Yet I always suspected Maka of a secret melancholy -these jubilant extremes could scarce be constantly maintained.He was besides long,and lean,and lined,and corded,and a trifle grizzled;and his Sabbath countenance was even saturnine.On that day we made a procession to the church,or (as I must always call it)the cathedral:Maka (a blot on the hot landscape)in tall hat,black frock-coat,black trousers;under his arm the hymn-book and the Bible;in his face,a reverent gravity:-beside him Mary his wife,a quiet,wise,and handsome elderly lady,seriously attired:-myself following with singular and moving thoughts.Long before,to the sound of bells and streams and birds,through a green Lothian glen,I had accompanied Sunday by Sunday a minister in whose house I lodged;and the likeness,and the difference,and the series of years and deaths,profoundly touched me.In the great,dusky,palm-tree cathedral the congregation rarely numbered thirty:the men on one side,the women on the other,myself posted (for a privilege)amongst the women,and the small missionary contingent gathered close around the platform,we were lost in that round vault.The lessons were read antiphonally,the flock was catechised,a blind youth repeated weekly a long string of psalms,hymns were sung -I never heard worse singing,-and the sermon followed.To say I understood nothing were untrue;there were points that I learned to expect with certainty;the name of Honolulu,that of Kalakaua,the word Cap'n-man-o'-wa',the word ship,and a description of a storm at sea,infallibly occurred;and I was not seldom rewarded with the name of my own Sovereign in the bargain.The rest was but sound to the ears,silence for the mind:
第78章 AROUND OUR HOUSE(4)（1 / 3）