A Second Coming

'The world is full of discords, but He who plays upon it tunes one note after another. In the end it will be all in tune.'

'There's a good many of us as'll wish that we was deaf before that time comes.'

'Because many men are deaf they take no heed of the harmonies.'

'There's something in that. I shouldn't wonder but what there's a lot of music as no one notices. The more you speak, the more I seem to know you. You're like a voice I've heard talking to me when the speaker was hid by the darkness.'

'I have spoken to you often.'

'Ay, I believe you have. I thought I knew you from the first. I felt so comfortable when you came. All the morning I've been troubled, what with worries at home and the pains what seems all over me, so that I can't move about as I did use to; and then when I saw you coming along the path all the trouble was at an end.'

'I heard you calling as I passed along the road.'

'You heard me calling? Why, I never opened my mouth!'

'Not the words of the lips are heard in heaven, but none ever called from his heart in vain.'

The charcoal-burner rose from his heap of billets.

'Why, who are you?' He came closer, peering with his dim eyes. 'It is the Lord! What an old fool I am not to have known You from the first! Yet I felt that it was You.'

'You know Me, although you knew Me not.'

'And me that's known You all my life, and my old woman what knew You too! Anyhow, I'd have seen You before long.'

'You have seen Me from the first.'

'Not plain-not plain. I've heard You, and I've known that You was there, but I haven't seen You as I've tried to. You know the sort of chap I am-a silly old fool what's been burning since I was a little nipper. I ain't no scholar. The likes of me didn't have no schooling when I was young, and I ain't no hand at words; but You know how I'm all of a twitter, and there ain't no words what will tell how glad I am to see You. Like the silly old jackass that I am, I'm a-cryin'!'

The Stranger stood up, holding out His hand.

'Friend!'

The charcoal-burner put his gnarled, knotted, and now trembling hand into the Stranger's palm.

'Lord! Lord!'

'So often I have heard you call upon My Name.'

'Ay, in the morning when the day was young; at noon, when the work was heavy; at night, when rest had come. Youth and man, You've been with me all the time, and with my old woman, too.'

'She and I met long since.'

'My old woman! She was a good one to me, she was.'

'And to Me.'

'A better wife no man could have. It weren't all lavender, her life wasn't, but it smelt just as sweet as if it were.'

'The perfume of it ascended into heaven.'

'My temper, it be short. There were days when I was sharp with her. She'd wait till it was over, and me ashamed, and then she'd say: "Each time, William, you be in a passion it do bring you nearer to the Lord." I'd ask her how she made that out, and she'd say: "'Tis like a bit of 'lastic, William. When you pulls it the ends get drawed apart, but when you lets it go again, the ends come closer than they was before. When you be in a passion, William, you draws yourself away from the Lord's end; when your passion be over, back you goes with a rush, until you meets Him plump. Only," she'd say, "don't you draw away too often, lest the 'lastic break." I never could tell if she were laughing at me, or if she weren't. But I do know she did make me feel terrible ashamed. I used to wonder if the Lord's temper ever did go short.'

'The Lord is like unto men-He knows both grief and anger.'

'Seems to me as how He wouldn't be the Lord if He didn't. He feels what we feels, or how'd He be able to help us?'

'The Lord and His children are of one family. Did you not know that?'

'I knowed it. But there's them as thinks the Lord's a fine gentleman, what's always a-looking you up and down, and that you ain't never to come near Him without your best clothes and your company manners on. Seems to me the Lord don't only want to know you now and then, He wants to know you right along. If you can't go to Him because you be mucked with charcoal, it be bitter hard.'

'You know you can.'

'I do know you can, I do. When I've been as black as black can be I've felt Him just as close as in the chapel Sundays.'

'The Lord is not here or there, in the house or in the field; He is with His children.'

'Hebe that! He be!'.

CHAPTER XIII

A TRIUMPHAL ENTRY

The people came to meet the Lord upon the Ripley road, and they were not a few.

The first that found Mr. Treadman were Mrs. Powell and Harvey Gifford. They took a fly from the station, bidding the driver drive straight on. Nor had they gone far before they came on Mr. Treadman sitting on a gate. They cried to him:

'What is the meaning of your telegram?'

'It means that the Lord has come again, in very surety and very truth.'

'Are you in earnest?'

'Did they not ask that question of the prophets? Were they in earnest? Then am I.'

'But where is He?'

'He has given me the slip.'

'Given you the slip? What do you mean?'

Mr. Treadman explained. While he did so, others arrived, men and women of all sorts, ranks, and ages. They were agog with curiosity.

'What like is He to look at? Does the sight of Him blind, as it did Moses?'

'Nothing of the sort. He is just an ordinary man, like you and me.'

'An ordinary man! Then how can you tell it is the Lord?'