The Seaboard Parish, Complete

“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.

CHAPTER XII. A SMALL ADVENTURE

The next morning Harry came with the clothes. But Joe did not go to church. Neither did Agnes make her appearance that morning. They were both present at the evening service, however.

When we came out of church, it was cloudy and dark, and the wind was blowing cold from the sea. The sky was covered with one cloud, but the waves tossing themselves against the rocks, flashed whiteness out of the general gloom. As the tide rose the wind increased. It was a night of surly temper—hard and gloomy. Not a star cracked the blue above—there was no blue; and the wind was gurly; I once heard that word in Scotland, and never forgot it.

After one of our usual gatherings in Connie’s room, which were much shorter here because of the evening service in summer, I withdrew till supper should be ready.

Now I have always had, as I think I have incidentally stated before, a certain peculiar pleasure in the surly aspects of nature. When I was a young man this took form in opposition and defiance; since I had begun to grow old the form had changed into a sense of safety. I welcomed such aspects, partly at least, because they roused my faith to look through and beyond the small region of human conditions in which alone the storm can be and blow, and thus induced a feeling like that of the child who lies in his warm crib and listens to the howling of one of these same storms outside the strong-built house which yet trembles at its fiercer onsets: the house is not in danger; or, if it be, that is his father’s business, not his. Hence it came that, after supper, I put on my great-coat and travelling-cap, and went out into the ill-tempered night—speaking of it in its human symbolism.

I meant to have a stroll down to the breakwater, of which I have yet said little, but which was a favourite resort, both of myself and my children. At the further end of it, always covered at high water, was an outlying cluster of low rocks, in the heart of which the lord of the manor, a noble-hearted Christian gentleman of the old school, had constructed a bath of graduated depth—an open-air swimming-pool—the only really safe place for men who were swimmers to bathe in. Thither I was in the habit of taking my two little men every morning, and bathing with them, that I might develop the fish that was in them; for, as George Herbert says:

  “Man is everything,  And more: he is a tree, yet bears no fruit;  A beast, yet is, or should be, more;”

and he might have gone on to say that he is, or should be, a fish as well.

It will seem strange to any reader who can recall the position of my Connie’s room, that the nearest way to the breakwater should be through that room; but so it was. I mention the fact because I want my readers to understand a certain peculiarity of the room. By the side of the window which looked out upon the breakwater was a narrow door, apparently of a closet or cupboard, which communicated, however, with a narrow, curving, wood-built passage, leading into a little wooden hut, the walls of which were by no means impervious to the wind, for they were formed of outside-planks, with the bark still upon them. From this hut one or two little windows looked seaward, and a door led out on the bit of sward in which lay the flower-bed under Connie’s window. From this spot again a door in the low wall and thick hedge led out on the downs, where a path wound along the cliffs that formed the side of the bay, till, descending under the storm-tower, it brought you to the root of the breakwater.

This mole stretched its long strong low back to a rock a good way out, breaking the force of the waves, and rendering the channel of a small river, that here flowed into the sea across the sands from the mouth of the canal, a refuge from the Atlantic. But it was a roadway often hard to reach. In fair weather even, the wind falling as the vessel rounded the point of the breakwater into the calm of the projecting headlands, the under-current would sometimes dash her helpless on the rocks. During all this heavenly summer there had been no thought or fear of any such disaster. The present night was a hint of what weather would yet come.

When I went into Connie’s room, I found her lying in bed a very picture of peace. But my entrance destroyed the picture.

“Papa,” she said, “why have you got your coat on? Surely you are not going out to-night. The wind is blowing dreadfully.”

“Not very dreadfully, Connie. It blew much worse the night we found your baby.”

“But it is very dark.”

“I allow that; but there is a glimmer from the sea. I am only going on the breakwater for a few minutes. You know I like a stormy night quite as much as a fine one.”

“I shall be miserable till you come home, papa.”

“Nonsense, Connie. You don’t think your father hasn’t sense to take care of himself! Or rather, Connie, for I grant that is poor ground of comfort, you don’t think I can go anywhere without my Father to take care of me?”

“But there is no occasion—is there, papa?”

“Do you think I should be better pleased with my boys if they shrunk from everything involving the least possibility of danger because there was no occasion for it? That is just the way to make cowards. And I am certain God would not like his children to indulge in such moods of self-preservation as that. He might well be ashamed of them. The fearful are far more likely to meet with accidents than the courageous. But really, Connie, I am almost ashamed of talking so. It is all your fault. There is positively no ground for apprehension, and I hope you won’t spoil my walk by the thought that my foolish little girl is frightened.”

“I will be good—indeed I will, papa,” she said, holding up her mouth to kiss me.

I left her room, and went through the wooden passage into the bark hut. The wind roared about it, shook it, and pawed it, and sung and whistled in the chinks of the planks. I went out and shut the door. That moment the wind seized upon me, and I had to fight with it. When I got on the path leading along the edge of the downs, I felt something lighter than any feather fly in my face. When I put up my hand, I found my cheek wet. Again and again I was thus assailed, but when I got to the breakwater I found what it was. They were flakes of foam, bubbles worked up into little masses of adhering thousands, which the wind blew off the waters and across the downs, carrying some of them miles inland. When I reached the breakwater, and looked along its ridge through the darkness of the night, I was bewildered to see a whiteness lying here and there in a great patch upon its top. They were but accumulations of these foam-flakes, like soap-suds, lying so thick that I expected to have to wade through them, only they vanished at the touch of my feet. Till then I had almost believed it was snow I saw. On the edge of the waves, in quieter spots, they lay like yeast, foaming and working. Now and then a little rush of water from a higher wave swept over the top of the broad breakwater, as with head bowed sideways against the wind, I struggled along towards the rock at its end; but I said to myself, “The tide is falling fast, and salt water hurts nobody,” and struggled on over the huge rough stones of the mighty heap, outside which the waves were white with wrath, inside which they had fallen asleep, only heaving with the memory of their late unrest. I reached the tall rock at length, climbed the rude stair leading up to the flagstaff, and looked abroad, if looking it could be called, into the thick dark. But the wind blew so strong on the top that I was glad to descend. Between me and the basin where yesterday morning I had bathed in still water and sunshine with my boys, rolled the deathly waves. I wandered on the rough narrow space yet uncovered, stumbling over the stones and the rocky points between which they lay, stood here and there half-meditating, and at length, finding a sheltered nook in a mass of rock, sat with the wind howling and the waves bursting around me. There I fell into a sort of brown study—almost a half-sleep.