, I suppose,” said Turner.
“I do not know,” said Percivale. “I don’t know the people. But I have
seen a life-boat out in as bad a night--whether in as bad a sea, I
cannot tell: that depends on the coast, I suppose.”
We went on chatting for some time, wondering how the coast-guard had
fared with the vessel ashore at the Goose-pot. Wynnie joined us.
“How is Connie, now, my dear?”
“Very restless and excited, papa. I came down to say, that if Mr. Turner
didn’t mind, I wish he would go up and see her.”
“Of course--instantly,” said Turner, and moved to follow Winnie.
But the same moment, as if it had been beside us in the room, so clear,
so shrill was it, we heard Connie’s voice shrieking, “Papa, papa!
There’s a great ship ashore down there. Come, come!”
Turner and I rushed from the room in fear and dismay. “How? What? Where
could the voice come from?” was the unformed movement of our thoughts.
But the moment we left the drawing-room the thing was clear, though
not the less marvellous and alarming. We forgot all about the ship, and
thought only of our Connie. So much does the near hide the greater that
is afar! Connie kept on calling, and her voice guided our eyes.
A little stair led immediately from this floor up to the bark-hut, so
that it might be reached without passing through the bedroom. The door
at the top of it was open. The door that led from Connie’s room into
the bark-hut was likewise open, and light shone through it into the
place--enough to show a figure standing by the furthest window with face
pressed against the glass. And from this figure came the cry, “Papa,
papa! Quick, quick! The waves will knock her to pieces!”
In very truth it was Connie standing there.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SHIPWRECK.
Things that happen altogether have to be told one after the other.
Turner and I both rushed at the narrow stair. There was not room for
more than one upon it. I was first, but stumbled on the lowest step
and fell. Turner put his foot on my back, jumped over me, sprang up the
stair, and when I reached the top of it after him, he was meeting me
with Connie in his arms, carrying her back to her room. But the girl
kept crying--“Papa, papa, the ship, the ship!”
My duty woke in me. Turner could attend to Connie far better than I
could. I made one spring to the window. The moon was not to be seen, but
the clouds were thinner, and light enough was soaking through them to
show a wave-tormented mass some little way out in the bay; and in that
one moment in which I stood looking, a shriek pierced the howling of
the wind, cutting through it like a knife. I rushed bare-headed from the
house. When or how the resolve was born in me I do not know, but I flew
straight to the sexton’s, snatched the key from the wall, crying only
“ship ashore!” and rushed to the church.
I remember my hand trembled so that I could hardly get the key into the
lock. I made myself quieter, opened the door, and feeling my way to the
tower, knelt before the keys of the bell-hammers, opened the chest, and
struck them wildly, fiercely. An awful jangling, out of tune and harsh,
burst into monstrous being in the storm-vexed air. Music itself was
untuned, corrupted, and returning to chaos. I struck and struck at the
keys. I knew nothing of their normal use. Noise, outcry, _reveillé_ was
all I meant.
In a few minutes I heard voices and footsteps. From some parts of
the village, out of sight of the shore, men and women gathered to the
summons. Through the door of the church, which I had left open, came
voices in hurried question. “Ship ashore!” was all I could answer, for
what was to be done I was helpless to think.
I wondered that so few appeared at the cry of the bells. After those
first nobody came for what seemed a long time. I believe, however, I was
beating the alarum for only a few minutes altogether, though when I look
back upon the time in the dark church, it looks like half-an-hour at
least. But indeed I feel so confused about all the doings of that
night that in attempting to describe them in order, I feel as if I were
walking in a dream. Still, from comparing mine with the recollected
impressions of others, I think I am able to give a tolerably correct
result. Most of the incidents seem burnt into my memory so that nothing
could destroy the depth of the impression; but the order in which they
took place is none the less doubtful.
A hand was laid on my shoulder.
“Who is there?” I said; for it was far too dark to know anyone.
“Percivale. What is to be done? The coastguard is away. Nobody seems to
know about anything. It is of no use to go on ringing more. Everybody
is out, even to the maid-servants. Come down to the shore, and you will
see.”
“But is there not the life-boat?”
“Nobody seems to know anything about it, except ‘it’s no manner of use
to go trying of that with such a sea on.’”
“But there must be someone in command of it,” I said.
“Yes,” returned Percivale; “but there doesn’t seem to be one of the
crew amongst the crowd. All the sailor-like fellows are going about with
their hands in their pockets.”
“Let us make haste, then,” I said; “perhaps we can find out. Are you
sure the coastguard have nothing to do with the life-boat?”
“I believe not. They have enough to do with their rockets.”
“I remember now that Roxton told me he had far more confidence in
his rockets than in anything a life-boat could do, upon this coast at
least.”
While we spoke we came to the bank of the canal. This we had to cross,
in order to reach that part of the shore opposite which the wreck lay.
To my surprise the canal itself was in a storm, heaving and tossing and
dashing over its banks.
“Percivale,” I exclaimed, “the gates are gone; the sea has torn them
away.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Would God I could get half-a-dozen men to help me. I
have been doing what I could; but I have no influence amongst them.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “What could you do if you had a thousand
men at your command?”
He made me no answer for a few moments, during which we were hurrying on
for the bridge over the canal. Then he said:
“They regard me only as a meddling stranger, I suppose; for I have been
able to get no useful answer. They are all excited; but nobody is doing
anything.”
“They must know about it a great deal better than we,” I returned; “and
we must take care not to do them the injustice of supposing they are not
ready to do all that can be done.”
Percivale was silent yet again.
The record of our conversation looks as quiet on the paper as if we had
been talking in a curtained room; but all the time the ocean was raving
in my very ear, and the awful tragedy was going on in the dark behind
us. The wind was almost as loud as ever, but the rain had quite ceased,
and when we reached the bridge the moon shone out white, as if aghast
at what she had at length succeeded in pushing the clouds aside that she
might see. Awe and helplessness oppressed us. Having crossed the canal,
we turned to the shore. There was little of it left; for the waves had
rushed up almost to the village. The sand and the roads, every garden
wall, every window that looked seaward was crowded with gazers. But it
was a wonderfully quiet crowd, or seemed so at least; for the noise of
the wind and the waves filled the whole vault, and what was spoken was
heard only in the ear to which it was spoken. When we came amongst them
we heard only a murmur as of more articulated confusion. One turn, and
we saw the centre of strife and anxiety--the heart of the storm that
filled heaven and earth, upon which all the blasts and the billows broke
and raved.
Out there in the moonlight lay a mass of something whose place was
discernible by the flashing of the waves as they burst over it. She was
far above low-water mark--lay nearer the village by a furlong than the
spot where we had taken our last dinner on the shore. It was strange to
think that yesterday the spot lay bare to human feet, where now so many
men and women were isolated in a howling waste of angry waters; for
the cry of women came plainly to our ears, and we were helpless to
save them. It was terrible to have to do nothing. Percivale went about
hurriedly, talking to this one and that one, as if he still thought
something might be done. He turned to me.
“Do try, Mr. Walton, and find out for me where the captain of the
life-boat is.”
I turned to a sailor-like man who stood at my elbow and asked him.
“It’s no use, I assure you, sir,” he answered; “no boat could live in
such a sea. It would be throwing away the men’s lives.”
“Do you know where the captain lives?” Percivale asked.
“If I did, I tell you it is of no use.”
“Are you the captain yourself?” returned Percivale.
“What is that to you?” he answered, surly now. “I know my own business.”
The same moment several of the crowd nearest the edge of the water made
a simultaneous rush into the surf, and laid hold of something, which, as
they returned drawing it to the shore, I saw to be a human form. It was
the body of a woman--alive or dead I could not tell. I could just
see the long hair hanging from the head, which itself hung backward
helplessly as they bore her up the bank. I saw, too, a white face, and I
can recall no more.
“Run, Percivale,” I said, “and fetch Turner. She may not be dead yet.”
“I can’t,” answered Percivale. “You had better go yourself, Mr. Walton.”
He spoke hurriedly. I saw he must have some reason for answering me so
abruptly. He was talking to a young fellow whom I recognised as one
of the most dissolute in the village; and just as I turned to go they
walked away together.
I sped home as fast as I could. It was easier to get along now that the
moon shone. I found that Turner had given Connie a composing draught,
and that he had good hopes she would at least be nothing the worse for
the marvellous result of her excitement. She was asleep exhausted, and
her mother was watching by her side. It, seemed strange that she could
sleep; but Turner said it was the safest reaction, partly, however,
occasioned by what he had given her. In her sleep she kept on talking
about the ship.
We hurried back to see if anything could be done for the woman. As we
went up the side of the canal we perceived a dark body meeting us. The
clouds had again obscured, though not quite hidden the moon, and we
could not at first make out what it was. When we came nearer it showed
itself a body of men hauling something along. Yes, it was the life-boat,
afloat on the troubled waves of the canal, each man seated in his own
place, his hands quiet upon his oar, his cork-jacket braced about him,
his feet out before him, ready to pull the moment they should pass
beyond the broken gates of the lock out on the awful tossing of the
waves. They sat very silent, and the men on the path towed them swiftly
along. The moon uncovered her face for a moment, and shone upon the
faces of two of the rowers.
“Percivale! Joe!” I cried.
“All right, sir!” said Joe.
“Does your wife know of it, Joe?” I almost gasped.
“To be sure,” answered Joe. “It’s the first chance I’ve had of returning
thanks for her. Please God, I shall see her again to-night.”
“That’s good, Joe. Trust in God, my men, whether you sink or swim.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” they answered as one man.
“This is your doing, Percivale,” I said, turning and walking alongside
of the boat for a little way.
“It’s more Jim Allen’s,” said Percivale. “If I hadn’t got a hold of him
I couldn’t have done anything.”
“God bless you, Jim Allen!” I said. “You’ll be a better man after this,
I think.”
“Donnow, sir,” returned Jim cheerily. “It’s harder work than pulling an
oar.”
The captain himself was on board. Percivale having persuaded Jim Allen,
the two had gone about in the crowd seeking proselytes. In a wonderfully
short space they had found almost all the crew, each fresh one picking
up another or more; till at length the captain, protesting against
the folly of it, gave in, and once having yielded, was, like a true
Englishman, as much in earnest as any of them. The places of two who
were missing were supplied by Percivale and Joe, the latter of whom
would listen to no remonstrance.