Pat the Lighthouse Boy

by Evelyn Everett-Green

The man had slowly taken his pipe from his lips whilst the child was speaking, and now sat staring out over the sea with a look on his face that somehow seemed new to Pat, and which made him all of a sudden look different; the little boy could not have said how or why.

"I used to hear tell of Him when I was little," came the reply, very slowly spoken. "My mother used to tell me of Him when I was a little chap no bigger than you. But I went off to sea when I couldn't have been much bigger, and since then there's been nobody to tell me of Him 'cept the gentleman in the prison; and I didn't take friendly to what he said, though I dare say he meant it all kind enough."

"Well, I'll tell you as well as I can," said Pat, settling himself to his task with some relish. "Perhaps you'll remember some of the things I forget, and mother could tell us it all afterwards, if we like. But I can remember a good lot—all the things that matter most. So I'll begin."

And Pat did begin, in rather a roundabout fashion, it is true, and with a good many repetitions and harkings back to things he had forgotten, but still with a zest and good-will that atoned for many defects in style, and with the perfect faith in the truth of what he was saying, that gave a reality to the narrative which nothing else could have done. When it came to the story of the Crucifixion and the Garden of Gethsemane, Pat found, rather to his surprise, that the tears came into his eyes, and that once or twice he could hardly get on with the tale. He remembered that his mother had sometimes cried in telling it to him; but he had never quite understood why. He began to feel as though he did understand now. When he was telling it himself to somebody who was listening, like Jim, it all seemed so much more real. He wanted Jim to understand it all—just as his mother wanted him to understand; and that made him enter into the meaning of the story as perhaps he had hardly ever done before. He was glad when it came to the joyful part, about how the Lord rose again, and showed Himself to His doubting and mourning followers. Jim never spoke the whole time, but sat with his face turned out towards the sea, never moving, and looking sometimes as though he scarcely heard what the child said; yet Pat was convinced that he was listening to every word. It was only when the story had been finished for several minutes that he slowly turned his head round, and Pat saw with surprise that there was a moisture in his eyes that looked exactly as though it were tears.

"That's the story as my mother used to tell it me," he said, in a husky voice. "Do you think as it's all true, little master?"

"Why, of course it's true!" answered Pat, with perfect confidence. "Almost everybody in the world believes it—everybody except the heathen!" (And Pat quite believed this was so.) "Some folks forget, as you did, Jim, and some don't care as they should. But it's every word true. He did die."

"Yes, but why? Why did He die if He needn't have done? Why did He let them nail Him on the cross like that, if He could have had as many angels as He liked to come and take Him away out of their hands?"

"Oh, because, you know, He came to die for us," answered Pat, wrinkling up his forehead, and trying to remember how his mother had answered his questions on this very point. "He was the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world—your sins, Jim, and mine, and everybody's. God could not have forgiven everything if it hadn't been for Jesus, because He is so just as well as so kind. Somebody had to be punished—somebody had to die for us. We couldn't have died for ourselves—not like that, you know, because we are all wicked. It had to be somebody good—like the lamb in the Passover, without blemish—and that could only be Jesus. I don't know if I can explain it right; but it's something like that. There was nobody else, and God loved us so, He sent His own Son. Oh, Jim, it was good of Him! I don't think we love Him, or Jesus, half enough!"

Jim passed his horny hand over his eyes. He didn't speak for some time.

"It doesn't hardly seem as though He could have done it for us—for you and me," continued the child, filled with his own thought. "But He did, I know He did; mother says so, and it's all in the Bible, for she can find the places.