David's Little Lad

by L. T. Meade

Nods and smiles from all. No tears, as there might have been—as there might have been had they known...

It is not very long, measured by weeks and hours, since David and I took that drive to Tintern; but I think, as God counts time, one day being sometimes as a thousand years, it is very long ago. It has pushed itself so far back now in the recesses of my memory—so many events have followed it, that I cannot tell what we spoke, or even exactly what we did. By-and-by, when the near and the far assume their true proportions, I may know all about it; but not just now. At present that drive to Tintern is very dim to me. But not my visit to Tintern itself. Was I heartless? It is possible, if I say here that the beauty of Tintern gave me pleasure on that day. If I say that this was the case, then some, who don’t understand, may call me heartless. For when I entered the old ruin of Tintern my heart did throb with a great burst of joy.

I had always loved beautiful things—God’s world had always a power over me. In my naughty fits as a child, I had sat on the edge of a cliff, gazed down at the waves, and grown quiet. However rebellious I had been when I went there, I had usually returned, in half-an-hour, penitent; ready to humble myself in the very dust for my sins. Not all the voices of all the men and women I knew, could affect me as nature could. For six months now, I had been living in a very ugly country—a country so barren and so desolate, that this longing in me was nearly starved; but even at Ffynon I had found, in my eager wanderings, now and then, a little gurgling stream—now and then, some pretty leaves and tufts of grass, and these had ministered to me. Still the country was ugly, and the place black and barren—what a change to the banks of the Wye, and the ruins of Tintern. When I entered the Abbey, I became conscious for the first time that the day was a spring one—soft, sunshiny, and bright. I looked around me for a moment, almost giddy with surprise and delight; then I turned to David, and laid my hand on his arm.

“May I sit here,” pointing to a stone at the right side of the ruin, “may I sit here and think, and not speak to any one for half-an-hour?”

I was conscious that David’s eyes were smiling into mine.

“You may sit there and lose yourself for half-an-hour, little woman, but not longer, I will come back for you in half-an-hour.”

When David left me, I pulled out my watch; it was past three, in half-an-hour I would tell him.

But for half-an-hour I would give myself up to the joy—no, that is the wrong word—to the peace that was stealing over me. I have said that I was not practically religious. Had anybody asked me, I should have answered, “No, no, I have a worldly heart;” but sitting there in the ruins, the longing for God rose to a strange and passionate intensity. Last night I had said “My Father,” with the faint cry of a hardly acknowledged belief. I said it again now, with the satisfied sound of a child. The words brought me great satisfaction, and the sense of a very present help, for my present need.

The bright sunlight flickered on the green grass. I sat back, clasped my hands and watched it. A light breeze stirred the dark ivy that twined round the ruins, some cows were feeding in the shade under the western window outside—I could see their reflections—two men, of the acknowledged tourist stamp, were perambulating on the walls; these men and the happy dumb creatures were the only living things I saw. But I did not want life just then, the lesson I needed and was learning was the lesson of the dead. I had looked at a little dead child that morning, now I looked at the dead work of centuries. The same thought came to me in connection with both—God did it; the old monks of Tintern are with God, little David is with God. To be with God must be for good, not for evil to His creatures. If only then by death we can get quite away to God, even death must be good.

It is a dreadful thing when we can only see the evil of an act; once the good, however faintly, appears, then the light comes in. The light came back to me now, and I felt it possible that I could tell David about the death of the child. Meanwhile I let my soul and imagination rest in the loveliness before me. Here was not only the beauty of flower and grass, of tree, and sky, and river, but here also was the wonderful beauty God put long ago into the hearts of men. It grew in chancel, and aisle, and pillar, and column. The minds may have conceived, but the hearts must have given depth and meaning to the conception. The mind is great, but the heart is greater. I saw the hearts of the old monks had been at work here. No doubt they fasted, and wrestled in prayer, and had visions, some of them, as they reared this temple, of another and greater built without hands. The many-tinted walls of the New Jerusalem may have been much in their thoughts as the light of their painted windows streamed on their heads when they knelt to pray.