Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction; Short stories, English
'Then I, remembering what cry of shipwrecked souls had reached to my
library in the Vicarage, and well guessing what work these wretches
had been at, lifted my voice to accuse them. But the young man Luke
stepped between us, and said he to them gently, "Come, and I will
show what you seek." He went before us for maybe two hundred yards
to the northern end of the beach, they behind him quaking, and I
shepherding them in my righteous wrath. "Behold you," said he, and
again lifted the lantern over a rock dark with seaweed (and yet the
weed shone in the light)--"Behold you, what you have wrecked."
'On their backs along the flat of the rock lay two naked bodies, of a
youth and a maid, half-clasped one to another. He handed me the
lantern for a better look, and in the rays of it the two wretches
peered forward as if drawn against their will. I cannot well say if
they or I first perceived the miracle; that these corpses, as they
lay in the posture, so bore the very likeness of the two lovers on my
sculptured slab. But I remember that, as John and Grace Magor
screamed back and clung to me, and as by the commotion of them
clutching at my knees the lantern fell and was extinguished, I heard
the young man Luke say, "Yourselves, yourselves!"
'I called to him to pick up the lantern; but he did not answer, and
the two clinging wretches encumbered me. After a long while the
clouds broke and the moon shone through them; and where he had stood
there was no one. Also the slab of rock was dark, and the two
drowned corpses had vanished with him. I pointed to it; but there
was no tinder-box at hand to light the lantern again, and in the
bitter weather until the dawn the two clung about me, confessing and
rehearsing their sins.
'I have great hopes that they are brought to a better way of life;
and because (repent they never so much) no one is any longer likely
to recognise in these penitents the originals upon whom it was
moulded these many years ago, I am determined to move the statuary to
a place in the S. aisle of our parish church, as a memorial, the
moral whereof I have leave of John and Grace Magor to declare to all
the parish. I choose to defer making it public, in tenderness, while
they live: for all things point as yet to the permanent saving of
their souls. But, as in the course of nature I shall predecease
them, I set the record here in the Parish Register, as its best
place.
'(Signed) Malachi Hichens, B.D.
'21st Jan., 1719.'
"And is that all?" I asked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account