The Heart of the Family by Elizabeth Goudge

Author:Elizabeth Goudge [Goudge, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

— 3 —

He got up and stretched himself, for time was getting on, and the kids must be carted back to tea. But he was reluctant to leave this place that he liked. To sit here and remember that day, even though he sat broiling in the sun, refreshed him as though he had drunk at a spring of cold water. He felt that way sometimes when he was doing his work and remembering, as he often did, old Æsculapius and surgeons and physicians down the ages who had handed on their wisdom one to the other for the renewing of life in the bodies of men. He grinned, thinking what a study Aunt Margaret’s face would be if he were to tell her that dissecting a corpse or watching someone have their insides cut out refreshed him. Only he would not tell her, fun though it would be, because his love of his work was something that he did not seem able to talk about. And to say that he liked work better than anything else would sound quite crackers. Yet it was true. In spite of this place, and Mother and Robin, it was a bit boring being at home, and he was always panting to get back to work. “Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks.” That was a line of some soppy poem. No, it wasn’t, it was a psalm, and Uncle Hilary would have a fit if he heard him quoting it in this connection. Good Lord! how crazy one’s thoughts were, tumbling out of one’s mind like sausages out of a machine. He grabbed Robin and began to dress him, and the little boy was happy in his hands, and did not mind leaving the water when it meant being handled by Tommy.

“Come on, youngster. Honey for tea.”

He picked up Robin and strode back through the wood, whistling like a blackbird. The wood was very old, and that whistling had echoed in its aisles through many centuries. The young men changed, and the tunes whistled were not the same in one generation as another, but the life and the song that the wood held within its own were eternal.

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