The Seaboard Parish - vol.2
Home - George MacDonald - The Seaboard Parish - vol.2JOE 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.