Part 33 (1/2)

CHAPTER IX.

THE WALK TO CHURCH.

I was glad to be able to arrange with a young clergyman who was on a visit to Kilkhaven, that he should take my duty for me the next Sunday, for that was the only one Turner could spend with us. He and I and Wynnie walked together two miles to church. It was a lovely morning, with just a tint of autumn in the air. But even that tint, though all else was of the summer, brought a shadow, I could see, on Wynnie's face.

”You said you would show me a poem of--Vaughan, I think you said, was the name of the writer. I am too ignorant of our older literature,” said Turner.

”I have only just made acquaintance with him,” I answered. ”But I think I can repeat the poem. You shall judge whether it is not like Wordsworth's Ode.

'Happy those early days, when I s.h.i.+ned in my angel infancy; Before I understood the place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy ought But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first love, And looking back, at that short s.p.a.ce, Could see a glimpse of his bright face; When on some gilded cloud or flower My gazing soul would dwell an hour, And in those weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity; Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness.

O how I long to travel back----'”

But here I broke down, for I could not remember the rest with even approximate accuracy.

”When did this Vaughan live?” asked Turner.

”He was born, I find, in 1621--five years, that is, after Shakspere's death, and when Milton was about thirteen years old. He lived to the age of seventy-three, but seems to have been little known. In politics he was on the Cavalier side. By the way, he was a medical man, like you, Turner--an M.D. We'll have a glance at the little book when we go back.

Don't let me forget to show it you. A good many of your profession have distinguished themselves in literature, and as profound believers too.”

”I should have thought the profession had been chiefly remarkable for such as believe only in the evidence of the senses.”

”As if having searched into the innermost recesses of the body, and not having found a soul, they considered themselves justified in declaring there was none.”

”Just so.”

”Well, that is true of the commonplace amongst them, I do believe. You will find the exceptions have been men of fine minds and characters--not such as he of whom Chaucer says,

'His study was but little on the Bible;'

for if you look at the rest of the description of the man, you will find that he was in alliance with his apothecary for their mutual advantage, that he was a money-loving man, and that some of Chaucer's keenest irony is spent on him in an off-hand, quiet manner. Compare the tone in which he writes of the doctor of physic, with the profound reverence wherewith he bows himself before the poor country-parson.”

Here Wynnie spoke, though with some tremor in her voice.

”I never know, papa, what people mean by talking about childhood in that way. I never seem to have been a bit younger and more innocent than I am.”

”Don't you remember a time, Wynnie, when the things about you--the sky and the earth, say--seemed to you much grander than they seem now? You are old enough to have lost something.”

She thought for a little while before she answered.

”My dreams were, I know. I cannot say so of anything else.”

I in my turn had to be silent, for I did not see the true answer, though I was sure there was one somewhere, if I could only find it. All I could reply, however, even after I had meditated a good while, was--and perhaps, after all, it was the best thing I could have said:

”Then you must make a good use of your dreams, my child.”

”Why, papa?”