Michael Godwin's Xmas Box

Michael Godwin's farm lay tucked away comfortably in a hollow of the
South Downs. The downs swept up-wards in all directions around it, and on
one side beyond was the sea. The sound of it as it beat against the face
of the cliff and tore the shingle screaming from the little strands,
only to fling it high as it came back again, reached Godwin's Farm as a
subdued murmur. The farm was a pretty place, especially in summer, when
the chalk downs were covered with a thick carpet of beautiful wild
flowers. But it was very lonely. Mr. Hurst, the Vicar, coming to see
Michael at rare intervals, had said to him that such a solitude was only
fit for a beast or a god. His kindly eyes, directed on Michael as he
said it, took out of the words any suggestion of offence.

Michael Godwin only answered that the solitude did him well enough.
There was old Nance in the kitchen to care for the house and him, and
when he wanted talk there weren't many had more interesting things to
tell than old Simon, who had kept the sheep on Godwin's Farm, man and
boy, for 50 years.

It was quite true. No one knew better than the Vicar how wise old Simon
was and what things he could impart once he was won out of his silence.
Still, it didn't seem right that Michael Godwin should not marry. He was
a big, handsome giant of a fellow, showing his Saxon ancestry by his
mass of fair hair, his blue eyes and fair skin, as well as by his name.
Of course there had been a trouble in his past. The girl he had loved
and would have married had deserted him on his wedding eve for a life of
gilded disgrace up in London. It had made a misogynist of the man; yet,
oddly enough, it had not soured the sweetness of his nature. Solitary he
might be, and forbidding to his fellow men; but the beasts could have
told of his gentleness; and there was something in his face--wise with
the wisdom of the fields and the open spaces--that forbade fear in the
hearts of children or animals or wandering beggars or old people.

When he was not engaged in his farming work he liked to dig and plant in
his garden, and he had made it a rich place of flowers. His little
house, ivy covered, the diamond-paned windows looking out from the
overhanging eaves like kind old eyes under beetling brows, was as clean
and comfortable as the heart of man or woman could desire. A thousand
pities that because he lad been ill-treated by a worthless hussy Michael
Godwin should condemn himself to a life of loneliness, and shut the door
of his little paradise against the woman and the children who might have
made his life happy for him.

The Vicar sighed to himself, remembering how the girls would look after
Michael's stalwart figure as it strode through the villages of the town
on market days. But Michael had no eyes for them. He would transact his
business as quickly as might be, and back to his solitude again.

There were very often wrecks on that coast, and then no one could say
that Michael Godwin led a selfish existence, for he was always out as
soon as the bomb summoned the lifeboat men, and he was among the first
in the boats. But when he was looked for to receive praise and thanks he
was not to be found.

A good many people besides Mr. Hurst were of opinion that it was a
thousand pities Michael Godwin could not forget the past and find a good
girl to console him.