Christian fiction; Neighborhoods -- Scotland -- Fiction
“My dear children,” I said, “we must all pray to God for his Spirit, and
then we shall feel just as we ought to feel. It is not for anyone to say
to himself how he ought to feel at any given moment; still less for one
man to say to another how he ought to feel; that is in the former case
to do as St. Paul says he had learned to give up doing--to judge our own
selves, which ought to be left to God; in the latter case it is to do
what our Lord has told us expressly we are not to do--to judge other
people. You get your bonnet, Wynnie, and come out with me. I am going
to explore a little of this desert island upon which we have been cast
away. And you, Connie, just to please Wynnie, must try and go to sleep
again.”
Wynnie ran for her bonnet, a little afraid perhaps that I was going to
talk seriously to her, but showing no reluctance anyhow to accompany me.
Now I wonder whether it will be better to tell what we saw, or only what
we talked about, and give what we saw in the shape in which we reported
it to Connie, when we came back into her room, bearing, like the spies
who went to search the land, our bunch of grapes, that is, of sweet news
of nature, to her who could not go to gather them for herself. I think
it will be the best plan to take part of both plans.
When we left the door of the house, we went up the few steps of a stair
leading on to the downs, against and amidst, and indeed _in_, the rocks,
buttressing the sea-edge of which our new abode was built. A life for a
big-winged angel seemed waiting us upon those downs. The wind still blew
from the west, both warm and strong--I mean strength-giving--and the
wind was the first thing we were aware of. The ground underfoot was
green and soft and springy, and sprinkled all over with the bright
flowers, chiefly yellow, that live amidst the short grasses of the
downs, the shadows of whose unequal surface were now beginning to be
thrown east, for the sun was going seawards. I stood up, stretched out
my arms, threw back my shoulders and my head, and filled my chest with a
draught of the delicious wind, feeling thereafter like a giant refreshed
with wine. Wynnie stood apparently unmoved amidst the life-nectar,
thoughtful, and turning her eyes hither and thither.
“That makes me feel young again,” I said.
“I wish it would make me feel old then,” said Wynnie.
“What do you mean, my child?”
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.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account