Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood

by George MacDonald

And what makes me remember it yet? It is the smile that lighted up his face in response to mine. For it was more than I looked for. And his answer helped to fix the smile in my memory.

“You made me think, sir, that perhaps, after all, we were much of the same way of thinking, only perhaps you was a long way ahead of me.”

Now the man was not right in saying that we were much of the same way of THINKING; for our opinions could hardly do more than come within sight of each other; but what he meant was right enough. For I was certain, from the first, that the man had a regard for the downright, honest way of things, and I hoped that I too had such a regard. How much of selfishness and of pride in one’s own judgment might be mixed up with it, both in his case and mine, I had been too often taken in—by myself, I mean—to be at all careful to discriminate, provided there was a proportion of real honesty along with it, which, I felt sure, would ultimately eliminate the other. For in the moral nest, it is not as with the sparrow and the cuckoo. The right, the original inhabitant is the stronger; and, however unlikely at any given point in the history it may be, the sparrow will grow strong enough to heave the intruding cuckoo overboard. So I was pleased that the man should do me the honour of thinking I was right as far as he could see, which is the greatest honour one man can do another; for it is setting him on his own steed, as the eastern tyrants used to do. And I was delighted to think that the road lay open for further and more real communion between us in time to come.

“Well,” I answered, “I think we shall understand each other perfectly before long. But now I must see your father, if it is convenient and agreeable.”

“My father will be delighted to see you, I know, sir. He can’t get so far as the church on Sundays; but you’ll find him much more to your mind than me. He’s been putting ever so many questions to me about the new parson, wanting me to try whether I couldn’t get more out of you than the old parson. That’s the way we talk about you, you see, sir. You’ll understand. And I’ve never told him that I’d been to church since you came—I suppose from a bit of pride, because I had so long refused to go; but I don’t doubt some of the neighbours have told him, for he never speaks about it now. And I know he’s been looking out for you; and I fancy he’s begun to wonder that the parson was going to see everybody but him. It WILL be a pleasure to the old man, sir, for he don’t see a great many to talk to; and he’s fond of a bit of gossip, is the old man, sir.”

So saying, Weir led the way through the shop into a lobby behind, and thence up what must have been a back-stair of the old house, into a large room over the workshop. There were bits of old carving about the walls of the room yet, but, as in the shop below, all had been whitewashed. At one end stood a bed with chintz curtains and a warm-looking counterpane of rich faded embroidery. There was a bit of carpet by the bedside, and another bit in front of the fire; and there the old man sat, on one side, in a high-backed not very easy-looking chair. With a great effort he managed to rise as I approached him, notwithstanding my entreaties that he would not move. He looked much older when on his feet, for he was bent nearly double, in which posture the marvel was how he could walk at all. For he did totter a few steps to meet me, without even the aid of a stick, and, holding out a thin, shaking hand, welcomed me with an air of breeding rarely to be met with in his station in society. But the chief part of this polish sprung from the inbred kindliness of his nature, which was manifest in the expression of his noble old countenance. Age is such a different thing in different natures! One man seems to grow more and more selfish as he grows older; and in another the slow fire of time seems only to consume, with fine, imperceptible gradations, the yet lingering selfishness in him, letting the light of the kingdom, which the Lord says is within, shine out more and more, as the husk grows thin and is ready to fall off, that the man, like the seed sown, may pierce the earth of this world, and rise into the pure air and wind and dew of the second life. The face of a loving old man is always to me like a morning moon, reflecting the yet unrisen sun of the other world, yet fading before its approaching light, until, when it does rise, it pales and withers away from our gaze, absorbed in the source of its own beauty. This old man, you may see, took my fancy wonderfully, for even at this distance of time, when I am old myself, the recollection of his beautiful old face makes me feel as if I could write poetry about him.

“I’m blithe to see ye, sir,” said he. “Sit ye down, sir.”

And, turning, he pointed to his own easy-chair; and I then saw his profile. It was delicate as that of Dante, which in form it marvellously resembled. But all the sternness which Dante’s evil times had generated in his prophetic face was in this old man’s replaced by a sweetness of hope that was lovely to behold.

“No, Mr Weir,” I said, “I cannot take your chair. The Bible tells us to rise up before the aged, not to turn them out of their seats.”

“It would do me good to see you sitting in my cheer, sir. The pains that my son Tom there takes to keep it up as long as the old man may want it! It’s a good thing I bred him to the joiner’s trade, sir. Sit ye down, sir. The cheer’ll hold ye, though I warrant it won’t last that long after I be gone home. Sit ye down, sir.”