The Seaboard Parish, Complete

“It ben’t for me to contradict you, Joe. But I don’t think you be going to die. You be no worse than last year. Be you now, Joe?”

It flashed across me how once before, a stormy night and darkness had brought me close to a soul in agony. Then I was in agony myself; now the world was all fair and hopeful around me—the portals of the world beyond ever opening wider as I approached them, and letting out more of their glory to gladden the path to their threshold. But here were two souls straying in a mist which faith might roll away, and leave them walking in the light. The moment was come. I must speak.

“Joe!” I called out.

“Who’s there?” he cried; and I heard him start to his feet.

“Only Mr. Walton. Where are you?”

“We can’t be very far off,” he answered, not in a tone of any pleasure at finding me so nigh.

I rose, and peering about through the darkness, found that they were a little higher up on the same rock by which I was sheltered.

“You mustn’t think,” I said, “that I have been eavesdropping. I had no idea anyone was near me till I heard your voices, and I did not hear a word till just the last sentence or two.”

“I saw someone go up the Castle-rock,” said Joe; “but I thought he was gone away again. It will be a lesson to me.”

“I’m no tell-tale, Joe,” I returned, as I scrambled up the rock. “You will have no cause to regret that I happened to overhear a little. I am sure, Joe, you will never say anything you need be ashamed of. But what I heard was sufficient to let me into the secret of your trouble. Will you let me talk to Joe, Agnes? I’ve been young myself, and, to tell the truth, I don’t think I’m old yet.”

“I am sure, sir,” she answered, “you won’t be hard on Joe and me. I don’t suppose there be anything wrong in liking each other, though we can’t be—married.”

She spoke in a low tone, and her voice trembled very much; yet there was a certain womanly composure in her utterance. “I’m sure it’s very bold of me to talk so,” she added, “but Joe will tell you all about it.”

I was close beside them now, and fancied I saw through the dusk the motion of her hand stealing into his.

“Well, Joe, this is just what I wanted,” I said. “A woman can be braver than a big smith sometimes. Agnes has done her part. Now you do yours, and tell me all about it.”

No response followed my adjuration. I must help him.

“I think I know how the matter lies, Joe. You think you are not going to live long, and that therefore you ought not to marry. Am I right?”

“Not far off it, sir,” he answered.

“Now, Joe,” I said, “can’t we talk as friends about this matter? I have no right to intrude into your affairs—none in the least—except what friendship gives me. If you say I am not to talk about it, I shall be silent. To force advice upon you would be as impertinent as useless.”

“It’s all the same, I’m afraid, sir. My mind has been made up for a long time. What right have I to bring other people into trouble? But I take it kind of you, sir, though I mayn’t look over-pleased. Agnes wants to hear your way of it. I’m agreeable.”

This was not very encouraging. Still I thought it sufficient ground for proceeding.

“I suppose you will allow that the root of all Christian behaviour is the will of God?”

“Surely, sir.”

“Is it not the will of God, then, that when a man and woman love each other, they should marry?”

“Certainly, sir—where there be no reasons against it.”

“Of course. And you judge you see reason for not doing so, else you would?”

“I do see that a man should not bring a woman into trouble for the sake of being comfortable himself for the rest of a few weary days.”

Agnes was sobbing gently behind her handkerchief. I knew how gladly she would be Joe’s wife, if only to nurse him through his last illness.

“Not except it would make her comfortable too, I grant you, Joe. But listen to me. In the first place, you don’t know, and you are not required to know, when you are going to die. In fact, you have nothing to do with it. Many a life has been injured by the constant expectation of death. It is life we have to do with, not death. The best preparation for the night is to work while the day lasts, diligently. The best preparation for death is life. Besides, I have known delicate people who have outlived all their strong relations, and been left alone in the earth—because they had possibly taken too much care of themselves. But marriage is God’s will, and death is God’s will, and you have no business to set the one over against, as antagonistic to, the other. For anything you know, the gladness and the peace of marriage may be the very means intended for your restoration to health and strength. I suspect your desire to marry, fighting against the fancy that you ought not to marry, has a good deal to do with the state of health in which you now find yourself. A man would get over many things if he were happy, that he cannot get over when he is miserable.”

“But it’s for Aggy. You forget that.”

“I do not forget it. What right have you to seek for her another kind of welfare than you would have yourself? Are you to treat her as if she were worldly when you are not—to provide for her a comfort which yourself you would despise? Why should you not marry because you have to die soon?—if you are thus doomed, which to me is by no means clear. Why not have what happiness you may for the rest of your sojourn? If you find at the end of twenty years that here you are after all, you will be rather sorry you did not do as I say.”

“And if I find myself dying at the end of six months’?”

“You will thank God for those six months. The whole thing, my dear fellow, is a want of faith in God. I do not doubt you think you are doing right, but, I repeat, the whole thing comes from want of faith in God. You will take things into your own hands, and order them after a preventive and self-protective fashion, lest God should have ordained the worst for you, which worst, after all, would be best met by doing his will without inquiry into the future; and which worst is no evil. Death is no more an evil than marriage is.”

“But you don’t see it as I do,” persisted the blacksmith.

“Of course I don’t. I think you see it as it is not.”

He remained silent for a little. A shower of spray fell upon us. He started.

“What a wave!” he cried. “That spray came over the top of the rock. We shall have to run for it.”

I fancied that he only wanted to avoid further conversation.

“There’s no hurry,” I said. “It was high water an hour and a half ago.”

“You don’t know this coast, sir,” returned he, “or you wouldn’t talk like that.”

As he spoke he rose, and going from under the shelter of the rock, looked along.

“For God’s sake, Aggy!” he cried in terror, “come at once. Every other wave be rushing across the breakwater as if it was on the level.”

So saying, he hurried back, caught her by the hand, and began to draw her along.

“Hadn’t we better stay where we are?” I suggested.

“If you can stand the night in the cold. But Aggy here is delicate; and I don’t care about being out all night. It’s not the tide, sir; it’s a ground swell—from a storm somewhere out at sea. That never asks no questions about tide or no tide.”

“Come along, then,” I said. “But just wait one minute more. It is better to be ready for the worst.”

For I remembered that the day before I had seen a crowbar lying among the stones, and I thought it might be useful. In a moment or two I had found it, and returning, gave it to Joe. Then I took the girl’s disengaged hand. She thanked me in a voice perfectly calm and firm. Joe took the bar in haste, and drew Agnes towards the breakwater.

Any real thought of danger had not yet crossed my mind. But when I looked along the outstretched back of the mole, and saw a dim sheet of white sweep across it, I felt that there was ground for his anxiety, and prepared myself for a struggle.

“Do you know what to do with the crowbar, Joe?” I said, grasping my own stout oak-stick more firmly.

“Perfectly,” answered Joe. “To stick between the stones and hold on. We must watch our time between the waves.”

“You take the command, then, Joe,” I returned. “You see better than I do, and you know the ways of that raging wild beast there better than I do. I will obey orders—one of which, no doubt, will be, not for wind or sea to lose hold of Agnes—eh, Joe?”