Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers by Mark Rutherford

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But the buoy was not reached. A hand was on him, firm but soft, grasping
him by the hair at the back of his neck, which he wore long in Puritanic
fashion, and the hand held him and he knew no more. Susan Shipton,
bathing that morning, had seen a human being in the water nearing the
point where she herself so nearly lost her life. Without a moment's
hesitation she made after him, and was fortunate enough to attract the
attention of two men in a punt, who followed her. She came up just in
time, and with their help Michael was saved. He was senseless, but after
a few hours he recovered, and asked his wife, who was standing by his
bedside, who rescued him.

"Why, it was Susan Shipton. She was in the water and came after you, and
then, luckily, there was a boat near at hand."

Susan was on the other side of the bed, and he did not see her. She bent
over him and kissed him.

He turned round, and thoughts rushed through his brain with a rapidity
sufficient to make one short moment a thousand years; but he said
nothing, and presently, almost for the first time in his life, he broke
down into sobbing. He turned away from her and could not look at her.

"You see, Mr. Trevanion," she said smilingly, "just about that very place
I was nearly drowned myself--I don't know whether you ever heard of
it--and I hardly ever keep my eyes off it now when I am anywhere near it,
although I am not afraid of going pretty near after what Robert told me.
When you want a wash again.--I knew you could swim well, by the way, but
I didn't know you ever went into the water now--you must give the buoy a
wider berth." She stooped down and whispered to him--"I never told a
soul before, but it was Robert who saved me. We are quits now. Robert
saved me, and I have done something to save you, though not so much as
Robert, because he had no boat." Then she kissed his forehead again,
delighted at the thought that she could put something into the balance
against her lover's heroism. How proud he would be of her! She would be
able, moreover, to stand up a little bit against him. It was very
pleasant to her to think she owed so much to him, but she liked also to
think that she had something of her own.

Michael caught hold of her round the neck, embracing her with a
passionate fervour which she supposed to be gratitude, but it was not
altogether that.

"Do you know where Robert has gone?" she said. "He was not at home last
night."

"He has gone on--on--some business. I must go too."

"You cannot go just yet; not till you have got over the shock."

"I can--I can. Leave me, and I will dress myself. It is important
business, and I must see him. But, Susan, here--I want you."

It was the first time he had ever called her Susan. She came back to
him. "Listen!" he cried. She bent her head down, but he was silent. At
last, with his arms again around her, he said, "My child, my child, my
child!"

"Me!" she answered innocently. "Do you mean me? do you really? I
couldn't think what you wanted to say, but that's enough. My dearest,
dearest father! Oh, how happy Robert will be! and so am I. We thought
you didn't care for me; and I know I am a poor, foolish girl, not half
good enough for Robert; but I _do_ love him, and I never loved anybody
else; and I _do_ love you."

When she had left, Michael rose from his bed. His faith remained
unchanged, but it presented itself to him in a different shape. A new
and hitherto unnoticed article in his creed forced itself before him.
God's hand--for it _was_ God's hand--had plucked him out of the sea and
brought him back to life. What did that mean? Ah! what was he?--a worm
of the earth! How dare he lift himself up against the Almighty's
designs? The Almighty asked him the question eternally repeated to us,
which He had asked thousands of years ago, "Where wast thou when I laid
the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. . . .
Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings forward to the
south?" "The hawk flies not by my wisdom," murmured Michael to himself,
"nor doth the eagle at my command make her nest on high. Ah, it is by
His wisdom and at His command; how should I dare to interfere? I see
it--I see it all now. 'I have uttered that I understood not; things too
wonderful for me, which I knew not.'" After his fashion and through his
religion he had said to himself the last word which can be uttered by
man. He knelt down and prayed, and although he was much given to
extempore prayer, he did not, in this his most intense moment, go beyond
the prayer of our Lord, which, moreover, expressed what he wanted better
than any words of his own. "_Thy will_," he repeated, "_Thy_ will." His
one thought now was his son, but he knew not where to find him. He went
out and he saw his man, David Trevenna.

"He was off in a hurry; only just caught the coach," said David.

"Who? What coach?"

"Why, Robert; going to Plymouth."

Michael did not answer, but hurried to his stable where his little pony
was kept, and put him in the light cart. He told his wife that he had
some business in Plymouth with Robert, packed up a few things, took some
money, and in a few minutes was on the Truro road. At Truro he found the
mail, and within twelve hours he was at Plymouth. Dismounting, he asked
eagerly if they had a young man at the inn who had come from Cornwall the
day before.

"What, one as is waiting for the packet?"

"Yes," said Michael at a venture.

"Yes, he's here, but he isn't in just now. Gone out for a walk."

The one point in Plymouth to which everybody naturally turns is the Hoe,
and thither Michael went. It was morning in early autumn or late summer,
and the whole Sound lay spread out under the sun in perfect peace. The
woods of Mount Edgecumbe were almost black in the intense light, and far
away in the distance, for the air was clear, a sharp eye might just
discern the Eddystone, the merest speck, rising above the water. It was
a wonderful scene, but Michael saw nothing of it. When he came out of
the street which leads up from the town to the Hoe, he looked round as a
man might look for escape if a devouring fire were behind him, and he saw
his son a hundred yards in front of him gazing over the sea. With a cry
of thanks to his God Michael rushed forward, and just as Robert turned
round caught him in his arms, but could not speak.

At last he found a few words.

"It is all a mistake, Robert--it is all wrong. Susan is yours--she is
mine. Come back with me."

Robert, as much moved as his father, fell on his neck as if he had been a
woman, and then led him gently down the slope, away from curious persons
who had watched this remarkable greeting, and took Michael to be some
strange person who had accidentally met his child or a relative after
long separation.

"Foreigners, most likely; that's their way. It looks odd to English
people," remarked a lady to her daughter. It did look odd, and would
have looked odd to most of us--to us who belong to a generation which
sees in the relationship between father and son nothing more than in that
between the most casual acquaintances with the disadvantage of inequality
of age, a generation to whom the father is--often excusably--a person to
be touched twice a day with the tips of the fingers, a postponement of a
full share in the business, a person to be treated with--respect? Good
gracious! If it were not bad form, it would be a joke worth playing to
slip the chair away from the old man as he is going to sit down, and see
him sprawl on the floor. Why, in the name of heaven, does he come up to
the City every day? He ought to retire, and leave that expensive place
at Clapham, and take a cottage in some cheap part, somewhere in
Cambridgeshire or Essex.

"Robert," said Michael, "I have sinned, although it was for the Lord's
sake, and He has rebuked me. I thought to take upon myself His direction
of His affairs; but He is wiser than I. I believed I was sure of His
will, but I was mistaken. He knows that what I did, I did for love of
your soul, my child; but I was grievously wrong."

The father humbled himself before the son, but in his humiliation became
majestic, and in after years, when he was dead and gone, there was no
scene in the long intercourse with him which lived with a brighter and
fairer light in the son's memory.

"You know nothing then against Susan?"

"Nothing!"

"I found a bit of a letter on your desk from Cadman. I could not help
reading it. Had that anything to do with her?"

"Nothing!"

"Father, you seem faint and you tremble; hadn't you better go in doors
and take something, and lie down? We cannot get home till to-morrow."

The father went to the inn with difficulty; he had tasted no food for
many hours, and had not slept for some time, but he could neither eat nor
sleep. Hitherto God's will had appeared to him ascertainable with
comparative ease, and he had been as certain of the Divine direction as
if he had seen a finger-post or heard the word in his ear. But now he
was dazed and, in doubt. He was convinced that his rescue by Susan was
an interposition of Providence, and if so, then all his former
conclusions were wrong. What was he to do? How was he henceforth to
know the mind of his Master? Oh, how he wished he had lived in the days
when the oracle was not darkened--in the days of Moses, when God spake
from the Mount, when there was the continual burnt-offering at the door
of the tabernacle, "where I will meet you, to speak there unto thee."
God really did intend that Robert should marry Susan! "If righteousness
and judgment," he cried, inverting the Psalm, "are the habitation of His
throne, clouds and darkness are round about Him." But he submitted.
"Thou art wiser than I," he prayed. It was mere presumption then to have
risked the loss of his soul in the blind belief that it was for God's
cause. The sin had been committed, the lie had been uttered; would God
pardon him? and it was mercifully whispered to him that he was forgiven
for His sake. So was he saved from uttermost despair.

In the evening he said he would go out and breathe a little fresh air
before bedtime. It was a perfectly unsullied night, with no moon, but
with brilliant stars. Father and son sat upon a bench facing the sea,
and the lighthouse from the rock sent its bright beam across the water.
There is consolation and hope in those vivid rays. They speak of
something superior to the darkness or storm--something which has been
raised by human intelligence and human effort.

Robert turned round to his father.

"Look at the light, father, fourteen miles away."

But his father did not see any light, or, if he did, it was not the
Eddystone light--he was dead!

Robert never revealed his father's secret to a soul--not even to Susan.
Nobody but Robert ever knew the reason for the journey to Plymouth. His
interpretation of God's designs turned out to be nearer the truth than
that of his father; for Susan, the worldling, as Michael thought her to
be, became a devoted wife, and made Robert a happy husband to the end of
his days.

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson and Co.
Edinburgh and London.

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