Surgeon Paul Faber by George MacDonald (i am malala young readers edition TXT) 📖

praise God with the mirth of the good old hundredth psalm, and not with the fear of the more modern version."

As he spoke he bent to his oars, and through a narrow lane the boat soon shot into Pine-street-now a wide canal, banked with houses dreary and dead, save where, from an upper window, peeped out here and there a sleepy, dismayed countenance. In silence, except for the sounds of the oars, and the dull rush of water everywhere, they slipped along.

"This is fun!" said Helen, where she sat and steered.

"Very quiet fun as yet," answered the curate. "But it will get faster by and by."

As often as he saw any one at a window, he called out that tea and coffee would be wanted for many a poor creature's breakfast. But here they were all big houses, and he rowed swiftly past them, for his business lay, not where there were servants and well-stocked larders, but where there were mothers and children and old people, and little but water besides. Nor had they left Pine street by many houses before they came where help was right welcome. Down the first turning a miserable cottage stood three feet deep in the water. Out jumped the curate with the painter in his hand, and opened the door.

On the bed, over the edge of which the water was lapping, sat a sickly young woman in her night-dress, holding her baby to her bosom. She stared for a moment with big eyes, then looked down, and said nothing; but a rose-tinge mounted from her heart to her pale cheek.

"Good morning, Martha!" said the curate cheerily. "Rather damp-ain't it? Where's your husband?"

"Away looking for work, sir," answered Martha, in a hopeless tone.

"Then he won't miss you. Come along. Give me the baby."

"I can't come like this, sir. I ain't got no clothes on."

"Take them with you. You can't put them on: they're all wet. Mrs. Wingfold is in the boat: she'll see to every thing you want. The door's hardly wide enough to let the boat through, or I'd pull it close up to the bed for you to get in."

She hesitated.

"Come along," he repeated. "I won't look at you. Or wait-I'll take the baby, and come back for you. Then you won't get so wet."

He took the baby from her arms, and turned to the door.

"It ain't you as I mind, sir," said Martha, getting into the water at once and following him, "-no more'n my own people; but all the town'll be at the windows by this time."

"Never mind; we'll see to you," he returned.

In half a minute more, with the help of the windowsill, she was in the boat, the fur-cloak wrapped about her and the baby, drinking the first cup of the hot coffee.

"We must take her home at once," said the curate.

"You said we should have fun!" said Helen, the tears rushing into her eyes.

She had left the tiller, and, while the mother drank her coffee, was patting the baby under the cloak. But she had to betake herself to the tiller again, for the curate was not rowing straight.

When they reached the rectory, the servants might all have been grandmothers from the way they received the woman and her child.

"Give them a warm bath together," said Helen, "as quickly as possible.-And stay, let me out, Thomas-I must go and get Martha some clothes. I shan't be a minute."

The next time they returned, Wingfold, looking into the kitchen, could hardly believe the sweet face he saw by the fire, so refined in its comforted sadness, could be that of Martha. He thought whether the fine linen, clean and white, may not help the righteousness even of the saints a little.

Their next take was a boat-load of children and an old grandmother. Most of the houses had a higher story, and they took only those who had no refuge. Many more, however, drank of their coffee and ate of their bread. The whole of the morning they spent thus, calling, on their passages, wherever they thought they could get help or find accommodation. By noon a score of boats were out rendering similar assistance. The water was higher than it had been for many years, and was still rising. Faber had laid hands upon an old tub of a salmon-coble, and was the first out after the curate. But there was no fun in the poor doctor's boat. Once the curate's and his met in the middle of Pine street-both as full of people as they could carry. Wingfold and Helen greeted Faber frankly and kindly. He returned their greeting with solemn courtesy, rowing heavily past.

By lunch-time, Helen had her house almost full, and did not want to go again: there was so much to be done! But her husband persuaded her to give him one hour more: the servants were doing so well! he said. She yielded. He rowed her to the church, taking up the sexton and his boy on their way. There the crypts and vaults were full of water. Old wood-carvings and bits of ancient coffins were floating about in them. But the floor of the church was above the water: he landed Helen dry in the porch, and led her to the organ-loft. Now the organ was one of great power; seldom indeed, large as the church was, did they venture its full force: he requested her to pull out every stop, and send the voice of the church, in full blast, into every corner of Glaston. He would come back for her in half an hour and take her home. He desired the sexton to leave all the doors open, and remember that the instrument would want every breath of wind he and his boy could raise.

He had just laid hold of his oars, when out of the porch rushed a roar of harmony that seemed to seize his boat and blow it away upon its mission like a feather-for in the delight of the music the curate never felt the arms that urged it swiftly along. After him it came pursuing, and wafted him mightily on. Over the brown waters it went rolling, a grand billow of innumerable involving and involved waves. He thought of the spirit of God that moved on the face of the primeval waters, and out of a chaos wrought a cosmos. "Would," he said to himself, "that ever from the church door went forth such a spirit of harmony and healing of peace and life! But the church's foes are they of her own household, who with the axes and hammers of pride and exclusiveness and vulgar priestliness, break the carved work of her numberless chapels, yea, build doorless screens from floor to roof, dividing nave and choir and chancel and transepts and aisles into sections numberless, and, with the evil dust they raise, darken for ages the windows of her clerestory!"

The curate was thinking of no party, but of individual spirit. Of the priestliness I have encountered, I can not determine whether the worse belonged to the Church of England or a certain body of Dissenters.


CHAPTER XLIII.

THE GATE-LODGE.


Mr Bevis had his horses put to, then taken away again, and an old hunter saddled. But half-way from home he came to a burst bridge, and had to return, much to the relief of his wife, who, when she had him in the house again, could enjoy the rain, she said: it was so cosey and comfortable to feel you could not go out, or any body call. I presume she therein seemed to take a bond of fate, and doubly assure the every-day dullness of her existence. Well, she was a good creature, and doubtless a corner would be found for her up above, where a little more work would probably be required of her.

Polwarth and his niece Ruth rose late, for neither had slept well. When they had breakfasted, they read together from the Bible: first the uncle read the passage he had last got light upon-he was always getting light upon passages, and then the niece the passage she had last been gladdened by; after which they sat and chatted a long time by the kitchen fire.

"I am afraid your asthma was bad last night, uncle dear," said Ruth. "I heard your breathing every time I woke."

"It was, rather," answered the little man, "but I took my revenge, and had a good crow over it."

"I know what you mean, uncle: do let me hear the crow."

He rose, and slowly climbing the stair to his chamber, returned with a half sheet of paper in his hand, resumed his seat, and read the following lines, which he had written in pencil when the light came:

Satan, avaunt!
Nay, take thine hour;
Thou canst not daunt,
Thou hast no power;
Be welcome to thy nest,
Though it be in my breast.

Burrow amain;
Dig like a mole;
Fill every vein
With half-burned coal;
Puff the keen dust about,
And all to choke me out.

Fill music's ways
With creaking cries,
That no loud praise
May climb the skies;
And on my laboring chest
Lay mountains of unrest.

My slumber steep
In dreams of haste,
That only sleep,
No rest I taste-
With stiflings, rimes of rote,
And fingers on the throat.

Satan, thy might
I do defy;
Live core of night,
I patient lie:
A wind comes up the gray
Will blow thee clean away.

Christ's angel, Death,
All radiant white,
With one cold breath
Will scare thee quite,
And give my lungs an air
As fresh as answered prayer.

So, Satan, do
Thy worst with me,
Until the True
Shall set me free,
And end what He began,
By making me a man.

"It is not much of poetry, Ruth!" he said, raising his eyes from the paper; "-no song of thrush or blackbird! I am ashamed that I called it a cock-crow-for that is one of the finest things in the world-a clarion defiance to darkness and sin-far too good a name for my poor jingle-except, indeed, you call it a Cochin-china-cock-crow-from out a very wheezy chest!"

"'My strength is made perfect in weakness,'" said Ruth solemnly, heedless of the depreciation. To her the verses were as full of meaning as if she had made them herself.

"I think I like the older reading better-that is, without the My ," said Polwarth: "'Strength is made perfect in weakness.' Somehow-I can not explain the feeling-to hear a grand aphorism, spoken in widest application, as a fact of more than humanity, of all creation, from the mouth of the human God, the living Wisdom, seems to bring me close to the very heart of the universe. Strength-strength itself-all over-is made perfect in weakness;-a law of being, you see, Ruth! not