There was one never-to-be-forgotten day when he first learned of
something outside his own small world. It was Sunday, and the heavy old
bells were swinging, and his father had gone out through the sunlight
with books under his arm to the church. It struck suddenly upon the
child that this day was different from all the rest; that the little
maid-servant had a cleaner face and a whiter apron, and that his own
tiny suit was one which was laid by in a tall old press all the rest of
the week. Most of our impressions, whatever age we may be, come to us
through the sense of smell, and Comethup's impression of the day came
to him through the scent of the clothes. They bore the same scent as
the big best bedroom upstairs--a room in which no one ever slept and
into which he had peeped one day when the door was open; just such a
scent as that which hung about it had been wafted out to his nostrils
then. He began to see that there must be something "best" about this
day also, as there was about everything connected with it.
When David Willis came back from church, the child had got his
questions ready, and knew exactly what answers he required, as a child
always unerringly does. He asked why all the shops along the other side
of the street were closed, and why the bells rang on that day, and why
the people sang in the big church which loomed above them. And then
he heard for the first time of that other world into which we try so
hard to peer; of that dread Presence--dread to a child--beyond the
skies that shuts in our vision. He was puzzled to understand how his
mother could be right above him, watching to see if he were a good
boy or a bad; and why, in that case, those flowers were put upon that
grass-covered bed of hers out in the churchyard. He pondered the matter
deeply, and was much disconcerted to think that the God of whom every
one seemed so much afraid was all round him and could see everything he
did.
He went one day into the church with his father--an experience indeed!
It was quite empty, save for themselves, and the first thought
that occurred to him was to wonder where the roof was; and why his
voice rumbled and rattled and sprang at him from far above when he
incautiously spoke in his usual shrill treble. The phrase which his
father used--"the house of God"--awed him; he understood why the roof
was so much higher than that of their own house. A lovely pattern of
many colours on the stone pavement at his feet arrested his attention.
He followed the shafts of light upward to the great rose window high
up in the wall over the porch. His heart went a little quicker, and he
gripped his father's hand with his baby fingers. That surely must be
the eye of God looking down at him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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