A Second Coming Part 20

He whom all these people were coming out to see had gone with the lame man across a field-path to a little wood, which lay not far from the road. In the centre of the wood they found a clearing, where the charcoal-burners had built their huts and plied their trade. An old man watched the smouldering heap. He sat on some billets of wood, one of which he was carving with a clumsy knife. The Stranger found a seat upon another heap, and the lame man placed himself, cobbler fashion, upon the turf at His side. For some moments nothing was said. Then the old man broke the silence.

'Strangers hereabouts?'

He replied:

'My abiding-place is not here.'

'So I thought. I fancied I hadn't seen you round about these parts; yet there's something about you I seem to know. Come in here to rest?'

'It is good to rest.'

'That's so; there's nothing like it when you're tired. You look as if you was tired, and you look as if you'd known trouble. There's a comfortable look upon your face which never comes upon a man or woman's face unless they have known trouble. I always says that no one's any good until it shines out of their eyes.'

'Sorrow and joy walk hand in hand.'

'That's it: they walk hand in hand, and you never know one till you've known the other, just as you never know what health is till you've had to go without it. Do you see what I'm doing here? I'm a charcoal-burner by trade, but by rights I ought to have been a wood-carver. There's few men can do more with a knife and a bit of wood than I can. All them as knows me knows it. That's a cross I'm carving. My daughter's turned religious, and she's a fancy that I should cut her a cross to hang in her room, so that, as she says, she can always think of Christ crucified. To me that's a queer start. I always think of Him as Christ crowned.'

'He is crowned.'

'Of course He is. As I put it, what He done earned Him the V.C. It's with that cross upon His breast I like to think of Him. In what He done I can't see what people see to groan about. It was something to glory in, to be proud of.'

'He was crucified by those to whom He came.'

'There is that. They must have been a silly lot, them Jews. They didn't know what they was doing of.'

'Which man knows what he does, or will let G.o.d know, either?'

'It's a sure and certain thing that some of us ain't over and above wise. There do be a good many fools about. I mind that I said to my daughter a good score times: "Don't you have that Jim Bates." But she would. Now he's took himself off and she's took to religion. It's a true fact she didn't know what she was doing of when she had him.'

'Did Jim Bates know what he was doing?'

'I shouldn't be surprised but what he didn't. He never did know much, did Jim. It isn't everyone as can live with my daughter, as he had ought to have known. She's kept house for me these twelve year, so I do know. She always were a contrary piece, she were.'

'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 pa.s.sed 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 jacka.s.s 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sion, William, you draws yourself away from the Lord's end; when your pa.s.sion 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.'