The Seaboard Parish, Complete

“You are right, Turner. For the right must be the rule, and where the right is beyond our understanding or our reach, then the better, as indeed not only right compared with the other, but the sole ascent towards the right.”

In the evening I took Henry Vaughan’s poems into the common sitting-room, and to Connie’s great delight read the whole of the lovely, though unequal little poem, called “The Retreat,” in recalling which I had failed in the morning. She was especially delighted with the “white celestial thought,” and the “bright shoots of everlastingness.” Then I gave a few lines from another yet more unequal poem, worthy in themselves of the best of the other. I quote the first strophe entire:

  CHILDHOOD

“I cannot reach it; and my striving eye
Dazzles at it, as at eternity.
Were now that chronicle alive,
Those white designs which children drive,
And the thoughts of each harmless hour,
With their content too in my power,
Quickly would I make my path even,
And by mere playing go to heaven.

And yet the practice worldlings call
Business and weighty action all,
Checking the poor child for his play,
But gravely cast themselves away.

An age of mysteries! which he
Must live twice that would God’s face see;
Which angels guard, and with it play,
Angels! which foul men drive away.
How do I study now, and scan
Thee more than ere I studied man,
And only see through a long night
Thy edges and thy bordering light I
O for thy centre and midday!
For sure that is the narrow way!”

“For of such is the kingdom of heaven.” said my wife softly, as I closed the book.

“May I have the book, papa?” said Connie, holding out her thin white cloud of a hand to take it.

“Certainly, my child. And if Wynnie would read it with you, she will feel more of the truth of what Mr. Percivale was saying to her about finish. Here are the finest, grandest thoughts, set forth sometimes with such carelessness, at least such lack of neatness, that, instead of their falling on the mind with all their power of loveliness, they are like a beautiful face disfigured with patches, and, what is worse, they put the mind out of the right, quiet, unquestioning, open mood, which is the only fit one for the reception of such true things as are embodied in the poems. But they are too beautiful after all to be more than a little spoiled by such a lack of the finish with which Art ends off all her labours. A gentleman, however, thinks it of no little importance to have his nails nice as well as his face and his shirt.”

CHAPTER X. THE OLD CASTLE

The place Turner had chosen suited us all so well, that after attending to my duties on the two following Sundays at Kilkhaven, I returned on the Monday or Tuesday to the farmhouse. But Turner left us in the middle of the second week, for he could not be longer absent from his charge at home, and we missed him much. It was some days before Connie was quite as cheerful again as usual. I do not mean that she was in the least gloomy—that she never was; she was only a little less merry. But whether it was that Turner had opened our eyes, or that she had visibly improved since he allowed her to make a little change in her posture—certainly she appeared to us to have made considerable progress, and every now and then we were discovering some little proof of the fact. One evening, while we were still at the farm, she startled us by calling out suddenly,—

“Papa, papa! I moved my big toe! I did indeed.”

We were all about her in a moment. But I saw that she was excited, and fearing a reaction I sought to calm her.

“But, my dear,” I said, as quietly as I could, “you are probably still aware that you are possessed of two big toes: which of them are we to congratulate on this first stride in the march of improvement?”

She broke out in the merriest laugh. A pause followed in which her face wore a puzzled expression. Then she said all at once, “Papa, it is very odd, but I can’t tell which of them,” and burst into tears. I was afraid that I had done more harm than good.

“It is not of the slightest consequence, my child,” I said. “You have had so little communication with the twins of late, that it is no wonder you should not be able to tell the one from the other.”

She smiled again through her sobs, but was silent, with shining face, for the rest of the evening. Our hopes took a fresh start, but we heard no more from her of her power over her big toe. As often as I inquired she said she was afraid she had made a mistake, for she had not had another hint of its existence. Still I thought it could not have been a fancy, and I would cleave to my belief in the good sign.

Percivale called to see us several times, but always appeared anxious not to intrude more of his society upon us than might be agreeable. He grew in my regard, however; and at length I asked him if he would assist me in another surprise which I meditated for my companions, and this time for Connie as well, and which I hoped would prevent the painful influences of the sight of the sea from returning upon them when they went back to Kilkhaven: they must see the sea from a quite different shore first. In a word I would take them to Tintagel, of the near position of which they were not aware, although in some of our walks we had seen the ocean in the distance. An early day was fixed for carrying out our project, and I proceeded to get everything ready. The only difficulty was to find a carriage in the neighbourhood suitable for receiving Connie’s litter. In this, however, I at length succeeded, and on the morning of a glorious day of blue and gold, we set out for the little village of Trevenna, now far better known than at the time of which I write. Connie had been out every day since she came, now in one part of the fields, now in another, enjoying the expanse of earth and sky, but she had had no drive, and consequently had seen no variety of scenery. Therefore, believing she was now thoroughly able to bear it, I quite reckoned of the good she would get from the inevitable excitement. We resolved, however, after finding how much she enjoyed the few miles’ drive, that we would not demand more, of her strength that day, and therefore put up at the little inn, where, after ordering dinner, Percivale and I left the ladies, and sallied forth to reconnoitre.

We walked through the village and down the valley beyond, sloping steeply between hills towards the sea, the opening closed at the end by the blue of the ocean below and the more ethereal blue of the sky above. But when we reached the mouth of the valley we found that we were not yet on the shore, for a precipice lay between us and the little beach below. On the left a great peninsula of rock stood out into the sea, upon which rose the ruins of the keep of Tintagel, while behind on the mainland stood the ruins of the castle itself, connected with the other only by a narrow isthmus. We had read that this peninsula had once been an island, and that the two parts of the castle were formerly connected by a drawbridge. Looking up at the great gap which now divided the two portions, it seemed at first impossible to believe that they had ever been thus united; but a little reflection cleared up the mystery.

The fact was that the isthmus, of half the height of the two parts connected by it, had been formed entirely by the fall of portions of the rock and soil on each side into the narrow dividing space, through which the waters of the Atlantic had been wont to sweep. And now the fragments of walls stood on the very verge of the precipice, and showed that large portions of the castle itself had fallen into the gulf between. We turned to the left along the edge of the rock, and so by a narrow path reached and crossed to the other side of the isthmus. We then found that the path led to the foot of the rock, formerly island, of the keep, and thence in a zigzag up the face of it to the top. We followed it, and after a great climb reached a door in a modern battlement. Entering, we found ourselves amidst grass, and ruins haggard with age. We turned and surveyed the path by which we had come. It was steep and somewhat difficult. But the outlook was glorious. It was indeed one of God’s mounts of vision upon which we stood. The thought, “O that Connie could see this!” was swelling in my heart, when Percivale broke the silence—not with any remark on the glory around us, but with the commonplace question—

“You haven’t got your man with you, I think, Mr. Walton?”

“No,” I answered; “we thought it better to leave him to look after the boys.”

He was silent for a few minutes, while I gazed in delight.

“Don’t you think,” he said, “it would be possible to bring Miss Constance up here?”

I almost started at the idea, and had not replied before he resumed:

“It would be something for her to recur to with delight all the rest of her life.”

“It would indeed. But it is impossible.”

“I do not think so—if you would allow me the honour to assist you. I think we could do it perfectly between us.”

I was again silent for a while. Looking down on the way we had come, it seemed an almost dreadful undertaking. Percivale spoke again.

“As we shall come here to-morrow, we need not explore the place now. Shall we go down at once and observe the whole path, with a view to the practicability of carrying her up?”

“There can be no objection to that,” I answered, as a little hope, and courage with it, began to dawn in my heart. “But you must allow it does not look very practicable.”

“Perhaps it would seem more so to you, if you had come up with the idea in your head all the way, as I did. Any path seems more difficult in looking back than at the time when the difficulties themselves have to be met and overcome.”

“Yes, but then you must remember that we have to take the way back whether we will or no, if we once take the way forward.”

“True; and now I will go down with the descent in my head as well as under my feet.”

“Well, there can be no harm in reconnoitring it at least. Let us go.”

“You know we can rest almost as often as we please,” said Percivale, and turned to lead the way.

It certainly was steep, and required care even in our own descent; but for a man who had climbed mountains, as I had done in my youth, it could hardly be called difficult even in middle age. By the time we had got again into the valley road I was all but convinced of the practicability of the proposal. I was a little vexed, however, I must confess, that a stranger should have thought of giving such a pleasure to Connie, when the bare wish that she might have enjoyed it had alone arisen in my mind. I comforted myself with the reflection that this was one of the ways in which we were to be weaned from the world and knit the faster to our fellows. For even the middle-aged, in the decay of their daring, must look for the fresh thought and the fresh impulse to the youth which follows at their heels in the march of life. Their part is to will the relation and the obligation, and so, by love to and faith in the young, keep themselves in the line along which the electric current flows, till at length they too shall once more be young and daring in the strength of the Lord. A man must always seek to rise above his moods and feelings, to let them move within him, but not allow them to storm or gloom around him. By the time we reached home we had agreed to make the attempt, and to judge by the path to the foot of the rock, which was difficult in parts, whether we should be likely to succeed, without danger, in attempting the rest of the way and the following descent. As soon as we had arrived at this conclusion, I felt so happy in the prospect that I grew quite merry, especially after we had further agreed that, both for the sake of her nerves and for the sake of the lordly surprise, we should bind Connie’s eyes so that she should see nothing till we had placed her in a certain position, concerning the preferableness of which we were not of two minds.

“What mischief have you two been about?” said my wife, as we entered our room in the inn, where the cloth was already laid for dinner. “You look just like two schoolboys that have been laying some plot, and can hardly hold their tongues about it.”

“We have been enjoying our little walk amazingly,” I answered. “So much so, that we mean to set out for another the moment dinner is over.”

“I hope you will take Wynnie with you then.”

“Or you, my love,” I returned.