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MY FIRST MONDAY AT MARSHMALLOWS.
The next day I might expect some visitors. It is a fortunate thing
that English society now regards the parson as a gentleman, else he
would have little chance of being useful to the UPPER CLASSES. But I
wanted to get a good start of them, and see some of my poor before
my rich came to see me. So after breakfast, on as lovely a Monday in
the beginning of autumn as ever came to comfort a clergyman in the
reaction of his efforts to feed his flock on the Sunday, I walked
out, and took my way to the village. I strove to dismiss from my
mind every feeling of DOING DUTY, of PERFORMING MY PART, and all
that. I had a horror of becoming a moral policeman as much as of
"doing church." I would simply enjoy the privilege, more open to me
in virtue of my office, of ministering. But as no servant has a
right to force his service, so I would be the NEIGHBOUR only, until
such time as the opportunity of being the servant should show
itself.
The village was as irregular as a village should be, partly
consisting of those white houses with intersecting parallelograms of
black which still abound in some regions of our island. Just in the
centre, however, grouping about an old house of red brick, which had
once been a manorial residence, but was now subdivided in all modes
that analytic ingenuity could devise, rose a portion of it which,
from one point of view, might seem part of an old town. But you had
only to pass round any one of three visible corners to see stacks of
wheat and a farm-yard; while in another direction the houses went
straggling away into a wood that looked very like the beginning of a
forest, of which some of the village orchards appeared to form part.
From the street the slow-winding, poplar-bordered stream was here
and there just visible.
I did not quite like to have it between me and my village. I could
not help preferring that homely relation in which the houses are
built up like swallow-nests on to the very walls of the cathedrals
themselves, to the arrangement here, where the river flowed, with
what flow there was in it, between the church and the people.
A little way beyond the farther end of the village appeared an iron
gate, of considerable size, dividing a lofty stone wall. And upon
the top of that one of the stone pillars supporting the gate which I
could see, stood a creature of stone, whether natant, volant,
passant, couchant, or rampant, I could not tell, only it looked like
something terrible enough for a quite antediluvian heraldry.
As I passed along the street, wondering with myself what relations
between me and these houses were hidden in the future, my eye was
caught by the window of a little shop, in which strings of beads and
elephants of gingerbread formed the chief samples of the goods
within. It was a window much broader than it was high, divided into
lozenge-shaped panes. Wondering what kind of old woman presided over
the treasures in this cave of Aladdin, I thought to make a first of
my visits by going in and buying something. But I hesitated, because
I could not think of anything I was in want of--at least that the
old woman was likely to have. To be sure I wanted a copy of Bengel's
"Gnomon;" but she was not likely to have that. I wanted the fourth
plate in the third volume of Law's "Behmen;" she was not likely to
have that either. I did not care for gingerbread; and I had no
little girl to take home beads to.
But why should I not go in without an ostensible errand? For this
reason: there are dissenters everywhere, and I could not tell but I
might be going into the shop of a dissenter. Now, though, I confess,
nothing would have pleased me better than that all the dissenters
should return to their old home in the Church, I could not endure
the suspicion of laying myself out to entice them back by canvassing
or using any personal influence. Whether they returned or not,
however, (and I did not expect many would,) I hoped still, some day,
to stand towards every one of them in the relation of the parson of
the parish, that is, one of whom each might feel certain that he was
ready to serve him or her at any hour when he might be wanted to
render a service. In the meantime, I could not help hesitating.
I had almost made up my mind to ask if she had a small pocket
compass, for I had seen such things in little country shops--I am
afraid only in France, though--when the door opened, and out came
the little boy whom I had already seen twice, and who was therefore
one of my oldest friends in the place. He came across the road to
me, took me by the hand, and said--
"Come and see mother."
"Where, my dear?" I asked.
"In the shop there," he answered.
"Is it your mother's shop?"
"Yes."
I said no more, but accompanied him. Of course my expectation of
seeing an old woman behind the counter had vanished, but I was not
in the least prepared for the kind of woman I did see.
The place was half a shop and half a kitchen. A yard or so of
counter stretched inwards from the door, just as a hint to those who
might be intrusively inclined. Beyond this, by the chimney-corner,
sat the mother, who rose as we entered. She was certainly one--I do
not say of the most beautiful, but, until I have time to explain
further--of the most remarkable women I had ever seen. Her face was
absolutely white--no, pale cream-colour--except her lips and a spot
upon each cheek, which glowed with a deep carmine. You would have
said she had been painting, and painting very inartistically, so
little was the red shaded into the surrounding white. Now this was
certainly not beautiful. Indeed, it occasioned a strange feeling,
almost of terror, at first, for she reminded one of the spectre
woman in the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." But when I got used to
her complexion, I saw that the form of her features was quite
beautiful. She might indeed have been LOVELY but for a certain
hardness which showed through the beauty. This might have been the
result of ill health, ill-endured; but I doubted it. For there was a
certain modelling of the cheeks and lips which showed that the teeth
within were firmly closed; and, taken with the look of the eyes and
forehead, seemed the expression of a constant and bitter
self-command. But there were indubitable marks of ill health upon
her, notwithstanding; for not to mention her complexion, her large
dark eye was burning as if the lamp of life had broken and the oil
was blazing; and there was a slight expansion of the nostrils, which
indicated physical unrest. But her manner was perfectly, almost
dreadfully, quiet; her voice soft, low, and chiefly expressive of
indifference. She spoke without looking me in the face, but did not
seem either shy or ashamed. Her figure was remarkably graceful,
though too worn to be beautiful.--Here was a strange parishioner for
me!--in a country toy-shop, too!
As soon as the little fellow had brought me in, he shrunk away
through a half-open door that revealed a stair behind.
"What can I do for you, sir?" said the mother, coldly, and with a
kind of book-propriety of speech, as she stood on the other side of
the little counter, prepared to open box or drawer at command.
"To tell the truth, I hardly know," I said. "I am the new vicar; but
I do not think that I should have come in to see you just to-day, if
it had not been that your little boy there--where is he gone to? He
asked me to come in and see his mother."
"He is too ready to make advances to strangers, sir."
She said this in an incisive tone.
"Oh, but," I answered, "I am not a stranger to him. I have met him
twice before. He is a little darling. I assure you he has quite
gained my heart."
No reply for a moment. Then just "Indeed!" and nothing more.
I could not understand it.
But a jar on a shelf, marked TOBACCO, rescued me from the most
pressing portion of the perplexity, namely, what to say next.
"Will you give me a quarter of a pound of tobacco?" I said.
The woman turned, took down the jar, arranged the scales, weighed
out the quantity, wrapped it up, took the money,--and all without
one other word than, "Thank you, sir;" which was all I could return,
with the addition of, "Good morning."
For nothing was left me but to walk away with my parcel in my
pocket.
The little boy did not show himself again. I had hoped to find him
outside.
Pondering, speculating, I now set out for the mill, which, I had
already learned, was on the village side of the river. Coming to a
lane leading down to the river, I followed it, and then walked up a
path outside the row of pollards, through a lovely meadow, where
brown and white cows were eating and shining all over the thick deep
grass. Beyond the meadow, a wood on the side of a rising ground went
parallel with the river a long way. The river flowed on my right.
That is, I knew that it was flowing, but I could not have told how I
knew, it was so slow. Still swollen, it was of a clear brown, in
which you could see the browner trouts darting to and fro with such
a slippery gliding, that the motion seemed the result of will,
without any such intermediate and complicate arrangement as brain
and nerves and muscles. The water-beetles went spinning about over
the surface; and one glorious dragon-fly made a mist about him with
his long wings. And over all, the sun hung in the sky, pouring down
life; shining on the roots of the willows at the bottom of the
stream; lighting up the black head of the water-rat as he hurried
across to the opposite bank; glorifying the rich green lake of the
grass; and giving to the whole an utterance of love and hope and
joy, which was, to him who could read it, a more certain and full
revelation of God than any display of power in thunder, in
avalanche, in stormy sea. Those with whom the feeling of religion is
only occasional, have it most when the awful or grand breaks out of
the common; the meek who inherit the earth, find the God of the
whole earth more evidently present--I do not say more present, for
there is no measuring of His presence--more evidently present in the
commonest things. That which is best He gives most plentifully, as
is reason with Him. Hence the quiet fulness of ordinary nature;
hence the Spirit to them that ask it.
I soon came within sound of the mill; and presently, crossing the
stream that flowed back to the river after having done its work on
the corn, I came in front of the building, and looked over the
half-door into the mill. The floor was clean and dusty. A few full
sacks, tied tight at the mouth--they always look to me as if
Joseph's silver cup were just inside--stood about. In the farther
corner, the flour was trickling down out of two wooden spouts into a
wooden receptacle below. The whole place was full of its own faint
but pleasant odour. No man was visible. The spouts went on pouring
the slow torrent of flour, as if everything could go on with perfect
propriety of itself. I could not even see how a man could get at the
stones that I heard grinding away above, except he went up the rope
that hung from the ceiling. So I walked round the corner of the
place, and found myself in the company of the water-wheel, mossy and
green with ancient waterdrops, looking so furred and overgrown and
lumpy, that one might have thought the wood of it had taken to
growing again in its old days, and so the wheel was losing by slow
degrees the shape of a wheel, to become some new awful monster of a
pollard. As yet, however, it was going round; slowly, indeed, and
with the gravity of age, but doing its work, and casting its loose
drops in the alms-giving of a gentle rain upon a little plot of
Master Rogers's garden, which was therefore full of moisture-loving
flowers. This plot was divided from the mill-wheel by a small stream
which carried away the surplus water, and was now full and running
rapidly.
Beyond the stream, beside the flower bed, stood a dusty young man,
talking to a young woman with a rosy face and clear honest eyes. The
moment they saw me they parted. The young man came across the stream
at a step, and the young woman went up the garden towards the
cottage.
"That must be Old Rogers's cottage?" I said to the miller.
"Yes, sir," he answered, looking a little sheepish.
"Was that his daughter--that nice-looking young woman you were
talking to?"
"Yes, sir, it was."
And he stole a shy pleased look at me out of the corners of his
eyes.
"It's a good thing," I said, "to have an honest experienced old mill
like yours, that can manage to go on of itself for a little while
now and then."
This gave a great help to his budding confidence. He laughed.
"Well, sir, it's not very often it's left to itself. Jane isn't at
her father's above once or twice a week at most."
"She doesn't live with them, then?"
"No, sir. You see they're both hearty, and they ain't over well to
do, and Jane lives up at the Hall, sir. She's upper housemaid, and
waits on one of the young ladies.--Old Rogers has seen a great deal
of the world, sir."
"So I imagine. I am just going to see him. Good morning."
I jumped across the stream, and went up a little gravel-walk, which
led me in a few yards to the cottage-door. It was a sweet place to
live in, with honeysuckle growing over the house, and the sounds of
the softly-labouring mill-wheel ever in its little porch and about
its windows.
The door was open, and Dame Rogers came from within to meet me. She
welcomed me, and led the way into her little kitchen. As I entered,
Jane went out at the back-door. But it was only to call her father,
who presently came in.
"I'm glad to see ye, sir. This pleasure comes of having no work
to-day. After harvest there comes slack times for the likes of me.
People don't care about a bag of old bones when they can get hold of
young men. Well, well, never mind, old woman. The Lord'll take us
through somehow. When the wind blows, the ship goes; when the wind
drops, the ship stops; but the sea is His all the same, for He made
it; and the wind is His all the same too."
He spoke in the most matter-of-fact tone, unaware of anything poetic
in what he said. To him it was just common sense, and common sense
only.
"I am sorry you are out of work," I said. "But my garden is sadly
out of order, and I must have something done to it. You don't
dislike gardening, do you?"
"Well, I beant a right good hand at garden-work," answered the old
man, with some embarrassment, scratching his gray head with a
troubled scratch.
There was more in this than met the ear; but what, I could not
conjecture. I would press the point a little. So I took him at his
own word.
"I won't ask you to do any of the more ornamental part," I
said,--"only plain digging and hoeing."
"I would rather be excused, sir."
"I am afraid I made you think"--
"I thought nothing, sir. I thank you kindly, sir."
"I assure you I want the work done, and I must employ some one else
if you don't undertake it."
"Well, sir, my back's bad now--no, sir, I won't tell a story about
it. I would just rather not, sir."
"Now," his wife broke in, "now, Old Rogers, why won't 'ee tell the
parson the truth, like a man, downright? If ye won't, I'll do it for
'ee. The fact is, sir," she went on, turning to me, with a plate in
her hand, which she was wiping, "the fact is, that the old parson's
man for that kind o' work was Simmons, t'other end of the village;
and my man is so afeard o' hurtin' e'er another, that he'll turn the
bread away from his own mouth and let it fall in the dirt."
"Now, now, old 'oman, don't 'ee belie me. I'm not so bad as that.
You see, sir, I never was good at knowin' right from wrong like. I
never was good, that is, at tellin' exactly what I ought to do. So
when anything comes up, I just says to myself, 'Now, Old Rogers,
what do you think the Lord would best like you to do?' And as soon
as I ax myself that, I know directly what I've got to do; and then
my old woman can't turn me no more than a bull. And she don't like
my obstinate fits. But, you see, I daren't sir, once I axed myself
that."
"Stick to that, Rogers," I said.
"Besides, sir," he went on, "Simmons wants it more than I do. He's
got a sick wife; and my old woman, thank God, is hale and hearty.
And there is another thing besides, sir: he might take it hard of
you, sir, and think it was turning away an old servant like; and
then, sir, he wouldn't be ready to hear what you had to tell him,
and might, mayhap, lose a deal o' comfort. And that I would take
worst of all, sir."
"Well, well, Rogers, Simmons shall have the job."
"Thank ye, sir," said the old man.
His wife, who could not see the thing quite from her husband's point
of view, was too honest to say anything; but she was none the less
cordial to me. The daughter stood looking from one to the other with
attentive face, which took everything, but revealed nothing.
I rose to go. As I reached the door, I remembered the tobacco in my
pocket. I had not bought it for myself. I never could smoke. Nor do
I conceive that smoking is essential to a clergyman in the country;
though I have occasionally envied one of my brethren in London, who
will sit down by the fire, and, lighting his pipe, at the same time
please his host and subdue the bad smells of the place. And I never
could hit his way of talking to his parishioners either. He could
put them at their ease in a moment. I think he must have got the
trick out of his pipe. But in reality, I seldom think about how I
ought to talk to anybody I am with.
That I didn't smoke myself was no reason why I should not help Old
Rogers to smoke. So I pulled out the tobacco.
"You smoke, don't you, Rogers?" I said.
"Well, sir, I can't deny it. It's not much I spend on baccay,
anyhow. Is it, dame?
"No, that it bean't," answered his wife.
"You don't think there's any harm in smoking a pipe, sir?"
"Not the least," I answered, with emphasis.
"You see, sir," he went on, not giving me time to prove how far I
was from thinking there was any harm in it; "You see, sir, sailors
learns many ways they might be better without. I used to take my pan
o' grog with the rest of them; but I give that up quite, 'cause as
how I don't want it now."
"'Cause as how," interrupted his wife, "you spend the money on tea
for me, instead. You wicked old man to tell stories!"
"Well, I takes my share of the tea, old woman, and I'm sure it's a
deal better for me. But, to tell the truth, sir, I was a little
troubled in my mind about the baccay, not knowing whether I ought to
have it or not. For you see, the parson that's gone didn't more than
half like it, as I could tell by the turn of his hawse-holes when he
came in at the door and me a-smokin'. Not as he said anything; for,
ye see, I was an old man, and I daresay that kep him quiet. But I
did hear him blow up a young chap i' the village he come upon
promiscus with a pipe in his mouth. He did give him a thunderin'
broadside, to be sure! So I was in two minds whether I ought to go
on with my pipe or not."
"And how did you settle the question, Rogers?"
"Why, I followed my own old chart, sir."
"Quite right. One mustn't mind too much what other people think."
"That's not exactly what I mean, sir."
"What do you mean then? I should like to know."
"Well, sir, I mean that I said to myself, 'Now, Old Rogers, what do
you think the Lord would say about this here baccay business?"'
"And what did you think He would say?"
"Why, sir, I thought He would say, 'Old Rogers, have yer baccay;
only mind ye don't grumble when you 'aint got none.'"
Something in this--I could not at the time have told what--touched
me more than I can express. No doubt it was the simple reality of
the relation in which the old man stood to his Father in heaven that
made me feel as if the tears would come in spite of me.
"And this is the man," I said to myself, "whom I thought I should be
able to teach! Well, the wisest learn most, and I may be useful to
him after all."
As I said nothing, the old man resumed--
"For you see, sir, it is not always a body feels he has a right to
spend his ha'pence on baccay; and sometimes, too, he 'aint got none
to spend."
"In the meantime," I said, "here is some that I bought for you as I
came along. I hope you will find it good. I am no judge."
The old sailor's eyes glistened with gratitude. "Well, who'd ha'
thought it. You didn't think I was beggin' for it, sir, surely?"
"You see I had it for you in my pocket."
"Well, that IS good o' you, sir!"
"Why, Rogers, that'll last you a month!" exclaimed his wife, looking
nearly as pleased as himself.
"Six weeks at least, wife," he answered. "And ye don't smoke
yourself, sir, and yet ye bring baccay to me! Well, it's just like
yer Master, sir."
I went away, resolved that Old Rogers should have no chance of
"grumbling" for want of tobacco, if I could help it.
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