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OLD ROGERS'S THANKSGIVING.
I found the old man seated at his dinner, which he left immediately
when he heard that Miss Oldcastle needed his help. In a few words I
told him, as we went, the story of what had befallen at the Hall, to
which he listened with the interest of a boy reading a romance,
asking twenty questions about the particulars which I hurried over.
Then he shook me warmly by the hand, saying--
"You have fairly won her, Walton, and I am as glad of it as I could
be of anything I can think of. She is well worth all you must have
suffered. This will at length remove the curse from that wretched
family. You have saved her from perhaps even a worse fate than her
sister's."
"I fear she will be ill, though," I said, "after all that she has
gone through."
But I did not even suspect how ill she would be.
As soon as I heard Dr Duncan's opinion of her, which was not very
definite, a great fear seized upon me that I was destined to lose
her after all. This fear, however, terrible as it was, did not
torture me like the fear that had preceded it. I could oftener feel
able to say, "Thy will be done" than I could before.
Dr Duncan was hardly out of the house when Old Rogers arrived, and
was shown into the study. He looked excited. I allowed him to tell
out his story, which was his daughter's of course, without
interruption. He ended by saying:--
"Now, sir, you really must do summat. This won't do in a Christian
country. We ain't aboard ship here with a nor'-easter a-walkin' the
quarter-deck."
"There's no occasion, my dear old fellow, to do anything."
He was taken aback.
"Well, I don't understand you, Mr Walton. You're the last man I'd
have expected to hear argufy for faith without works. It's right to
trust in God; but if you don't stand to your halliards, your craft
'll miss stays, and your faith 'll be blown out of the bolt-ropes in
the turn of a marlinspike."
I suspect there was some confusion in the figure, but the old man's
meaning was plain enough. Nor would I keep him in a moment more of
suspense.
"Miss Oldcastle is in the house, Old Rogers," I said.
"What house, sir?" returned the old man, his gray eyes opening wider
as he spoke.
"This house, to be sure."
I shall never forget the look the old man cast upwards, or the
reality given to it by the ordinarily odd sailor-fashion of pulling
his forelock, as he returned inward thanks to the Father of all for
His kindness to his friend. And never in my now wide circle of
readers shall I find one, the most educated and responsive, who will
listen to my story with a more gracious interest than that old man
showed as I recounted to him the adventures of the evening. There
were few to whom I could have told them: to Old Rogers I felt that
it was right and natural and dignified to tell the story even of my
love's victory.
How then am I able to tell it to the world as now? I can easily
explain the seeming inconsistency. It is not merely that I am
speaking, as I have said before, from behind a screen, or as clothed
in the coat of darkness of an anonymous writer; but I find that, as
I come nearer and nearer to the invisible world, all my brothers and
sisters grow dearer and dearer to me; I feel towards them more and
more as the children of my Father in heaven; and although some of
them are good children and some naughty children, some very lovable
and some hard to love, yet I never feel that they are below me, or
unfit to listen to the story even of my love, if they only care to
listen; and if they do not care, there is no harm done, except they
read it. Even should they, and then scoff at what seemed and seems
to me the precious story, I have these defences: first, that it was
not for them that I cast forth my precious pearls, for precious to
me is the significance of every fact in my history--not that it is
mine, for I have only been as clay in the hands of the potter, but
that it is God's, who made my history as it seemed and was good to
Him; and second, that even should they trample them under their
feet, they cannot well get at me to rend me. And more, the nearer I
come to the region beyond, the more I feel that in that land a man
needs not shrink from uttering his deepest thoughts, inasmuch as he
that understands them not will not therefore revile him.--"But you
are not there yet. You are in the land in which the brother speaketh
evil of that which he understandeth not."--True, friend; too true.
But I only do as Dr Donne did in writing that poem in his sickness,
when he thought he was near to the world of which we speak: I
rehearse now, that I may find it easier then.
"Since I am coming to that holy room,
Where, with the choir of saints for evermore,
I shall be made thy music, as I come,
I tune the instrument here at the door;
And what I must do then, think here before."
When Rogers had thanked God, he rose, took my hand, and said:--
"Mr Walton, you WILL preach now. I thank God for the good we shall
all get from the trouble you have gone through."
"I ought to be the better for it," I answered.
"You WILL be the better for it," he returned. "I believe I've allus
been the better for any trouble as ever I had to go through with. I
couldn't quite say the same for every bit of good luck I had;
leastways, I considei trouble the best luck a man can have. And I
wish you a good night, sir. Thank God! again."
"But, Rogers, you don't mean it would be good for us to have bad
luck always, do you? You shouldn't be pleased at what's come to me
now, in that case."
"No, sir, sartinly not."
"How can you say, then, that bad luck is the best luck?"
"I mean the bad luck that comes to us--not the bad luck that doesn't
come. But you're right, sir. Good luck or bad luck's both best when
HE sends 'em, as He allus does. In fac', sir, there is no bad luck
but what comes out o' the man hisself. The rest's all good."
But whether it was the consequence of a reaction from the mental
strain I had suffered, or the depressing effect of Miss Oldcastle's
illness coming so close upon the joy of winning her; or that I was
more careless and less anxious to do my duty than I ought to have
been--I greatly fear that Old Rogers must have been painfully
disappointed in the sermons which I did preach for several of the
following Sundays. He never even hinted at such a fact, but I felt
it much myself. A man has often to be humbled through failure,
especially after success. I do not clearly know how my failures
worked upon me; but I think a man may sometimes get spiritual good
without being conscious of the point of its arrival, or being able
to trace the process by which it was wrought in him. I believe that
my failures did work some humility in me, and a certain carelessness
of outward success even in spiritual matters, so far as the success
affected me, provided only the will of God was done in the dishonour
of my weakness. And I think, but I am not sure, that soon after I
approached this condition of mind, I began to preach better. But
still I found for some time that however much the subject of my
sermon interested me in my study or in the church or vestry on the
Saturday evening; nay, even although my heart was full of fervour
during the prayers and lessons; no sooner had I begun to speak than
the glow died out of the sky of my thoughts; a dull clearness of the
intellectual faculties took its place; and I was painfully aware
that what I could speak without being moved myself was not the most
likely utterance to move the feelings of those who only listened.
Still a man may occasionally be used by the Spirit of God as the
inglorious "trumpet of a prophecy" instead of being inspired with
the life of the Word, and hence speaking out of a full heart in
testimony of that which he hath known and seen.
I hardly remember when or how I came upon the plan, but now, as
often as I find myself in such a condition, I turn away from any
attempt to produce a sermon; and, taking up one of the sayings of
our Lord which He himself has said "are spirit and are life," I
labour simply to make the people see in it what I see in it; and
when I find that thus my own heart is warmed, I am justified in the
hope that the hearts of some at least of my hearers are thereby
warmed likewise.
But no doubt the fact that the life of Miss Oldcastle seemed to
tremble in the balance, had something to do with those results of
which I may have already said too much. My design had been to go at
once to London and make preparation for as early a wedding as she
would consent to; but the very day after I brought her home, life
and not marriage was the question. Dr Duncan looked very grave, and
although he gave me all the encouragement he could, all his
encouragement did not amount to much. There was such a lack of
vitality about her! The treatment to which she had been for so long
a time subjected had depressed her till life was nearly quenched
from lack of hope. Nor did the sudden change seem able to restore
the healthy action of what the old physicians called the animal
spirits. Possibly the strong reaction paralysed their channels, and
thus prevented her gladness from reaching her physical nature so as
to operate on its health. Her whole complaint appeared in excessive
weakness. Finding that she fainted after every little excitement, I
left her for four weeks entirely to my sister and Dr Duncan, during
which time she never saw me; and it was long before I could venture
to stay in her room more than a minute or two. But as the summer
approached she began to show signs of reviving life, and by the end
of May was able to be wheeled into the garden in a chair.
During her aunt's illness, Judy came often to the vicarage. But Miss
Oldcastle was unable to see her any more than myself without the
painful consequence which I have mentioned. So the dear child always
came to me in the study, and through her endless vivacity infected
me with some of her hope. For she had no fears whatever about her
aunt's recovery.
I had had some painful apprehensions as to the treatment Judy
herself might meet with from her grandmother, and had been doubtful
whether I ought not to hive carried her off as well as her aunt; but
the first time she came, which was the next day, she set my mind at
rest on that subject.
"But does your grannie know where you are come?" I had asked her.
"So well, Mr Walton," sne replied, "that there was no occasion to
tell her. Why shouldn't I rebel as well as Aunt Wynnie, I wonder?"
she added, looking archness itself.
"How does she bear it?"
"Bear what, Mr Walton?"
"The loss of your aunt."
"You don't think grannie cares about that, do you! She's vexed
enough at the loss of Captain Everard,--Do you know, I think he had
too much wine yesterday, or he wouldn't have made quite such a fool
of himself."
"I fear he hadn't had quite enough to give him courage, Judy. I
daresay he was brave enough once, but a bad conscience soon destroys
a man's courage."
"Why do you call it a bad conscience, Mr Walton? I should have
thought that a bad conscience was one that would let a girl go on
anyhow and say nothing about it to make her uncomfortable."
"You are quite right, Judy; that is the worst kind of conscience,
certainly. But tell me, how does Mrs Oldcastle bear it?"
"You asked me that already."
Somehow Judy's words always seem more pert upon paper than they did
upon her lips. Her naivete, the twinkling light in her eyes, and the
smile flitting about her mouth, always modified greatly the
expression of her words.
"--Grannie never says a word about you or auntie either."
"But you said she was vexed: how do you know that?"
"Because ever since the captain went away this morning, she won't
speak a word to Sarah even."
"Are you not afraid of her locking you up some day or other?"
"Not a bit of it. Grannie won't touch me. And you shouldn't tempt me
to run away from her like auntie. I won't. Grannie is a naughty old
lady, and I don't believe anybody loves her but me--not Sarah, I'm
certain. Therefore I can't leave her, and I won't leave her, Mr
Walton, whatever you may say about her."
"Indeed, I don't want you to leave her, Judy."
And Judy did not leave her as long as she lived. And the old lady's
love to that child was at least one redeeming point in her fierce
character. No one can tell how mucn good it may have done her before
she died--though but a few years passed before her soul was required
of her. Before that time came, however, a quarrel took place between
her and Sarah, which quarrel I incline to regard as a hopeful sign.
And to this day Judy has never heard how her old grannie treated her
mother. When she learns it now from these pages I think she will be
glad that she did not know it before her death.
The old lady would see neither doctor nor parson; nor would she hear
of sending for her daughter. The only sign of softening that she
gave was that once she folded her granddaughter in her arms and wept
long and bitterly. Perhaps the thought of her dying child came back
upon her, along with the reflection that the only friend she had was
the child of that marriage which she had persecuted to dissolution.
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