My road has been lonely to-day. A parson came by in the afternoon, a stranger in the neighbourhood, for he asked his way. He talked awhile, and with kindly rebuke said it was sad to see a man of my education brought so low, which shows how the outside appearance may mislead the prejudiced observer. “Was it misfortune?” “Nay, the best of good luck,” I answered, gaily.
The good man with beautiful readiness sat down on a heap of stones and bade me say on. “Read me a sermon in stone,” he said, simply; and I stayed my hand to read.
He listened with courteous intelligence.
“You hold a roadmender has a vocation?” he asked.
“As the monk or the artist, for, like both, he is universal. The world is his home; he serves all men alike, ay, and for him the beasts have equal honour with the men. His soul is ‘bound up in the bundle of life’ with all other souls, he sees his father, his mother, his brethren in the children of the road. For him there is nothing unclean, nothing common; the very stones cry out that they serve.”
Parson nodded his head.
“It is all true,” he said; “beautifully true. But need such a view of life necessitate the work of roadmending? Surely all men should be roadmenders.”
O wise parson, so to read the lesson of the road!
“It is true,” I answered; “but some of us find our salvation in the actual work, and earn our bread better in this than in any other way. No man is dependent on our earning, all men on our work. We are ‘rich beyond the dreams of avarice’ because we have all that we need, and yet we taste the life and poverty of the very poor. We are, if you will, uncloistered monks, preaching friars who speak not with the tongue, disciples who hear the wise words of a silent master.”
“Robert Louis Stevenson was a roadmender,” said the wise parson.