THE ROADMENDER




I have attained my ideal: I am a roadmender, some say
stonebreaker. Both titles are correct, but the one is more
pregnant than the other. All day I sit by the roadside on a
stretch of grass under a high hedge of saplings and a tangle of
traveller's joy, woodbine, sweetbrier, and late roses. Opposite me
is a white gate, seldom used, if one may judge from the trail of
honeysuckle growing tranquilly along it: I know now that whenever
and wherever I die my soul will pass out through this white gate;
and then, thank God, I shall not have need to undo that trail.

In our youth we discussed our ideals freely: I wonder how many
beside myself have attained, or would understand my attaining.
After all, what do we ask of life, here or indeed hereafter, but
leave to serve, to live, to commune with our fellowmen and with
ourselves; and from the lap of earth to look up into the face of
God? All these gifts are mine as I sit by the winding white road
and serve the footsteps of my fellows. There is no room in my life
for avarice or anxiety; I who serve at the altar live of the altar:
I lack nothing but have nothing over; and when the winter of life
comes I shall join the company of weary old men who sit on the
sunny side of the workhouse wall and wait for the tender mercies of
God.

Just now it is the summer of things; there is life and music
everywhere--in the stones themselves, and I live to-day beating out