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OLD MRS TOMKINS.
Very severe weather came, and much sickness followed, chiefly
amongst the poorer people, who can so ill keep out the cold. Yet
some of my well-to-do parishioners were laid up likewise--amongst
others Mr Boulderstone, who had an attack of pleurisy. I had grown
quite attached to Mr Boulderstone by this time, not because he was
what is called interesting, for he was not; not because he was
clever, for he was not; not because he was well-read, for he was
not; not because he was possessed of influence in the parish, though
he had that influence; but simply because he was true; he was what
he appeared, felt what he professed, did what he said; appearing
kind, and feeling and acting kindly. Such a man is rare and
precious, were he as stupid as the Welsh giant in "Jack the
Giant-Killer." I could never see Mr Boulderstone a mile off, but my
heart felt the warmer for the sight.
Even in his great pain he seemed to forget himself as he received
me, and to gain comfort from my mere presence. I could not help
regarding him as a child of heaven, to be treated with the more
reverence that he had the less aid to his goodness from his slow
understanding. It seemed to me that the angels might gather with
reverence around such a man, to watch the gradual and tardy
awakening of the intellect in one in whom the heart and the
conscience had been awake from the first. The latter safe, they at
least would see well that there was no fear for the former.
Intelligence is a consequence of love; nor is there any true
intelligence without it.
But I could not help feeling keenly the contrast when I went from
his warm, comfortable, well-defended chamber, in which every
appliance that could alleviate suffering or aid recovery was at
hand, like a castle well appointed with arms and engines against the
inroads of winter and his yet colder ally Death,--when, I say, I
went from his chamber to the cottage of the Tomkinses, and found it,
as it were, lying open and bare to the enemy. What holes and cracks
there were about the door, through which the fierce wind rushed at
once into the room to attack the aged feet and hands and throats!
There were no defences of threefold draperies, and no soft carpet on
the brick floor,--only a small rug which my sister had carried them
laid down before a weak-eyed little fire, that seemed to despair of
making anything of it against the huge cold that beleaguered and
invaded the place. True, we had had the little cottage patched up.
The two Thomas Weirs had been at work upon it for a whole day and a
half in the first of the cold weather this winter; but it was like
putting the new cloth on the old garment, for fresh places had
broken out, and although Mrs Tomkins had fought the cold well with
what rags she could spare, and an old knife, yet such razor-edged
winds are hard to keep out, and here she was now, lying in bed, and
breathing hard, like the sore-pressed garrison which had retreated
to its last defence, the keep of the castle. Poor old Tomkins sat
shivering over the little fire.
"Come, come, Tomkins! this won't do," I said, as I caught up a
broken shovel that would have let a lump as big as one's fist
through a hole in the middle of it. "Why don't you burn your coals
in weather like this? Where do you keep them?"
It made my heart ache to see the little heap in a box hardly bigger
than the chest of tea my sister brought from London with her. I
threw half of it on the fire at once.
"Deary me, Mr Walton! you ARE wasteful, sir. The Lord never sent His
good coals to be used that way."
"He did though, Tomkins," I answered. "And He'll send you a little
more this evening, after I get home. Keep yourself warm, man. This
world's cold in winter, you know."
"Indeed, sir, I know that. And I'm like to know it worse afore long.
She's going," he said, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb
towards the bed where his wife lay.
I went to her. I had seen her several times within the last few
weeks, but had observed nothing to make me consider her seriously
ill. I now saw at a glance that Tomkins was right. She had not long
to live.
"I am sorry to see you suffering so much, Mrs Tomkins," I said.
"I don't suffer so wery much, sir; though to be sure it be hard to
get the breath into my body, sir. And I do feel cold-like, sir."
"I'm going home directly, and I'll send you down another blanket.
It's much colder to-day than it was yesterday."
"It's not weather-cold, sir, wi' me. It's grave-cold, sir. Blankets
won't do me no good, sir. I can't get it out of my head how
perishing cold I shall be when I'm under the mould, sir; though I
oughtn't to mind it when it's the will o' God. It's only till the
resurrection, sir."
"But it's not the will of God, Mrs Tomkins."
"Ain't it, sir? Sure I thought it was."
"You believe in Jesus Christ, don't you, Mrs Tomkins?"
"That I do, sir, with all my heart and soul."
"Well, He says that whosoever liveth and believeth in Him shall
never die."
"But, you know, sir, everybody dies. I MUST die, and be laid in the
churchyard, sir. And that's what I don't like."
"But I say that is all a mistake. YOU won't die. Your body will die,
and be laid away out of sight; but you will be awake, alive, more
alive than you are now, a great deal."
And here let me interrupt the conversation to remark upon the great
mistake of teaching children that they have souls. The consequence
is, that they think of their souls as of something which is not
themselves. For what a man HAS cannot be himself. Hence, when they
are told that their souls go to heaven, they think of their SELVES
as lying in the grave. They ought to be taught that they have
bodies; and that their bodies die; while they themselves live on.
Then they will not think, as old Mrs Tomkins did, that THEY will be
laid in the grave. It is making altogether too much of the body, and
is indicative of an evil tendency to materialism, that we talk as if
we POSSESSED souls, instead of BEING souls. We should teach our
children to think no more of their bodies when dead than they do of
their hair when it is cut off, or of their old clothes when they
have done with them.
"Do you really think so, sir?"
"Indeed I do. I don't know anything about where you will be. But you
will be with God--in your Father's house, you know. And that is
enough, is it not?"
"Yes, surely, sir. But I wish you was to be there by the bedside of
me when I was a-dyin'. I can't help bein' summat skeered at it. It
don't come nat'ral to me, like. I ha' got used to this old bed here,
cold as it has been--many's the night--wi' my good man there by the
side of me."
"Send for me, Mrs Tomkins, any moment, day or night, and I'll be
with you directly."
"I think, sir, if I had a hold ov you i' the one hand, and my man
there, the Lord bless him, i' the other, I could go comfortable."
"I'll come the minute you send for me--just to keep you in mind that
a better friend than I am is holding you all the time, though you
mayn't feel His hands. If it is some comfort to have hold of a human
friend, think that a friend who is more than man, a divine friend,
has a hold of you, who knows all your fears and pains, and sees how
natural they are, and can just with a word, or a touch, or a look
into your soul, keep them from going one hair's-breadth too far. He
loves us up to all out need, just because we need it, and He is all
love to give."
"But I can't help thinking, sir, that I wouldn't be troublesome. He
has such a deal to look after! And I don't see how He can think of
everybody, at every minute, like. I don't mean that He will let
anything go wrong. But He might forget an old body like me for a
minute, like."
"You would need to be as wise as He is before you could see how He
does it. But you must believe more than you can understand. It is
only common sense to do so. Think how nonsensical it would be to
suppose that one who could make everything, and keep the whole going
as He does, shouldn't be able to help forgetting. It would be
unreasonable to think that He must forget because you couldn't
understand how He could remember. I think it is as hard for Him to
forget anything as it is for us to remember everything; for
forgetting comes of weakness, and from our not being finished yet,
and He is all strength and all perfection."
"Then you think, sir, He never forgets anything?"
I knew by the trouble that gathered on the old woman's brow what
kind of thought was passing through her mind. But I let her go on,
thinking so to help her the better. She paused for one moment only,
and then resumed--much interrupted by the shortness of her
breathing.
"When I was brought to bed first," she said, "it was o' twins, sir.
And oh! sir, it was VERY hard. As I said to my man after I got my
head up a bit, 'Tomkins,' says I, 'you don't know what it is to have
TWO on 'em cryin' and cryin', and you next to nothin' to give 'em;
till their cryin' sticks to your brain, and ye hear 'em when they're
fast asleep, one on each side o' you.' Well, sir, I'm ashamed to
confess it even to you; and what the Lord can think of me, I don't
know."
"I would rather confess to Him than to the best friend I ever had,"
I said; "I am so sure that He will make every excuse for me that
ought to be made. And a friend can't always do that. He can't know
all about it. And you can't tell him all, because you don't know all
yourself. He does."
"But I would like to tell YOU, sir. Would you believe it, sir, I
wished 'em dead? Just to get the wailin' of them out o' my head, I
wished 'em dead. In the courtyard o' the squire's house, where my
Tomkins worked on the home-farm, there was an old draw-well. It
wasn't used, and there was a lid to it, with a hole in it, through
which you could put a good big stone. And Tomkins once took me to
it, and, without tellin' me what it was, he put a stone in, and told
me to hearken. And I hearkened, but I heard nothing,--as I told him
so. 'But,' says he, 'hearken, lass.' And in a little while there
come a blast o' noise like from somewheres. 'What's that, Tomkins?'
I said. 'That's the ston',' says he, 'a strikin' on the water down
that there well.' And I turned sick at the thought of it. And it's
down there that I wished the darlin's that God had sent me; for
there they'd be quiet."
"Mothers are often a little out of their minds at such times, Mrs
Tomkins. And so were you."
"I don't know, sir. But I must tell you another thing. The Sunday
afore that, the parson had been preachin' about 'Suffer little
children,' you know, sir, 'to come unto me.' I suppose that was what
put it in my head; but I fell asleep wi' nothin' else in my head but
the cries o' the infants and the sound o' the ston' in the
draw-well. And I dreamed that I had one o' them under each arm,
cryin' dreadful, and was walkin' across the court the way to the
draw-well; when all at once a man come up to me and held out his two
hands, and said, 'Gie me my childer.' And I was in a terrible fear.
And I gave him first one and then the t'other, and he took them, and
one laid its head on one shoulder of him, and t'other upon t'other,
and they stopped their cryin', and fell fast asleep; and away he
walked wi' them into the dark, and I saw him no more. And then I
awoke cryin', I didn't know why. And I took my twins to me, and my
breasts was full, if ye 'll excuse me, sir. And my heart was as full
o' love to them. And they hardly cried worth mentionin' again. But
afore they was two year old, they both died o' the brown chytis,
sir. And I think that He took them."
"He did take them, Mrs Tomkins; and you'll see them again soon."
"But, if He never forgets anything----"
"I didn't say that. I think He can do what He pleases. And if He
pleases to forget anything, then He can forget it. And I think that
is what He does with our sins--that is, after He has got them away
from us, once we are clean from them altogether. It would be a
dreadful thing if He forgot them before that, and left them sticking
fast to us and defiling us. How then should we ever be made
clean?--What else does the prophet Isaiah mean when he says, 'Thou
hast cast my sins behind Thy back?' Is not that where He does not
choose to see them any more? They are not pleasant to Him to think
of any more than to us. It is as if He said--'I will not think of
that any more, for my sister will never do it again,' and so He
throws it behind His back."
"They ARE good words, sir. I could not bear Him to think of me and
my sins both at once."
I could not help thinking of the words of Macbeth, "To know my deed,
'twere best not know myself."
The old woman lay quiet after this, relieved in mind, though not in
body, by the communication she had made with so much difficulty, and
I hastened home to send some coals and other things, and then call
upon Dr Duncan, lest he should not know that his patient was so much
worse as I had found her.
From Dr Duncan's I went to see old Samuel Weir, who likewise was
ailing. The bitter weather was telling chiefly upon the aged. I
found him in bed, under the old embroidery. No one was in the room
with him. He greeted me with a withered smile, sweet and true,
although no flash of white teeth broke forth to light up the welcome
of the aged head.
"Are you not lonely, Mr Weir?"
"No, sir. I don't know as ever I was less lonely. I've got my stick,
you see, sir," he said, pointing to a thorn stick which lay beside
him.
"I do not quite understand you," I returned, knowing that the old
man's gently humorous sayings always meant something.
"You see, sir, when I want anything, I've only got to knock on the
floor, and up comes my son out of the shop. And then again, when I
knock at the door of the house up there, my Father opens it and
looks out. So I have both my son on earth and my Father in heaven,
and what can an old man want more?"
"What, indeed, could any one want more?"
"It's very strange," the old man resumed after a pause, "but as I
lie here, after I've had my tea, and it is almost dark, I begin to
feel as if I was a child again.--They say old age is a second
childhood; but before I grew so old, I used to think that meant only
that a man was helpless and silly again, as he used to be when he
was a child: I never thought it meant that a man felt like a child
again, as light-hearted and untroubled as I do now."
"Well, I suspect that is not what people do mean when they say so.
But I am very glad--you don't know how pleased it makes me to hear
that you feel so. I will hope to fare in the same way when my time
comes."
"Indeed, I hope you will, sir; for I am main and happy. Just before
you came in now, I had really forgotten that I was a toothless old
man, and thought I was lying here waiting for my mother to come in
and say good-night to me before I went to sleep. Wasn't that
curious, when I never saw my mother, as I told you before, sir?"
"It was very curious."
"But I have no end of fancies. Only when I begin to think about it,
I can always tell when they are fancies, and they never put me out.
There's one I see often--a man down on his knees at that cupboard
nigh the floor there, searching and searching for somewhat. And I
wish he would just turn round his face once for a moment that I
might see him. I have a notion always it's my own father."
"How do you account for that fancy, now, Mr Weir?"
"I've often thought about it, sir, but I never could account for it.
I'm none willing to think it's a ghost; for what's the good of it?
I've turned out that cupboard over and over, and there's nothing
there I don't know."
"You're not afraid of it, are you?"
"No, sir. Why should I be? I never did it no harm. And God can
surely take care of me from all sorts."
My readers must not think anything is going to come out of this
strange illusion of the old man's brain. I questioned him a little
more about it, and came simply to the conclusion, that when he was a
child he had found the door open and had wandered into the house, at
the time uninhabited, had peeped in at the door of the same room
where he now lay, and had actually seen a man in the position he
described, half in the cupboard, searching for something. His mind
had kept the impression after the conscious memory had lost its hold
of the circumstance, and now revived it under certain physical
conditions. It was a glimpse out of one of the many stories which
haunted the old mansion. But there he lay like a child, as he said,
fearless even of such usurpations upon his senses.
I think instances of quiet unSELFconscious faith are more common
than is generally supposed. Few have along with it the genial
communicative impulse of old Samuel Weir, which gives the
opportunity of seeing into their hidden world. He seemed to have
been, and to have remained, a child, in the best sense of the word.
He had never had much trouble with himself, for he was of a kindly,
gentle, trusting nature; and his will had never been called upon to
exercise any strong effort to enable him to walk in the straight
path. Nor had his intellect, on the other hand, while capable
enough, ever been so active as to suggest difficulties to his faith,
leaving him, even theoretically, far nearer the truth than those who
start objections for their own sakes, liking to feel themselves in a
position of supposed antagonism to the generally acknowledged
sources of illumination. For faith is in itself a light that
lightens even the intellect, and hence the shield of the complete
soldier of God, the shield of faith, is represented by Spenser as
"framed all of diamond, perfect, pure, and clean," (the power of the
diamond to absorb and again radiate light being no poetic fiction,
but a well-known scientific fact,) whose light falling upon any
enchantment or false appearance, destroys it utterly: for
"all that was not such as seemed in sight.
Before that shield did fade, and suddaine fall."
Old Rogers had passed through a very much larger experience. Many
more difficulties had come to him, and he had met them in his own
fashion and overcome them. For while there is such a thing as truth,
the mind that can honestly beget a difficulty must at the same time
be capable of receiving that light of the truth which annihilates
the difficulty, or at least of receiving enough to enable it to
foresee vaguely some solution, for a full perception of which the
intellect may not be as yet competent. By every such victory Old
Rogers had enlarged his being, ever becoming more childlike and
faithful; so that, while the childlikeness of Weir was the
childlikeness of a child, that of Old Rogers was the childlikeness
of a man, in which submission to God is not only a gladness, but a
conscious will and choice. But as the safety of neither depended on
his own feelings, but on the love of God who was working in him, we
may well leave all such differences of nature and education to the
care of Him who first made the men different, and then brought
different conditions out of them. The one thing is, whether we are
letting God have His own way with us, following where He leads,
learning the lessons He gives us.
I wished that Mr Stoddart had been with me during these two visits.
Perhaps he might have seen that the education of life was a
marvellous thing, and, even in the poorest intellectual results, far
more full of poetry and wonder than the outcome of that constant
watering with the watering-pot of self-education which, dissociated
from the duties of life and the influences of his fellows, had made
of him what he was. But I doubt if he would have seen it.
A week had elapsed from the night I had sat up with Gerard Weir, and
his mother had not risen from her bed, nor did it seem likely she
would ever rise again. On a Friday I went to see her, just as the
darkness was beginning to gather. The fire of life was burning
itself out fast. It glowed on her cheeks, it burned in her hands, it
blazed in her eyes. But the fever had left her mind. That was cool,
oh, so cool, now! Those fierce tropical storms of passion had passed
away, and nothing of life was lost. Revenge had passed away, but
revenge is of death, and deadly. Forgiveness had taken its place,
and forgiveness is the giving, and so the receiving of life. Gerard,
his dear little head starred with sticking-plaster, sat on her bed,
looking as quietly happy as child could look, over a wooden horse
with cylindrical body and jointless legs, covered with an eruption
of red and black spots.--Is it the ignorance or the imagination of
children that makes them so easily pleased with the merest hint at
representation? I suspect the one helps the other towards that most
desirable result, satisfaction.--But he dropped it when he saw me,
in a way so abandoning that--comparing small things with great--it
called to my mind those lines of Milton:--
"From his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve,
Down dropt, and all the faded roses shed."
The quiet child FLUNG himself upon my neck, and the mother's face
gleamed with pleasure.
"Dear boy!" I said, "I am very glad to see you so much better."
For this was the first time he had shown such a revival of energy.
He had been quite sweet when he saw me, but, until this evening,
listless.
"Yes," he said, "I am quite well now." And he put his hand up to his
head.
"Does it ache?"
"Not much now. The doctor says I had a bad fall."
"So you had, my child. But you will soon be well again."
The mother's face was turned aside, yet I could see one tear forcing
its way from under her closed eyelid.
"Oh, I don't mind it," he answered. "Mammy is so kind to me! She
lets me sit on her bed as long as I like."
"That IS nice. But just run to auntie in the next room. I think your
mammy would like to talk to me for a little while."
The child hurried off the bed, and ran with overflowing obedience.
"I can even think of HIM now," said the mother, "without going into
a passion. I hope God will forgive him. I do. I think He will
forgive me."
"Did you ever hear," I asked, "of Jesus refusing anybody that wanted
kindness from Him? He wouldn't always do exactly what they asked
Him, because that would sometimes be of no use, and sometimes would
even be wrong; but He never pushed them away from Him, never
repulsed their approach to Him. For the sake of His disciples, He
made the Syrophenician woman suffer a little while, but only to give
her such praise afterwards and such a granting of her prayer as is
just wonderful."
She said nothing for a little while; then murmured,
"Shall I have to be ashamed to all eternity? I do not want not to be
ashamed; but shall I never be able to be like other people--in
heaven I mean?"
"If He is satisfied with you, you need not think anything more about
yourself. If He lets you once kiss His feet, you won't care to think
about other people's opinion of you even in heaven. But things will
go very differently there from here. For everybody there will be
more or less ashamed of himself, and will think worse of himself
than he does of any one else. If trouble about your past life were
to show itself on your face there, they would all run to comfort
you, trying to make the best of it, and telling you that you must
think about yourself as He thinks about you; for what He thinks is
the rule, because it is the infallible right way. But perhaps
rather, they would tell you to leave that to Him who has taken away
our sins, and not trouble yourself any more about it. But to tell
the truth, I don't think such thoughts will come to you at all when
once you have seen the face of Jesus Christ. You will be so filled
with His glory and goodness and grace, that you will just live in
Him and not in yourself at all."
"Will He let us tell Him anything we please?"
"He lets you do that now: surely He will not be less our God, our
friend there."
"Oh, I don't mind how soon He takes me now! Only there's that poor
child that I've behaved so badly to! I wish I could take him with
me. I have no time to make it up to him here."
"You must wait till he comes. He won't think hardly of you. There's
no fear of that."
"What will become of him, though? I can't bear the idea of burdening
my father with him."
"Your father will be glad to have him, I know. He will feel it a
privilege to do something for your sake. But the boy will do him
good. If he does not want him, I will take him myself."
"Oh! thank you, thank you, sir."
A burst of tears followed.
"He has often done me good," I said.
"Who, sir? My father?"
"No. Your son."
"I don't quite understand what you mean, sir."
"I mean just what I say. The words and behaviour of your lovely boy
have both roused and comforted my heart again and again."
She burst again into tears.
"That is good to hear. To think of your saying that! The poor little
innocent! Then it isn't all punishment?"
"If it were ALL punishment, we should perish utterly. He is your
punishment; but look in what a lovely loving form your punishment
has come, and say whether God has been good to you or not."
"If I had only received my punishment humbly, things would have been
very different now. But I do take it--at least I want to take
it--just as He would have me take it. I will bear anything He likes.
I suppose I must die?"
"I think He means you to die now. You are ready for it now, I think.
You have wanted to die for a long time; but you were not ready for
it before."
"And now I want to live for my boy. But His will be done."
"Amen. There is no such prayer in the universe as that. It means
everything best and most beautiful. Thy will, O God, evermore be
done."
She lay silent. A tap came to the chamber-door. It was Mary, who
nursed her sister and attended to the shop.
"If you please, sir, here's a little girl come to say that Mrs
Tomkins is dying, and wants to see you."
"Then I must say good-night to you, Catherine. I will see you
to-morrow morning. Think about old Mrs Tomkins; she's a good old
soul; and when you find your heart drawn to her in the trouble of
death, then lift it up to God for her, that He will please to
comfort and support her, and make her happier than health--stronger
than strength, taking off the old worn garment of her body, and
putting upon her the garment of salvation, which will be a grand new
body, like that the Saviour had when He rose again."
"I will try. I will think about her."
For I thought this would be a help to prepare her for her own death.
In thinking lovingly about others, we think healthily about
ourselves. And the things she thought of for the comfort of Mrs
Tomkins, would return to comfort herself in the prospect of her own
end, when perhaps she might not be able to think them out for
herself.
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