mind was like a retrospect over the smiling champaign
of his past life, and very different from the Sinai-gorges
up which one looks for a terrified moment into the
dark souls of many good, many wise, and many prudent
men. I cannot be very grateful to such men for
their excellence, and wisdom, and prudence.
I find myself facing as stoutly as I can a hard, combative
existence, full of doubt, difficulties, defeats, disappointments,
and dangers, quite a hard enough life without their
dark countenances at my elbow, so that what I want
is a happy-minded Smethurst placed here and there
at ugly corners of my life’s wayside, preaching
his gospel of quiet and contentment.
ANOTHER
I was shortly to meet with an evangelist of another
stamp. After I had forced my way through a gentleman’s
grounds, I came out on the high road, and sat down
to rest myself on a heap of stones at the top of a
long hill, with Cockermouth lying snugly at the bottom.
An Irish beggar-woman, with a beautiful little girl
by her side, came up to ask for alms, and gradually
fell to telling me the little tragedy of her life.
Her own sister, she told me, had seduced her husband
from her after many years of married life, and the
pair had fled, leaving her destitute, with the little
girl upon her hands. She seemed quite hopeful
and cheery, and, though she was unaffectedly sorry
for the loss of her husband’s earnings, she
made no pretence of despair at the loss of his affection;
some day she would meet the fugitives, and the law
would see her duly righted, and in the meantime the
smallest contribution was gratefully received.
While she was telling all this in the most matter-of-fact
way, I had been noticing the approach of a tall man,
with a high white hat and darkish clothes. He
came up the hill at a rapid pace, and joined our little
group with a sort of half-salutation. Turning
at once to the woman, he asked her in a business-like
way whether she had anything to do, whether she were
a Catholic or a Protestant, whether she could read,
and so forth; and then, after a few kind words and
some sweeties to the child, he despatched the mother
with some tracts about Biddy and the Priest, and the
Orangeman’s Bible. I was a little amused
at his abrupt manner, for he was still a young man,
and had somewhat the air of a navy officer; but he
tackled me with great solemnity. I could make
fun of what he said, for I do not think it was very
wise; but the subject does not appear to me just now
in a jesting light, so I shall only say that he related
to me his own conversion, which had been effected
(as is very often the case) through the agency of a
gig accident, and that, after having examined me and
diagnosed my case, he selected some suitable tracts
from his repertory, gave them to me, and, bidding
me God-speed, went on his way.
