THE PARISH TRILOGY - Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood, The Seaboard Parish & The Vicar's Daughter. George MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ and every time I read that passage, I should like to be able to say to myself, 'Old Rogers gave me this.'"

      "I only hope I'm right, sir. It was just this: their heads was full of their dinner because they didn't know where it was to come from. But they ought to ha' known where it always come from. If their hearts had been full of the dinner He gave the five thousand hungry men and women and children, they wouldn't have been uncomfortable about not having a loaf. And so they wouldn't have been set upon the wrong tack when He spoke about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees; and they would have known in a moment what He meant. And if I hadn't been too much of the same sort, I wouldn't have started saying it was but reasonable to be in the doldrums because they were at sea with no biscuit in the locker."

      "You're right; you must be right, old Rogers. It's as plain as possible," I cried, rejoiced at the old man's insight. "Thank you. I'll preach about it to-morrow. I thought I had got my sermon in Foxborough Wood, but I was mistaken: you had got it."

      But I was mistaken again. I had not got my sermon yet.

      I walked with him to his cottage and left him, after a greeting with the "old woman." Passing then through the village, and seeing by the light of her candle the form of Catherine Weir behind her counter, I went in. I thought old Rogers's tobacco must be nearly gone, and I might safely buy some more. Catherine's manner was much the same as usual. But as she was weighing my purchase, she broke out all at once:

      "It's no use your preaching at me, Mr Walton. I cannot, I WILL not forgive. I will do anything BUT forgive. And it's no use."

      "It is not I that say it, Catherine. It is the Lord himself."

      I saw no great use in protesting my innocence, yet I thought it better to add—

      "And I was not preaching AT you. I was preaching to you, as much as to any one there, and no more."

      Of this she took no notice, and I resumed:

      "Just think of what HE says; not what I say."

      "I can't help it. If He won't forgive me, I must go without it. I can't forgive."

      I saw that good and evil were fighting in her, and felt that no words of mine could be of further avail at the moment. The words of our Lord had laid hold of her; that was enough for this time. Nor dared I ask her any questions. I had the feeling that it would hurt, not help. All I could venture to say, was:

      "I won't trouble you with talk, Catherine. Our Lord wants to talk to you. It is not for me to interfere. But please to remember, if ever you think I can serve you in any way, you have only to send for me."

      She murmured a mechanical thanks, and handed me my parcel. I paid for it, bade her good night, and left the shop.

      "O Lord," I said in my heart, as I walked away, "what a labour Thou hast with us all! Shall we ever, some day, be all, and quite, good like Thee? Help me. Fill me with Thy light, that my work may all go to bring about the gladness of Thy kingdom—the holy household of us brothers and sisters—all Thy children."

      And now I found that I wanted very much to see my friend Dr Duncan. He received me with his stately cordiality, and a smile that went farther than all his words of greeting.

      "Come now, Mr Walton, I am just going to sit down to my dinner, and you must join me. I think there will be enough for us both. There is, I believe, a chicken a-piece for us, and we can make up with cheese and a glass of—would you believe it?—my own father's port. He was fond of port—the old man—though I never saw him with one glass more aboard than the registered tonnage. He always sat light on the water. Ah, dear me! I'm old myself now."

      "But what am I to do with Mrs Pearson?" I said. "There's some chef-d'oeuvre of hers waiting for me by this time. She always treats me particularly well on Saturdays and Sundays."

      "Ah! then, you must not stop with me. You will fare better at home."

      "But I should much prefer stopping with you. Couldn't you send a message for me?"

      "To be sure. My boy will run with it at once."

      Now, what is the use of writing all this? I do not know. Only that even a tete-a-tete dinner with an old friend, now that I am an old man myself, has such a pearly halo about it in the mists of the past, that every little circumstance connected with it becomes interesting, though it may be quite unworthy of record. So, kind reader, let it stand.

      We sat down to our dinner, so simple and so well-cooked that it was just what I liked. I wanted very much to tell my friend what had occurred in Catherine's shop, but I would not begin till we were safe from interruption; and so we chatted away concerning many things, he telling me about his seafaring life, and I telling him some of the few remarkable things that had happened to me in the course of my life-voyage. There is no man but has met with some remarkable things that other people would like to know, and which would seem stranger to them than they did at the time to the person to whom they happened.

      At length I brought our conversation round to my interview with Catherine Weir.

      "Can you understand," I said, "a woman finding it so hard to forgive her own father?"

      "Are you sure it is her father?" he returned.

      "Surely she has not this feeling towards more than one. That she has it towards her father, I know."

      "I don't know," he answered. "I have known resentment preponderate over every other feeling and passion—in the mind of a woman too. I once heard of a good woman who cherished this feeling against a good man because of some distrustful words he had once addressed to herself. She had lived to a great age, and was expressing to her clergyman her desire that God would take her away: she had been waiting a long time. The clergyman—a very shrewd as well as devout man, and not without a touch of humour, said: 'Perhaps God doesn't mean to let you die till you've forgiven Mr—-.' She was as if struck with a flash of thought, sat silent during the rest of his visit, and when the clergyman called the next day, he found Mr —— and her talking together very quietly over a cup of tea. And she hadn't long to wait after that, I was told, but was gathered to her fathers—or went home to her children, whichever is the better phrase."

      "I wish I had had your experience, Dr Duncan," I said.

      "I have not had so much experience as a general practitioner, because I have been so long at sea. But I am satisfied that until a medical man knows a good deal more about his patient than most medical men give themselves the trouble to find out, his prescriptions will partake a good deal more than is necessary of haphazard.—As to this question of obstinate resentment, I know one case in which it is the ruling presence of a woman's life—the very light that is in her is resentment. I think her possessed myself.

      "Tell me something about her."

      "I will. But even to you I will mention no names. Not that I have her confidence in the least. But I think it is better not. I was called to attend a lady at a house where I had never yet been."

      "Was it in—-?" I began, but checked myself. Dr Duncan smiled and went on without remark. I could see that he told his story with great care, lest, I thought, he should let anything slip that might give a clue to the place or people.

      "I was led up into an old-fashioned, richly-furnished room. A great wood-fire burned on the hearth. The bed was surrounded with heavy dark curtains, in which the shadowy remains of bright colours were just visible. In the bed lay one of the loveliest young creatures I had ever seen. СКАЧАТЬ