JOE AND HIS TROUBLE.
How bright the yellow shores of Kilkhaven looked after the dark sands
of Tintagel! But how low and tame its highest cliffs after the mighty
rampart of rocks which there face the sea like a cordon of fierce
guardians! It was pleasant to settle down again in what had begun to
look like home, and was indeed made such by the boisterous welcome of
Dora and the boys. Connie's baby crowed aloud, and stretched forth her
chubby arms at sight of her. The wind blew gently around us, full both
of the freshness of the clean waters and the scents of the
down-grasses, to welcome us back. And the dread vision of the shore had
now receded so far into the past, that it was no longer able to hurt.
We had called at the blacksmith's house on our way home, and found that
he was so far better as to be working at his forge again. His mother
said he was used to such attacks, and soon got over them. I, however,
feared that they indicated an approaching break-down.
"Indeed, sir," she said, "Joe might be well enough if he liked. It's
all his own fault."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "I cannot believe that your son is in any
way guilty of his own illness."
"He's a well-behaved lad, my Joe," she answered; "but he hasn't learned
what I had to learn long ago."
"What is that?" I asked.
"To make up his mind, and stick to it. To do one thing or the other."
She was a woman with a long upper lip and a judicial face, and as she
spoke, her lip grew longer and longer; and when she closed her mouth in
mark of her own resolution, that lip seemed to occupy two-thirds of all
her face under the nose.
"And what is it he won't do?"
"I don't mind whether he does it or not, if he would only
make--up--his--mind--and--stick--to--it."
"What is it you want him to do, then?"
"I don't want him to do it, I'm sure. It's no good to me--and wouldn't
be much to him, that I'll be bound. Howsomever, he must please himself."
I thought it not very wonderful that he looked gloomy, if there was no
more sunshine for him at home than his mother's face indicated. Few
things can make a man so strong and able for his work as a sun indoors,
whose rays are smiles, ever ready to shine upon him when he opens the
door,--the face of wife or mother or sister. Now his mother's face
certainly was not sunny. No doubt it must have shone upon him when he
was a baby. God has made that provision for babies, who need sunshine
so much that a mother's face cannot help being sunny to them: why
should the sunshine depart as the child grows older?
"Well, I suppose I must not ask. But I fear your son is very far from
well. Such attacks do not often occur without serious mischief
somewhere. And if there is anything troubling him, he is less likely to
get over it."
"If he would let somebody make up his mind for him, and then stick to
it--"
"O, but that is impossible, you know. A man must make up his own mind."
"That's just what he won't do."
All the time she looked naughty, only after a self-righteous fashion.
It was evident that whatever was the cause of it, she was not in
sympathy with her son, and therefore could not help him out of any
difficulty he might be in. I made no further attempt to learn from her
the cause of her son's discomfort, clearly a deeper cause than his
illness. In passing his workshop, we stopped for a moment, and I made
an arrangement to meet him at the church the next day.
I was there before him, and found that he had done a good deal since we
left. Little remained except to get the keys put to rights, and the
rods attached to the cranks in the box. To-day he was to bring a
carpenter, a cousin of his own, with him.
They soon arrived, and a small consultation followed. The cousin was a
bright-eyed, cheruby-cheeked little man, with a ready smile and white
teeth: I thought he might help me to understand what was amiss in
Joseph's affairs. But I would not make the attempt except openly. I
therefore said half in a jocular fashion, as with gloomy,
self-withdrawn countenance the smith was fitting one loop into another
in two of his iron rods,--
"I wish we could get this cousin of yours to look a little more
cheerful. You would think he had quarrelled with the sunshine."
The carpenter showed his white teeth between his rosy lips.
"Well, sir, if you'll excuse me, you see my cousin Joe is not like the
rest of us. He's a religious man, is Joe."
"But I don't see how that should make him miserable. It hasn't made me
miserable. I hope I'm a religious man myself. It makes me happy every
day of my life."
"Ah, well," returned the carpenter, in a thoughtful tone, as he worked
away gently to get the inside out of the oak-chest without hurting it,
"I don't say it's the religion, for I don't know; but perhaps it's the
way he takes it up. He don't look after hisself enough; he's always
thinking about other people, you see, sir; and it seems to me, sir,
that if you don't look after yourself, why, who is to look after you?
That's common sense, _I_ think."
It was a curious contrast--the merry friendly face, which shone
good-fellowship to all mankind, accusing the sombre, pale, sad, severe,
even somewhat bitter countenance beside him, of thinking too much about
other people, and too little about himself. Of course it might be
correct in a way. There is all the difference between a comfortable,
healthy inclination, and a pained, conscientious principle. It was a
smile very unlike his cousin's with which Joe heard his remarks on
himself.
"But," I said, "you will allow, at least, that if everybody would take
Joe's way of it, there would then be no occasion for taking care of
yourself."
"I don't see why, sir."
"Why, because everybody would take care of everybody else."
"Not so well, I doubt, sir."
"Yes, and a great deal better."
"At any rate, that's a long way off; and mean time, _who's_ to take
care of the odd man like Joe there, that don't look after hisself?"
"Why, God, of course."
"Well, there's just where I'm out. I don't know nothing about that
branch, sir."
I saw a grateful light mount up in Joe's gloomy eyes as I spoke thus
upon his side of the question. He said nothing, however; and his cousin
volunteering no further information, I did not push any advantage I
might have gained.
At noon I made them leave their work, and come home with me to have
their dinner; they hoped to finish the job before dusk. Harry Cobb and
I dropped behind, and Joe Harper walked on in front, apparently sunk in
meditation.
Scarcely were we out of the churchyard, and on the road leading to the
rectory, when I saw the sexton's daughter meeting us. She had almost
come up to Joe before he saw her, for his gaze was bent on the ground,
and he started. They shook hands in what seemed to me an odd,
constrained, yet familiar fashion, and then stood as if they wanted to
talk, but without speaking. Harry and I passed, both with a nod of
recognition to the young woman, but neither of us had the ill-manners
to look behind. I glanced at Harry, and he answered me with a queer
look. When we reached the turning that would hide them from our view, I
looked back almost involuntarily, and there they were still standing.
But before we reached the door of the rectory, Joe got up with us.
There was something remarkable in the appearance of Agnes Coombes, the
sexton's daughter. She was about six-and-twenty, I should imagine, the
youngest of the family, with a sallow, rather sickly complexion,
somewhat sorrowful eyes, a smile rare and sweet, a fine figure, tall
and slender, and a graceful gait. I now saw, I thought, a good
hair's-breadth further into the smith's affairs. Beyond the
hair's-breadth, however, all was dark. But I saw likewise that the well
of truth, whence I might draw the whole business, must be the girl's
mother.
After the men had had their dinner and rested a while, they went back
to the church, and I went to the sexton's cottage. I found the old man
seated at the window, with his pot of beer on the sill, and an empty
plate beside it.
"Come in, sir," he said, rising, as I put my head in at the door. "The
mis'ess ben't in, but she'll be here in a few minutes."
"O, it's of no consequence," I said. "Are they all well?"
"All comfortable, sir. It be fine dry weather for them, this, sir. It
be in winter it be worst for them."
"But it's a snug enough shelter you've got here. It seems such, anyhow;
though, to be sure, it is the blasts of winter that find out the weak
places both in house and body."
"It ben't the wind touch _them_" he said; "they be safe enough from the
wind. It be the wet, sir. There ben't much snow in these parts; but
when it du come, that be very bad for them, poor things!"
Could it be that he was harping on the old theme again?
"But at least this cottage keeps out the wet," I said. "If not, we must
have it seen to."
"This cottage du well enough, sir. It'll last my time, anyhow."
"Then why are you pitying your family for having to live in it?"
"Bless your heart, sir! It's not them. They du well enough. It's my
people out yonder. You've got the souls to look after, and I've got the
bodies. That's what it be, sir. To be sure!"
The last exclamation was uttered in a tone of impatient surprise at my
stupidity in giving all my thoughts and sympathies to the living, and
none to the dead. I pursued the subject no further, but as I lay in bed
that night, it began to dawn upon me as a lovable kind of hallucination
in which the man indulged. He too had an office in the Church of God,
and he would magnify that office. He could not bear that there should
be no further outcome of his labour; that the burying of the dead out
of sight should be "the be-all and the end-all." He was God's vicar,
the gardener in God's Acre, as the Germans call the churchyard. When
all others had forsaken the dead, he remained their friend, caring for
what little comfort yet remained possible to them. Hence in all changes
of air and sky above, he attributed to them some knowledge of the same,
and some share in their consequences even down in the darkness of the
tomb. It was his way of keeping up the relation between the living and
the dead. Finding I made him no reply, he took up the word again.
"You've got your part, sir, and I've got mine. You up into the pulpit,
and I down into the grave. But it'll be all the same by and by."
"I hope it will," I answered. "But when you do go down into your own
grave, you'll know a good deal less about it than you do now. You'll
find you've got other things to think about. But here comes your wife.
She'll talk about the living rather than the dead."
"That's natural, sir. She brought 'em to life, and I buried 'em--at
least, best part of 'em. If only I had the other two safe down with the
rest!"
I remembered what the old woman had told me--that she had two boys _in_
the sea; and I knew therefore what he meant. He regarded his drowned
boys as still tossed about in the weary wet cold ocean, and would have
gladly laid them to rest in the warm dry churchyard.
He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with the back of his hand,
and saying, "Well, I must be off to my gardening," left me with his
wife. I saw then that, humorist as the old man might be, his humour,
like that of all true humorists, lay close about the wells of weeping.
"The old man seems a little out of sorts," I said to his wife.
"Well, sir," she answered, with her usual gentleness, a gentleness
which obedient suffering had perfected, "this be the day he buried our
Nancy, this day two years; and to-day Agnes be come home from her work
poorly; and the two things together they've upset him a bit."
"I met Agnes coming this way. Where is she?"
"I believe she be in the churchyard, sir. I've been to the doctor about
her."
"I hope it's nothing serious."
"I hope not, sir; but you see--four on 'em, sir!"
"Well, she's in God's hands, you know."
"That she be, sir."
"I want to ask you about something, Mrs. Coombes."
"What be that, sir? If I can tell, I will, you may be sure, sir."
"I want to know what's the matter with Joe Harper, the blacksmith."
"They du say it be a consumption, sir."
"But what has he got on his mind?"
"He's got nothing on his mind, sir. He be as good a by as ever stepped,
I assure you, sir."
"But I am sure there is something or other on his mind. He's not so
happy as he should be. He's not the man, it seems to me, to be unhappy
because he's ill. A man like him would not be miserable because he was
going to die. It might make him look sad sometimes, but not gloomy as
he looks."
"Well, sir, I believe you be right, and perhaps I know summat. But it's
part guessing.--I believe my Agnes and Joe Harper are as fond upon one
another as any two in the county."
"Are they not going to be married then?"
"There be the pint, sir. I don't believe Joe ever said a word o' the
sort to Aggy. She never could ha' kep it from me, sir."
"Why doesn't he then?"
"That's the pint again, sir. All as knows him says it's because he be
in such bad health, and he thinks he oughtn't to go marrying with one
foot in the grave. He never said so to me; but I think very likely that
be it."
"For that matter, Mrs. Coombes, we've all got one foot in the grave, I
think."
"That be very true, sir."
"And what does your daughter think?"
"I believe she thinks the same. And so they go on talking to each
other, quiet-like, like old married folks, not like lovers at all, sir.
But I can't help fancying it have something to do with my Aggy's pale
face."
"And something to do with Joe's pale face too, Mrs. Coombes," I said.
"Thank you. You've told me more than I expected. It explains
everything. I must have it out with Joe now."
"O deary me! sir, don't go and tell him I said anything, as if I wanted
him to marry my daughter."
"Don't you be afraid. I'll take good care of that. And don't fancy I'm
fond of meddling with other people's affairs. But this is a case in
which I ought to do something. Joe's a fine fellow."
"That he be, sir. I couldn't wish a better for a son-in-law."
I put on my hat.
"You won't get me into no trouble with Joe, will ye, sir!"
"Indeed I will not, Mrs. Coombes. I should be doing a great deal more
harm than good if I said a word to make him doubt you."
I went straight to the church. There were the two men working away in
the shadowy tower, and there was Agnes standing beside, knitting like
her mother, so quiet, so solemn even, that it did indeed look as if she
were a long-married wife, hovering about her husband at his work. Harry
was saying something to her as I went in, but when they saw me they
were silent, and Agnes gently withdrew.
"Do you think you will get through to-night?" I asked.
"Sure of it, sir," answered Harry.
"You shouldn't be sure of anything, Harry. We are told in the New
Testament that we ought to say _If the Lord will_," said Joe.
"Now, Joe, you're too hard upon Harry," I said. "You don't think that
the Bible means to pull a man up every step like that, till he's afraid
to speak a word. It was about a long journey and a year's residence
that the Apostle James was speaking."
"No doubt, sir. But the principle's the same. Harry can no more be sure
of finishing his work before it be dark, than those people could be of
going their long journey."
"That is perfectly true. But you are taking the letter for the spirit,
and that, I suspect, in more ways than one. The religion does not lie
in not being sure about anything, but in a loving desire that the will
of God in the matter, whatever it be, may be done. And if Harry has not
learned yet to care about the will of God, what is the good of coming
down upon him that way, as if that would teach him in the least. When
he loves God, then, and not till then, will he care about his will. Nor
does the religion lie in saying, _if the Lord will_, every time
anything is to be done. It is a most dangerous thing to use sacred
words often. It makes them so common to our ear that at length, when
used most solemnly, they have not half the effect they ought to have,
and that is a serious loss. What the Apostle means is, that we should
always be in the mood of looking up to God and having regard to his
will, not always writing D.V. for instance, as so many do--most
irreverently, I think--using a Latin contraction for the beautiful
words, just as if they were a charm, or as if God would take offence if
they did not make the salvo of acknowledgment. It seems to me quite
heathenish. Our hearts ought ever to be in the spirit of those words;
our lips ought to utter them rarely. Besides, there are some things a
man might be pretty sure the Lord wills."
"It sounds fine, sir; but I'm not sure that I understand what you mean
to say. It sounds to me like a darkening of wisdom."
I saw that I had irritated him, and so had in some measure lost ground.
But Harry struck in--
"How _can_ you say that now, Joe? _I_ know what the parson means well
enough, and everybody knows I ain't got half the brains you've got."
"The reason is, Harry, that he's got something in his head that stands
in the way."
"And there's nothing in my head _to_ stand in the way!" returned Harry,
laughing.
This made me laugh too, and even Joe could not help a sympathetic grin.
By this time it was getting dark.
"I'm afraid, Harry, after all, you won't get through to-night."
"I begin to think so too, sir. And there's Joe saying, 'I told you so,'
over and over to himself, though he won't say it out like a man."
Joe answered only with another grin.
"I tell you what it is, Harry," I said--"you must come again on Monday.
And on your way home, just look in and tell Joe's mother that I have
kept him over to-morrow. The change will do him good."
"No, sir, that can't he. I haven't got a clean shirt."
"You can have a shirt of mine," I said. "But I'm afraid you'll want
your Sunday clothes."
"I'll bring them for you, Joe--before you're up," interposed Harry.
"And then you can go to church with Aggy Coombes, you know."
Here was just what I wanted.
"Hold your tongue, Harry," said Joe angrily. "You're talking of what
you don't know anything about."
"Well, Joe, I ben't a fool, if I ben't so religious as you be. You
ben't a bad fellow, though you be a Methodist, and I ben't a fool,
though I be Harry Cobb."
"What do you mean, Harry? Do hold your tongue."
"Well, I'll tell you what I mean first, and then I'll hold my tongue. I
mean this--that nobody with two eyes, or one eye, for that matter, in
his head, could help seeing the eyes you and Aggy make at each other,
and why you don't port your helm and board her--I won't say it's more
than I know, but I du say it to be more than I think be fair to the
young woman."
"Hold your tongue, Harry."
"I said I would when I'd answered you as to what I meaned. So no more
at present; but I'll be over with your clothes afore you're up in the
morning."
As Harry spoke he was busy gathering his tools.
"They won't be in the way, will they, sir?" he said, as he heaped them
together in the furthest corner of the tower.
"Not in the least," I returned. "If I had my way, all the tools used in
building the church should be carved on the posts and pillars of it, to
indicate the sacredness of labour, and the worship of God that lies,
not in building the church merely, but in every honest trade honestly
pursued for the good of mankind and the need of the workman. For a
necessity of God is laid upon every workman as well as on St. Paul.
Only St. Paul saw it, and every workman doesn't, Harry."
"Thank you, sir. I like that way of it. I almost think I could be a
little bit religious after your way of it, sir."
"Almost, Harry!" growled Joe--not unkindly.
"Now, you hold your tongue, Joe," I said. "Leave Harry to me. You may
take him, if you like, after I've done with him."
Laughing merrily, but making no other reply than a hearty good-night,
Harry strode away out of the church, and Joe and I went home together.
When he had had his tea, I asked him to go out with me for a walk.
The sun was shining aslant upon the downs from over the sea. We rose
out of the shadowy hollow to the sunlit brow. I was a little in advance
of Joe. Happening to turn, I saw the light full on his head and face,
while the rest of his body had not yet emerged from the shadow.
"Stop, Joe," I said. "I want to see you so for a moment."
He stood--a little surprised.
"You look just like a man rising from the dead, Joe," I said.
"I don't know what you mean, sir," he returned.
"I will describe yourself to you. Your head and face are full of
sunlight, the rest of your body is still buried in the shadow. Look; I
will stand where you are now; and you come here. You will soon see what
I mean."
We changed places. Joe stared for a moment. Then his face brightened.
"I see what you mean, sir," he said. "I fancy you don't mean the
resurrection of the body, but the resurrection of righteousness."
"I do, Joe. Did it ever strike you that the whole history of the
Christian life is a series of such resurrections? Every time a man
bethinks himself that he is not walking in the light, that he has been
forgetting himself, and must repent, that he has been asleep and must
awake, that he has been letting his garments trail, and must gird up
the loins of his mind--every time this takes place, there is a
resurrection in the world. Yes, Joe; and every time that a man finds
that his heart is troubled, that he is not rejoicing in God, a
resurrection must follow--a resurrection out of the night of troubled
thoughts into the gladness of the truth. For the truth is, and ever
was, and ever must be, gladness, however much the souls on which it
shines may be obscured by the clouds of sorrow, troubled by the
thunders of fear, or shot through with the lightnings of pain. Now,
Joe, will you let me tell you what you are like--I do not know your
thoughts; I am only judging from your words and looks?"
"You may if you like, sir," answered Joe, a little sulkily. But I was
not to be repelled.
I stood up in the sunlight, so that my eyes caught only about half the
sun's disc. Then I bent my face towards the earth.
"What part of me is the light shining on now, Joe?"
"Just the top of your head," answered he.
"There, then," I returned, "that is just what you are like--a man with
the light on his head, but not on his face. And why not on your face?
Because you hold your head down."
"Isn't it possible, sir, that a man might lose the light on his face,
as you put it, by doing his duty?"
"That is a difficult question," I replied. "I must think before I
answer it."
"I mean," added Joe--"mightn't his duty be a painful one?"
"Yes. But I think that would rather etherealise than destroy the light.
Behind the sorrow would spring a yet greater light from the very duty
itself. I have expressed myself badly, but you will see what I
mean.--To be frank with you, Joe, I do not see that light in your face.
Therefore I think something must be wrong with you. Remember a good man
is not necessarily in the right. St. Peter was a good man, yet our Lord
called him Satan--and meant it of course, for he never said what he did
not mean."
"How can I be wrong when all my trouble comes from doing my
duty--nothing else, as far as I know?"
"Then," I replied, a sudden light breaking in on my mind, "I doubt
whether what you suppose to be your duty can be your duty. If it were,
I do not think it would make you so miserable. At least--I may be
wrong, but I venture to think so."
"What is a man to go by, then? If he thinks a thing is his duty, is he
not to do it?"
"Most assuredly--until he knows better. But it is of the greatest
consequence whether the supposed duty be the will of God or the
invention of one's own fancy or mistaken judgment. A real duty is
always something right in itself. The duty a man makes his for the
time, by supposing it to be a duty, may be something quite wrong in
itself. The duty of a Hindoo widow is to burn herself on the body of
her husband. But that duty lasts no longer than till she sees that, not
being the will of God, it is not her duty. A real duty, on the other
hand, is a necessity of the human nature, without seeing and doing
which a man can never attain to the truth and blessedness of his own
being. It was the duty of the early hermits to encourage the growth of
vermin upon their bodies, for they supposed that was pleasing to God;
but they could not fare so well as if they had seen the truth that the
will of God was cleanliness. And there may be far more serious things
done by Christian people against the will of God, in the fancy of doing
their duty, than such a trifle as swarming with worms. In a word,
thinking a thing is your duty makes it your duty only till you know
better. And the prime duty of every man is to seek and find, that he
may do, the will of God."
"But do you think, sir, that a man is likely to be doing what he ought
not, if he is doing what he don't like?"
"Not so likely, I allow. But there may be ambition in it. A man must
not want to be better than the right. That is the delusion of the
anchorite--a delusion in which the man forgets the rights of others for
the sake of his own sanctity."
"It might be for the sake of another person, and not for the person's
own sake at all."
"It might be; but except it were the will of God for that other person,
it would be doing him or her a real injury."
We were coming gradually towards what I wanted to make the point in
question. I wished him to tell me all about it himself, however, for I
knew that while advice given on request is generally disregarded, to
offer advice unasked is worthy only of a fool.
"But how are you to know the will of God in every case?" asked Joe.
"By looking at the general laws of life, and obeying them--except there
be anything special in a particular case to bring it under a higher
law."
"Ah! but that be just what there is here."
"Well, my dear fellow, that may be; but the special conduct may not be
right for the special case for all that. The speciality of the case may
not be even sufficient to take it from under the ordinary rule. But it
is of no use talking generals. Let us come to particulars. If you can
trust me, tell me all about it, and we may be able to let some light
in. I am sure there is darkness somewhere."
"I will turn it over in my mind, sir; and if I can bring myself to talk
about it, I will. I would rather tell you than anyone else."
I said no more. We watched a glorious sunset--there never was a grander
place for sunsets--and went home.