The Argosy — page 382: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Village Blacksmith. 361 and sounds and paid as little heed to them as most men of his class usually do; but suddenly he stopped and listened, for he fancied he heard the nightingale. Yes, there is no mistaking that song; the nightingale had come, but her song was not yet perfect ; the notes of liquid sweetness dropped from her passionate soul: in short rippling passages; later on her song will lengthen, her ecstasy will be sustained ; this evening’s effort was only a foretaste of what was to come as the days lengthened. “Tt is the nightingale, sure enough, but not in full song. It isn’t a bird, it is a spirit ; the spirit of spring,” said Reuben as he listened. “TI wish my Janet were here to listen to it, she always loved the nightingale ; but the Lord wills otherwise. She is happier out in America than she would be here.” And then Reuben stopped, and taking off his hat prayed, not that Janet might come home to him, but that God’s will might be done in the matter. He was beginning to feel that the best prayer is not, as most people imagine, to try to bend God’s will to man’s, but to bend our will to God’s. This is true prayer, for this is true union, and the end and object of real prayer is union with God. Reuben was beginning to understand the secret of true happiness, his public confession had raised him to a higher level in the spiritual life; he had begun to feel that to will what God wills is real happiness, and when once a man realises that, he carries his heaven about with him. He has an antidote for every pain, a salve for every wound, comfort for every sorrow, consolation for every grief. We need no longer distress ourselves about the happiness of such a man, though he may still have many troubles. The path to this paradise is a stormy one even for those who are saints by nature; for those who are saints by grace it is a fiery furnace ; but it is a heaven which can be entered even on this side of the grave, and the blacksmith by a miracle of grace had entered it. The nightingale and the thoughts it brought put the stranger out of Reuben’s mind for awhile, but after his supper he remembered him, and set out to call on Captain Raleigh: a task by no means congenial to him, for he was a bigoted Baptist and regarded Catholics as little better than heathen idolaters. But for Vera’s sake he over- came his prejudice, thinking that in all probability his strange visitor had something to do with the diamond robbery. The result of this visit was that at eleven o’clock that night the Captain and the blacksmith walked up to the Rectory together, the former carrying a riding-whip instead of a walking-stick. When they were near the house, Lion barked, but a word from Raleigh silenced him. He then went round to the back-door, where he remained like a sentry, while Reuben hid behind a tree from which he could com- mand a full view of the front of the house. ‘There for the moment we will leave them in order to be present at Mark Brown’s interview with the bearded stranger. CORNICLIOO® cS) (SO) mn