 Chapter 15 of David Elginbrod This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. David Elginbrod by George MacDonald Chapter 15 Transition Tell me, bright boy, tell me, my golden lad, Whither away so frolic, why so glad? What all thy wealth and counsel, all thy state, Are hust so dear, trouth, tis a mighty rate? Richard Crascha The long scotch winter passed by without any interruption to the growing friendship. But the spring brought a change, and Hugh was separated from his friends sooner than he had anticipated, by more than six months. For his mother wrote to him in great distress, in consequence of a claim made upon her for some debt, which his father had contracted, very probably for Hugh's own sake. Hugh could not bear that any such should remain undischarged, or that his father's name should not rest in peace, as well as his body and soul. He requested therefore from the lair the amount due to him, and dispatched almost the whole of it for the liquidation of this debt, so that he was now as unprovided as before for the expenses of the coming winter at Aberdeen. But about the same time a fellow student wrote to him with news of a situation for the summer, worth three times as much as his present one, and to be procured through his friend's interest. Hugh, having engaged himself to the lair only for the winter, although he had intended to stay till the commencement of the following session, felt that, although he would much rather remain where he was, he must not hesitate a moment to accept his friend's offer, and therefore wrote at once. I will not attempt to describe the parting. It was very quiet, but very solemn and sad. Janet showed far more distressed than Margaret, for she wept outright. The tear stood in David's eyes as he grasped the youth's hand in silence. Margaret was very pale, that was all. As soon as Hugh disappeared with her father, who was going to walk with him to the village through which the coach passed, she hurried away and went to the fur wood for comfort. Hugh found his new situation in Perthshire very different from the last. The heads of the family being themselves a lady and a gentleman, he found himself a gentleman too. He had more to do, but his work left him plenty of leisure notwithstanding. A good portion of his spare time he devoted diverse making, to which he felt a growing impulse, and whatever may have been the merit of his compositions, they did him intellectual good at least, if it were only through the process of their construction. He wrote to David after his arrival, telling him all about his new situation, and received in return a letter from Margaret written at her father's dictation. The mechanical part of letter writing was rather laborious to David, but Margaret wrote well in consequence of the number of papers of one sort and another, which she had written for Hugh. Three or four letters more passed between them at lengthening intervals, then they ceased. On Hugh's side first, and tell, when on the point of leaving for Aberdeen, feeling somewhat conscious, stricken, and not having written for so long, he scribbled a note to inform them of his approaching departure, promising to let them know his address as soon as he found himself settled. Will it be believed that the session went by without the redemption of this pledge? Surely he could not have felt, to any approximate degree, the amount of obligation he was under to his humble friends. Perhaps indeed he may have thought that the obligation was principally on their side, as it would have been if intellectual assistance could outweigh heart kindness and spiritual impulse and enlightenment. For unconsciously, in a great measure to himself, he had learned from David to regard in a new and more real aspect many of those truths which he had hitherto received as true, and which he had then told produced in him no other than a feeling of the commonplace and uninteresting at the best. Besides this, and many cognated advantages, a thousand seeds of truth must have surely remained in his mind, dropped there from the same tongue of wisdom, and only waiting, the friendly aid of a hard winter, breaking up the cold, selfish clods of play, to share in the loveliness of a new spring, and be perfected in the beauty of a new summer. However this may have been, it is certain that he forgot his old friends, far more than he himself could have thought it possible he should. For to make the best of it, youth is easily attracted and filled with the present show, and easily forgets that which, from distance in time or space, has no show to show. Spending his evenings in the midst of merry faces and ready tongues, fluent with the tones of jollity, if not always of wit, which glided sometimes into no to earn his discussion of the difficult subjects occupying their student hours, surrounded by the vapors of whiskey toddy and the smoke of cutty pipes, till far into the short hours, then hurrying home and lapsing into unrefreshing slumbers over intending study, or sitting up all night to prepare the tasks which had been neglected for a ball or an evening with Wilson, the great interpreter of Scottish song, it is hardly to be wondered at that he should lose the finer consciousness of higher powers and deeper feelings, not from any behavior in itself wrong, but from the hurry, noise, and tumult in the streets of life, that penetrating too deep into the house of life dazed and stupefied, the silent and lonely watcher in the chamber of conscience far apart. He had no time to think or feel. The session drew to a close. His shoot-alled idleness shut himself up after class hours with his books. Eight little, studied hard, slept irregularly, working always best between midnight and two in the morning, carried the first honors in most of his classes, and at length breathed freely but with a dizzy brain, and a face that revealed in pale cheeks and red, weary eyes the results of an excess of mental labor. An excess which is as injurious as any other kind of intemperance, the moral degradation alone kept out of view. Proud of his success, he sat down and wrote a short note, with the simple statement of it to David, hoping in his secret mind that he would attribute his previous silence to an absorption and study which had not existed before the end of the session was quite at hand. Now that he had more time for reflection, he could not bear the idea that the noble rustic face should look disapprovingly or, still worse, coldly upon him, and he could not help feeling as if the old plowman had taken the place of his father as the only man of whom he must stand in awe and who had a right to approve him. He did approve him now, though unintentionally. For David was delighted at having such good news from him, and the uneasiness which he had felt but never quite expressed was almost swept away in the conclusion that it was unreasonable to expect the young man to give his time to them, both absent and present, especially when he had been occupied to such good purpose as this letter signified. So he was nearly at peace about him, though not quite. He received from him the following letter and replied to his, dictated as usual to his secretary Margaret, My dear sir, you'll be a great man some day, again ye hold at it, but do not be gotten at the outlay of more than their worth. You can what I mean, and there is better things nor being a great man after all. Forgive the liberty I take in reminding ye of sitchlike, I'm only reminding ye of what ye can well enough. But you're a brave lad, and ye have been an uncle friend to me and mine, and I pray the Lord to thank you for me, for ye have done good to his parents, meaning me and mine. I'm very kind of ye to write till is in the very moment of victory, but we'll ye can't that amid all your friends, and ye cannot fault to have money of one with a head and a face like yours. There was no one nay nay on that would rejoice more over your success than Janet or Madhu, Maggie, or your own old oblige friend and servant, David Elginbrod. P.S., we're a wheel and Uncle Bly that you're letter, Maggie. P.S., too. Dear Mr. Sutherland, I wrote all the above at my father's dictation, and just as he said it, for I thought you would like his scotch better than my English. My mother and myself are rejoiced at the good news. My mother fairly great outright. I go'd out to the tree where I met you first. I wonder soar sometimes if you was the angel I was to meet in the fur wood. I am your obedient servant, Margaret Elginbrod. The letter certainly touched you, but he could not help feeling rather offended that David should write to him in such a warning tone. He had never addressed him in this fashion when he saw him every day. Indeed, David could not very easily have spoken to him thus. But writing is a different thing, and men who are not much accustomed to use a pen often assume a more solemn tone in doing so as if it were a ceremony that required state. As for David having been a little uneasy about Hugh and not much afraid of offending him, for he did not know his weakness very thoroughly and did not take into account the effect of the very falling away which he dreaded in increasing in him pride, and that impatience of the gentlest reproof natural to every man. He felt considerably relieved after he had discharged his duty in this memento vivere. But one of the results, and a very unexpected one, was that a yet longer period elapsed before Hugh wrote again to David. He meant to do so and meant to do so, but as often as the thought occurred to him, was checked both by consciousness and by pride. So much contributes, not the evil alone that is in us, but the good also sometimes to hold us back from doing the thing we ought to do. It now remained for Hugh to look about for some occupation. The state of his funds rendered immediate employment absolutely necessary, and as there was only one way in which he could earn money without yet further preparation, he must but take himself to that way, as he had done before, in the hope that it would lead to something better. At all events it would give him time to look about him and make up his mind for the future. Many a one to whom the occupation of a tutor is far more irksome than it was to Hugh, is compelled to turn his acquirements to this immediate account, and what's going in this groove can never get out of it again. But Hugh was hopeful enough to think that his reputation at the university would stand him in some stead, and however much he would have disliked the thought of being a tutor all his days, occupying a kind of neutral territory between the position of a gentleman and that of a menial, he had enough of strong sacks and good sense to prevent him, despite his highland pride, from seeing any great hardship and laboring still for a little while, as he had labored hitherto. But he hoped to find a situation more desirable than either of those he had occupied before, and, with his expectation, looked towards the south, as most scotchmen do, indulging the national impulse to spoil the Egyptians. Nor did he look long, sending his tentacles afloat in every direction before he heard, through means of a college friend, of just such a situation as he wanted in the family of a gentleman of fortune in the county of Surrey, not much more than twenty miles from London. This he was fortunate enough to obtain without difficulty. Margaret was likewise on the eve of a change. She stood like a young, fledged bird on the edge of the nest, ready to take its first long flight. It was necessary that she should do something for herself, not so much from the compulsion of immediate circumstances as in prospect of the future. Her father was not an old man, but at best he could leave only a trifle at his death. And if Janet outlived him, she would probably require all that, and what labor she would then be capable of as well, to support herself. Margaret was anxious too, though not to be independent, yet not to be burdensome. Both David and Janet saw that, by her peculiar taste and habits, she had separated herself so far from the circle around her that she could never hope to be quite comfortable in that neighborhood. It was not that by any means she despised or refused the labor's common to the young women of the country, but, all things considered, they thought that something more suitable for her might be procured. The Laird's lady continued to behave to her in the most supercilious manner. The very day of Hughes' departure, she had chance to beat Margaret walking alone with the book, this time unopened in her hand. Mrs. Glassford stopped. Margaret stopped too, expecting to be addressed. The lady looked at her all over from head to foot, as if critically examining the appearance of an animal she thought of purchasing, then, without a word but with a contemptuous toss of the head, passed on, leaving poor Margaret both angry and ashamed. But David was much respected by the gentry of the neighborhood, with whom his position as the Laird's steward brought him not unfrequently into contact, and to several of them he mentioned his desire of finding some situation for Margaret. Janet could not bear the idea of her lady Baron leaving them to encounter the world alone, but David, though he could not help sometimes feeling a similar pain, was able to take to himself hearty comfort from the thought that if there was any safety for her in her father's house there could not be less in her heavenly father's in any nook of which she was as full in his eye and as near his heart as in their own cottage. He felt that anxiety in this case, as in every other, would just be a lack of confidence in God, to suppose which justifiable would be equivalent to saying that he had not fixed the foundations of the earth, that it should not be moved, that he was not the Lord of life, nor the father of his children, in short that a sparrow could fall to the ground without him, and that the hairs of our head are not numbered. Janet admitted all this, but sighed nevertheless. So did David, too, at times, for he knew that the sparrow must fall, that many a divine truth is hard to learn, all blessed as it is when learned, and that sorrow and suffering must come to Margaret ere she could be fashioned into the perfection of a child of the kingdom. Still, she was as safe abroad as at home. An elderly lady of fortune was on a visit to one of the families in the neighborhood. She was in want of a lady's maid, and it occurred to the housekeeper that Margaret might suit her. This was not quite what her parents would have chosen, but they allowed her to go and see the lady. Margaret was delighted with the benevolent looking gentlewoman, and she on her part was quite charmed with Margaret. It was true she knew nothing of the duties of the office, but the present maid who was leaving on the best of terms would soon initiate her into its mysteries. And David and Janet were so much pleased with Margaret's account of the interview that David himself went to see the lady. The sight of him only increased her desire to have Margaret, whom she said she would treat like a daughter if only she were half as good as she looked. Before David left her, the matter was arranged, and within a month, Margaret was born in her mistress's carriage, away from father and mother, and caught her in her home, and Chapter 15, and Book 1, Chapter 16 of David Elginbrod. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. David Elginbrod by George McDonald. Book 2. Arnstead. The earth hath bubbles as the water has. Macbeth. Act 1, Scene 3. Chapter 16. A New Home. A wise man's home is wherever he's wise. John Marston, Antonio's revenge. Hugh left the North Dead in the arms of Gray Winter, and found his new abode already alive in the breath of the west wind. As he walked up the avenue to the house, he felt that the buds were breaking all about. Though the night being dark and cloudy, the green shadows of the coming spring were invisible. He was received at the hall door and shown to his room by an old, apparently confidential and certainly important butler whose importance, however, was inoffensive as founded to all appearance on a sense of family and not of personal dignity. Refreshment was then brought him with the message that, as it was late, Mr. Arnold would defer the pleasure of meeting him till the morning at breakfast. Left to himself, Hugh began to look around him. Everything suggested a contrast between his present position and that which he had first occupied about the same time of the year at Turry Puffet. He was in an old, handsome room of dark Wayne Scott, furnished like a library with bookcases about the walls. One of them, with glass doors, had an ancient escritoir underneath, which was open and evidently left empty for his use. A fire was burning cheerfully in an old high grate, but its light, though assisted by that of two wax candles on the table, failed to show the outlines of the room. It was so large and dark. The ceiling was rather low in proportion and a huge beam crossed it. At one end, an open door revealed a room beyond, likewise lighted with firing candles. Entering, he found this to be an equally old-fashioned bedroom to which his luggage had been already conveyed. As far as creature comforts go, thought Hugh, I have fallen on my feet. He rang the bell, had the tray removed, and then proceeded to examine the bookcases. He found them to contain much of the literature with which he was most desirous of making an acquaintance. A few books of the day were interspersed. The sense of having good companions in the authors around him added greatly to his feeling of comfort, and he retired for the night, filled with pleasant anticipation of his sojourn at Arnstead. All night, however, his dreams were of wind and snow, and Margaret out in them alone. Janet was waiting in the cottage for him to bring her home. When he woke, the shadows of buds and budding twigs were waving in changeful network tracery across the bright sunshine on his window curtains. Before he was called, he was ready to go down, and to amuse himself till breakfast, he proceeded to make another survey of the books. He concluded that these must be a colony from the mother library, and also that the room must, notwithstanding be intended for his special occupation, seen as bedroom opened out of it. Next he looked from all the windows to discover into what kind of a furrow in the face of the old earth he had fallen. All he could see was trees and trees, but oh, how different from the somber, dark, changeless furwood at Turry Puffet, whose trees looked small and shrunken in his memory, beside this glory of bows breaking out into their prophecy of an infinite greenery at hand. His room seemed to occupy the end of a small wing at the back of the house, as well as he could judge. His sitting room windows looked across a small space to another wing, and the windows of his bedroom, which were at right angles to those of the former, looked full into what seemed an ordered ancient forest of gracious trees of all kinds, coming almost close to the very windows. They were the trees which had been throwing their shadows on these windows for two or three hours of the silent spring sunlight at once so liquid and so dazzling. Then he resolved to test his faculty for discovery by seeing whether he could find his way to the breakfast room without a guide. In this he would have succeeded without much difficulty, for it opened from the main entrance hall to which the huge square turned oak staircase by which he had ascended led. Had it not been somewhat intricate nature of the passages leading from the wing in which his rooms were, evidently an older and more retired portion of the house, to the main staircase itself. After opening many doors and finding no thoroughfare, he became convinced that, in place of finding a way on, he had lost the way back. At length he came to a small stair which led him down to a single door. This he opened and straight away found himself in the library, a long, low, silent looking room every foot of the walls of which was occupied with books in varied and rich bindings. The lozenge-pained windows, with thick stone bullions, were much overgrown with ivy, throwing a cool green shadowiness into the room. One of them, however, had been altered to a more modern taste and opened with full-beamed doors upon a few steps descending into an old-fashioned terrace garden. To approach this window he had to pass a table, line on which he saw a paper with verses on it, evidently in a woman's hand and apparently just written for the ink of the corrective scores still glittered. Just as he reached the window which stood open, a lady had almost gained it from the other side coming up the steps from the garden. She gave a slight start when she saw him, looked away, and as instantly glanced toward him again, then approaching him through the window for he had retreated to allow her to enter, she bowed with a kind of studied ease and a slight shade of something French in her manner. Her voice was very pleasing, almost bewitching, yet had at the same time something assumed if not affected in the tone. All this was discoverable or rather spiritually palpable in the two words she said, merely, Mr. Sutherland, interrogatively, he bowed and said, I am very glad you have found me for I had quite lost myself. I doubt whether I should ever have reached the breakfast room. Come this way, she rejoined. As they passed the table on which the verses lay, she stopped and slipped them into a riding case. Leading him through a succession of handsome evidently modern passages, she brought him across the main hall to the breakfast room, which looked in the opposite direction of the library, namely to the front of the house. She rang the bell, the urn was brought in, and she proceeded at once to make the tea, which she did well, rising in Hugh's estimation thereby. Before he had time, however, to make his private remarks on her exterior or his conjectures on her position in the family, Mr. Arnold entered the room with a slow, somewhat dignified step and a dull outlook of grey eyes from a grey head well balanced tall rather slender frame. The lady rose, and addressing him as Uncle, bade him good morning, a greeting which he returned cordially with a kiss on her forehead. Then accosting Hugh with the manner which seemed more polite and cold, after the tone in which he had spoken to his niece, he bade him welcome to Arnstead. I trust you were properly attended to last night, Mr. Sutherland. Your pupil wanted very much to sit up till you arrived, but he is altogether too delicate, I am sorry to say, for late hours, though he has an unfortunate preference for them himself. Jacob, to the man in waiting, is not Master Harry up yet. Master Harry's entrance at that moment rendered reply unnecessary. Good morning, Euphra, he said to the lady and kissed her on the cheek. Good morning, dear, was the reply accompanied by pretense of returning the kiss, but she smiled with a kind of confectionary sweetness on him, and dropping an additional lump of sugar into his tea at the same moment, placed it for him beside herself. While he went and shook hands with his father and then glancing shyly up at Hugh from a pair of large, dark eyes, put his hand in his and smiled revealing teeth of a pearly whiteness. The lips, however, did not contrast them sufficiently, being pale and thin, with indication of suffering in their tremulous lines. Taking his place at table, he trifled with his breakfast, and after making pretense of eating for a while, asked Euphra if he might go. She, giving him leave, he hastened away. Mr. Arnold took advantage of his retreat to explain to Hugh what he expected of him with regard to the boy. How old would you take Harry to be, Mr. Sutherland? I should say about twelve from his size, replied Hugh, but from his evident bad health and intelligent expression. Ah, you perceive the state he is in, interrupted Mr. Arnold with some sadness in his voice. You are right, he is nearly fifteen. He has not grown half an inch in the last twelve months. Perhaps that is better than growing too fast, said Hugh. Perhaps, perhaps, we will hope so. But I cannot help being uneasy about him. He reads too much and I have not yet been able to help it, for he seems miserable and without any object in life if I compel him to leave his books. Perhaps we can manage to get over that in a little while. Besides, Mr. Arnold went on paying no attention to what Hugh said. I can get him to take no exercise. He does not even care for writing. I bought him a second pony a month ago and he has not been twice on its back yet. Hugh could not help thinking that to increase the supply was not always the best mode of increasing the demand and that one who would not ride the first pony would hardly be likely to ride the second. Mr. Arnold concluded with the words, I don't want to stop the boy's reading but I can't have him a milk-sob. Will you let me manage him as I please, Mr. Arnold? Hugh ventured to say. Mr. Arnold looked full at him with a very slight but quite manifest expression of surprise and he was aware that the eyes of the lady, called by the boy Euphra, were likewise fixed upon him penetratingly as if he were then for the first time struck by the manly development of Hugh's frame, Mr. Arnold answered, I don't want you to overdo it either you cannot make a muscular Christian of him. The speaker smiled at his own imagined wit. The boy has talents and I want him to use them. I will do my best for him both ways answered Hugh, if you will trust me. For my part, I think the only way is to make the operation of the intellectual tendency on the one side reveal to the boy himself his deficiency on the other. This, once done, all will be well. As he said this, Hugh caught sight of a cloudy inscrutable dissatisfaction slightly contracting the eyebrows of the lady. Mr. Arnold, however, seemed not to be altogether displeased. Well, he answered, I have my plans but let us see first what you can do with yours. If they fail perhaps you will oblige me by trying mine. This was said with the decisive politeness of one who is accustomed to have his own way and fully intends to have it every word is articulate and deliberate as organs of speech could make it but he seemed at the same time somewhat impressed by Hugh and not unwilling to yield. Throughout the conversation the lady had said nothing but had sat watching or rather scrutinizing Hugh's countenance with a far keener and more frequent glance than I presume Hugh was at all aware of. Whether or not she was satisfied with her conclusions she allowed no sign to disclose but breakfast being over rose and withdrew however at the door insane. When you please Mr. Sutherland I shall be glad to show you what Harry has been doing with me for till now I have been his only tutor. Thank you replied Hugh but for some time we shall be quite independent of school books perhaps we may require none at all. He can read I presume fairly well. Reading is not only his forte but his fault replied Mr. Arnold while you for a fixing one more piercing look upon him withdrew. Yes replied Hugh but a boy may shuffle through a book very quickly and have no such accurate perceptions of even the mere words as to be able to read aloud intelligibly. How little this applied to Harry Hugh was soon to learn. Well, you know best about these things I dare say I leave it to you. With such testimonials as you have Mr. Sutherland I can hardly be wrong in letting you try your own plans with him. Now I must bid you good morning. You will in all probability find Harry in the library. End Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of David Elgin Broad This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org David Elgin Broad by George MacDonald Chapter 17 Harry's New Horse Spelander Unterricht Hestnikl Demkinde Anstrangogen Esparzen Abnehem Sondren Welch im Dijs Starksten Acht Nostikt und Elektet Jean-Paul Dij und Stikbar Lodz It is not the intention of sportive instruction that the child should be spared effort or delivered from it but that thereby a passion should be wakened in him which shall both necessitate and facilitate the strongest exertion. He made no haste to find his pupil in the library thinking it better with such a boy not to pounce upon him as if he were going to educate him directly. He went to his own rooms instead got his books out and arranged them supplying thus in a very small degree the scarcity of modern ones in the bookcases then arranged his small wardrobe looked about him a little and finally went to seek his pupil. He found him in the library as he had been given to expect coiled up on the floor in a corner with his back against the bookshelves and an old folio on his knees which he was reading in silence. Well Harry said Hugh in a half indifferent tone as he threw himself on a couch what are you reading? Harry had not heard him come in he started and almost shudder then looked up hesitated rose and as if a shame uttered the name of the book brought it to Hugh opening it at the titled page as he held it out to him it was the old romance of Paul Alexander he knew nothing about it but glancing over some of the pages could not help wondering that the boy should find it interesting do you like this very much? said he well no yes rather I think I could find you something oh please sir may I read this? pleaded Harry with signs of distress in his pale face oh yes certainly if you wish but tell me why you want to read it so very much because I have set myself to read it through Hugh saw that the child was in a diseased state of mind as well as a body you should not set yourself to read anything before you know whether it is worth reading I could not help it I was forced to say I would to whom? to myself may I read it certainly was all Hugh's answer for he saw that he must not pursue the subject at present the boy was quite hypochondriacal his face was keen with that clear definition of feature which suggests superior intellect he was though very small for his age well proportioned the fact that his head and face were too large his forehead indicated thought and Hugh could not doubt that however uninteresting the books which he read might be they must have afforded him subjects of mental activity but he could not help seen as well that this activity if not altered in its direction and modified in its degree would soon destroy itself either by ruining his feeble constitution altogether or which was more to be feared might irremediably injuring the action of the brain he resolved however to let him satisfy his conscience by reading the book hoping by the introduction of other objects of thought and feeling to render it so distasteful that he would be in little danger of yielding a similar pledge again even should the temptation return which Hugh hoped to prevent but you have read enough for the present have you not said he rising and approaching the bookshelves yes I have been reading since breakfast there is a capital book have you ever read it Gulliver's Travels no the outside looked always so uninteresting so does Paul Alexander's outside yes but I couldn't help that one well come along I will read to you oh thank you that will be delightful but must we not go to our lessons I'm going to make a lesson of this I have been talking to your papa and we're going to begin with the holiday instead of ending with one I must get better acquainted with you first Harry before I can teach you right we must be friends you know the boy crept close up to him laid one thin hand on his knee looked in his face for a moment and then without a word sat down on the couch close beside him before an hour had passed Harry was laughing hardly at Gulliver's adventures among the Liliputians having arrived at this point of success he ceased reading and began to talk to him is that lady your cousin yes isn't she beautiful I hardly know yet I have not got used to her enough yet what is her name oh such a pretty name Euphrasia is she the only lady in the house yes my mama is dead you know she was ill for a long time they say and she died when I was born the tears came in the poor boy's eyes he thought of his own father and put his hand on Harry's shoulder Harry laid his head on Hugh's shoulder but he went on Euphrasia is so kind to me and she is so clever too she knows everything have you no brothers or sisters no none I wish I had well I'll be your big brother only you must mind what I say to you else I shall stop being him is it a bargain yes to be sure cried Harry into light and springing from the couch he began hopping feebly about the room on one foot to express his pleasure well then that's settled now you must come and show me the horses your ponies you know and the pigs I don't like the pigs I don't know where they are well we must find out perhaps I shall make some discoveries for you have you any rabbits no a dog though surely no I had a canary but the cat killed it and I have never had a pet since well get your cap and come out with me I will wait for you here Harry walked away he seldom ran he soon returned with his cap and they sallied out together happening to look back at the house from it he thought he saw you for a standing at the window of a back staircase they made the round of the stables and the cow house and the poultry yard and even the pigs as proposed came in for a share of their attention as they approached the stye Harry turned away his head with the look of disgust they were eating out of the trough they make such a nasty noise he said yes but just look Harry looked at them the notion of their enjoyment seemed to dawn upon him as something quite new he went nearer and nearer to the stye at last a smile broke out over his countenance how tight that one curls his tail said he and burst out laughing how dreadfully this boy must have been mismanaged thought he to himself but there is no fear of him now I hope by this time he was about for more than an hour and he saw by Harry's increased paleness that he was getting tired here Harry get on my back my boy and have a ride you're tired and he knelt down Harry shrunk back I shall sew your coat with my shoes nonsense rub them well on the grass there and then get on my back directly Harry did as he was bid and found his tutors broad back in a small saddle so away they went wandering about for a long time in their new relation of horse and his rider at length they got into the middle of a long narrow avenue quite neglected overgrown with weeds and obstructed with rubbish but the trees were fine beaches of great growth and considerable age one end led far into a wood and the other towards the house a small portion of which could be seen at the end the avenue appearing to reach close up to it don't go down this said Harry well it's not a very good road for a horse certainly but I think I can go it what a beautiful avenue why is it so neglected don't go down there please dear horse Harry was getting wonderfully at home with you already why asked you they call it the ghost walk and I don't much like it it has a strange distracted look that's a long word in a descriptive one too thought Hugh but considering that there would come many a better opportunity of combating the boys fears than now he simply said very well Harry and proceeded to leave the avenue by the other side but Harry was not yet satisfied please Mr. Sutherland don't go on that side just now ride me back please it is not safe they say to cross her path she always follows anyone who crosses her path Hugh laughed but again said very well my boy and returning left the avenue by the side by which he had entered it shall we go home to luncheon now said Harry yes replied Hugh could we not go by the front of the house I should like very much to see it oh certainly said Harry and proceeded to direct you how to go but evidently did not know quite to his own satisfaction there being however but little foliage yet Hugh could discover his way pretty well he promised himself many a delightful wanderer in the woody regions in the evenings they managed to get round to the front of the house not without some difficulty and then Hugh saw to his surprise that although not imposing an appearance it was in extent more like a baronial residence than that of a simple gentleman the front was very long apparently of all ages and of all possible styles of architecture the result being somewhat mysterious and eminently picturesque all kinds of windows all kinds of projections and recesses a house here joined to a hall there here a pointed gable the very bell on the top overgrown and apparently choked with ivy there a wide front with large bay windows and next a turret of old stone not a shred of ivy upon it but crowded over with grey-green lichens which looked as if the stone itself had taken to growing multitudes of roofs of all shapes and materials so that one might very easily be lost amongst the chimneys and gutters and dormer windows and pinnacles made up the appearance of the house on the outside to Hugh's first inquiring glance as he passed at a little distance with Harry on his back he saw a small bell before him but as he looked at the house of Arnstead Euphra was looking at him with the boy on his back from one of the smaller windows was she making up her mind you are as kind to me as Euphra said Harry as Hugh set him down in the hall I've enjoyed my ride very much thank you Mr. Sutherland I'm sure Euphra will like you very much she likes everybody End Chapter 17 Chapter 18 of David Elginbrod this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org David Elginbrod Chapter 18 Euphrasia then purged with Euphrasian Rue the visual nerve for he had much to see the paradise lost B-11 soft music came to my ear it was like the rising breeze that whirls at first the thistle's beard then flies dark shadowy over the grass it was the maid of far-fed wild she raised a nightly song first she knew that my soul was a stream that flowed at pleasant sounds Oshin Oina Moral in the dining room a large oak hall with gothic windows and an open roof supported by richly carved woodwork in the squares amidst which were painted mini scoochins parted by fanciful devices over the high stone carving above the chimney hung an old piece of tapestry occupying the whole space between that and the roof it represented a hunting party of ladies and gentlemen just setting out the table looked very small in the center of the room though it would have seated 12 or 14 it was already covered for luncheon and in a minute Eufra entered and took her place without a word Hugh sat on one side and Harry on the other Eufra having helped both to soup turned to Harry and said well Harry I hope you have enjoyed your first lesson very much answered Harry with a smile I have learned pigs and horseback the poy is positively clever thought Hugh Mr. Sutherland he continued has begun to teach me to like creatures but I thought you were very fond of your well-bees book Harry oh yes but that was only in the book you know I like the stories about them of course but like pigs you know is quite different they are so ugly and ill-bred I like them though you seem to have quite gained Harry already said Eufra glancing at Hugh and looking away as quickly we are very good friends and Shelby I think replied he Harry looked at him affectionately and said to him not to Eufra oh yes that we shall I am sure then turning to the lady do you know Eufra he is my big brother you must mind how you make new relations though Harry for you know that would make him my cousin well you will be a kind of cousin to him won't you I will try replied Eufra looking up at Hugh with a naive expression of shyness and the slightest possible blush Hugh began to think her pretty almost handsome his next thought was to wonder how old she was but about this he could not at once make up his mind she might be 4 and 20 she might be 2 and 30 she had black lusterless hair and a patch as far as color was concerned but they could sparkle and probably flash upon occasion a low forehead but very finely developed in the faculties that dwell above the eyes slender but very dark eyebrows just black arched lines in her rather shallow complexion nose straight and nothing remarkable an excellent thing in woman a mouth indifferent when at rest but capable of a beautiful laugh she was rather tall and of a pretty enough figure hands good feet invisible Hugh came to these conclusions rapidly enough now that his attention was directed to her for though naturally unobservant his perception was very cute as soon as his attention was roused thank you he replied to her pretty speech I shall do my best to deserve it I hope you will Mr. Sutherland rejoins she with another arch look take some wine Harry she poured out a glass of sherry and gave it to the boy who drank it with some eagerness Hugh could not approve of this but thought it too early to interfere turning to Harry he said now Harry you have had rather a tiring morning I should like you to go and lie down a while very well Mr. Sutherland replied Harry who seemed rather deficient in combativeness as well as other boys for shoots in the library no have a change in my bedroom no I think not go to my room and lie on the couch till I come to you Harry went in Hugh partly for the sake of saying something and partly to justify his treatment of Harry told you whose surname he did not yet know that they had been about all the morning ending with some remark on the view of the house in front she heard the account of their proceedings with the parent indifference replying only to the remark with which he closed it it is rather a large house is it not for three I beg your pardon for four persons to live in Mr. Sutherland it is indeed it quite bewilders me to tell the truth I don't quite know above the half of it myself Hugh thought this rather strange assertion large as the house was but she went on I lost myself between the housekeeper's room and my own no later than last week I suppose there was a particle of truth in this and that she had taken a wrong turning in an abstracted fit perhaps she did not mean it to be taken as absolutely true you have not lived here long then not long for such a great place a few years I am only a poor relation she accompanied this statement with another swift uplifting of the eyelids but this time her eyes rested for a moment on Hughes with something of a pleading expression and when they fell a slight sigh followed Hugh felt that he could not quite understand her a vague suspicion crossed his mind that she was bewitching him but vanished instantly he replied to her communication by a smile in the remark you have the more freedom then did you know Harry's mother he added after a pause no she died when Harry was born she was very beautiful and they say very clever but always in extremely delicate health between ourselves I doubt if there was much sympathy that is if my uncle and she quite understood each other but that is an old story a pause followed Euphra resumed as to the freedom you speak of Mr. Sutherland I do not quite know what to do with it I live here as if the place were my own and give what orders I please but Mr. Arnold shows me little attention he is so occupied with one thing and another I hardly know what and if he did perhaps I should get tired of him so except when we have visitors which is not very often the time hangs rather heavily on my hands but you are fond of reading and writing too I suspect he ventured to say she gave him another of her glances in which the apparent shyness was mingled with something for which you could not find a name nor did he suspect long after that it was in reality slinus so tempered with archness that if discovered it might easily pass for an expression playfully assumed oh yes she said one must read a book now and then and if a verse again a glance and a slight blush should come up from nobody knows where one may as well write it down but please do not take me for a literary lady indeed I make not the slightest pretensions I don't know what I should do without Harry and indeed you must not steal him from me Mr. Sutherland I should be very sorry replied to you let me beg you as far as I have a right to do so to join us as often in as long as you please I will go and see how he is I am sure the boy only wants thorough rousing alternated with perfect repose he went to his own room where he found Harry to his satisfaction fast asleep on the sofa he took care not to wake him but sat down beside him to read till his sleep should be over but a moment after the boy opened his eyes with a start and a shiver and gave a slight cry when he saw Hugh he jumped up and with a smile which was pitiful to see upon his scared face said oh I'm so glad you were there what is the matter dear Harry I had a dreadful dream what was it I don't know it always comes it is always the same I know that and yet I can never remember what it is Hugh soothed him as well as he could and he needed it for the cold drops were standing on his forehead when he had grown calmer he went and fetched Gulliver and to the boy's delight read to him till dinner time before the first bell rang he had quite recovered and indeed seemed rather interested in the approach of dinner dinner was an affair of some state at Arnstead almost immediately after the second bell had wrong Mr Arnold made his appearance in the drawing room where the others were already waiting for him this room had nothing of the distinctive character of the parts of the house which you had already seen it was merely a handsome modern room of no great size Arnald led you to dinner and Hugh followed with Harry Mr Arnold's manner to Hugh was the same as in the morning studiously polite without the smallest approach to cordiality he addressed him as an equal it is true but an equal who could never be in the smallest danger of thinking he meant it Hugh who without having seen a great deal of the world yet felt much the same wherever he was took care to give him all that he seemed to look for at least as was consistent with his own self-respect he soon discovered that he was one of those men who if you will only grant their position and acknowledge their authority will allow you to have much your own way in everything his servants had found this out long ago and almost everything about the house was managed as they pleased but as the oldest of them were respectable family servants nothing went very far wrong they all however waited on you fro with an assiduity that showed she was or could be quite mistress when and where she pleased perhaps they had found out that she had great influence with Mr Arnold and certainly he seemed very fond of her indeed after a stately fashion she spoke to the servants with peculiar gentleness never said if you please but always thank you Harry never asked for anything but always looked to you fro who gave the necessary order he saw that the boy was quite dependent upon her seeming of himself scarcely capable of originating the simplest action Mr Arnold however dull as he was could not help seeing that Harry's manner was livelier than usual and seemed pleased at the slight change already visible for the better turning to Hugh he said do you find Harry very much behind with his studies Mr Sutherland I have not yet attempted to find out replied Hugh not said Mr Arnold with surprise no if he be behind I feel confident it will not be for long but began Mr Arnold pompously and then he paused you are kind enough to say Mr Arnold that I might try my own plans with him first I have been doing so yes certainly but here Harry broke in with some animation Mr Sutherland has been my horse carrying me about on his back all the morning no not all the morning but an hour or an hour and a half or it was two hours Mr Sutherland I really don't know Harry answered you I don't think it matters much Harry seemed relieved and went on he has been reading Gulliver's travels to me and I was such fun and we have been to see the cows and the pigs and Mr Sutherland has been teaching me to jump he jumped right over the pony's back without touching it Mr Arnold stared at the boy with lustrous eyes and hanging cheeks these grew red as if he were going to choke such behavior was quite inconsistent with the dignity of Arnstead and its tutor who had been recommended to him as a thorough gentleman but for the present he said nothing probably because he could think of nothing to say certainly Harry seems better already than the interposed Euphra I cannot help thinking Mr Sutherland has made a good beginning Mr Arnold did not reply but the cloud wore away from his face by degrees and at length he asked you to take a glass of wine with him when Euphra rose from the table and Harry followed her example he thought it better to rise as well Mr Arnold seemed to hesitate whether or not to ask him to resume his seat and have a glass of claret to rise in the pedagogue no doubt he would have insisted on his company sure of acquiescence from him in every sentiment he might happen to utter but he really looked so very much like a gentleman and stated his own views or adopted his own plans with so much independence that Mr Arnold judged it safer to keep him at arm's length for a season at least till he should thoroughly understand his position not that of a guest but that of his son's tutor belonging to the household of Arnstead for approval on leaving the dining room Hugh hesitated in his turn whether to take himself to his own room or to accompany Euphra to the drawing room the door of which stood open on the opposite side of the hall revealing a brightness and warmth which the chill of the evening and the loneliness of the fire in the dining room rendered quite enticing but Euphra who was half across the hall seemed to divine his thoughts turned and said are you not going to favor us with your company Mr Sutherland with pleasure replied Hugh but to cover his hesitation added I will be with you presently and ran upstairs to his own room the old gentleman sits on his dignity can hardly be said to stand on it thought he as he went the poor relation as she calls herself treats me like a guest she is mistress here however that is clear enough he descended the stairs to the drawing room a voice rose through the house like the voice of an angel at least so thought Hugh hearing it for the first time it seemed to take his breath away as he stood for a moment on the stairs listening it was only Euphra singing the flowers of the forest the drawing room door was still open and her voice rang through the wide lofty hall he entered almost on tiptoe that he might lose no thread of the fine tones had she chosen this song of Scotland out of compliment to him she saw him enter but went on without hesitating even in the high notes her voice had that peculiar vibratory richness which belongs to the nightingales but he could not help thinking that the low tones were deficient both in quality and volume the expression and execution however would have made up for a thousand defects her very soul seemed brooding over the dead upon her field as she sang this most well full of melodies this embodiment of a nation's grief the song died away as if the last breath had gone with it failing as it failed and ceasing with its inspiration as if the voice that sang lived only for and in that song a moment of intense silence followed then before Hugh had half recovered from the former with an almost grand dramatic recoil as if the second sprang out of the first like an eagle of might out of an ocean of weeping she burst into scott's huahai she might have been a new debra heralding her nation to battle Hugh was transfixed turned to icy cold with the excitement of his favorite song so sung was that a glance of satisfied triumph with which Euphra looked at him for a single moment she sang the rest of the song as if the battle were already gained more at Hugh the excellence of her tones and the lambent fluidity of her transitions if I may be allowed the phrase were made by her art quite subservient to the expression and owed their cheap value to the share they bore in producing it possibly there was a little too much of the dramatic in her singing but it was all in good taste and in a word Hugh had never heard such singing before as soon as she had finished she rose and shut the piano do not do not faltered Hugh seeking to arrest her hand as she closed the instrument I can sing nothing after that she said with emotion or perhaps excitement for the trembling of her voice might be attributed to either cause do not ask me Hugh respectfully desisted but after a few minutes pause ventured to remark I cannot understand how you should be able to sing scott's song so well I never heard any but scotch women sing them even endurably before your singing of them is perfect it seems to me said Euphra speaking as if she would rather have remained silent that a true musical penetration is independent of styles and nationalities it can perceive or rather feel and reproduce at the same moment if the music speaks scotch the musical nature hears scotch it can take any shape indeed cannot help taking any shape presented to it Hugh was yet further astonished by this criticism from one whom he had been criticizing with so much carelessness that very day you think then said he modestly not as if he would bring her to book but as really seeking to learn from her that a true musical nature can pour itself into the mold of any song in entire independence of association and education yes in independence of any but what it may provide for itself Euphraja however had left one important element unrepresented in the construction of her theory namely the degree of capability which a mind may possess of sympathy with any given class of feelings the blossom of the mind whether it flower poetry, music or any other art must be the exponent of the nature and condition of that whose blossom it is no mind therefore incapable of sympathizing with the feelings once it springs can interpret the music of another and Euphra herself was rather a remarkable instance of this forgotten fact further conversation on the subject was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Arnold who looked rather annoyed at finding Hugh in the drawing room and ordered Harry off to bed with some little asperity of tone the boy rose at once rang the bell, bade them all good night and went a servant met him at the door with the candle and accompanied him thought Hugh here are several things to be rid of at once the boy must not have wine and he must have only one dinner a day especially if he is ordered to bed so early I must make a man of him if I can he made inquiries and with some difficulty found out where the boy slept during the night he was several times in Harry's room and once unhappy time to wake him from a nightmare dream the boy was so overcome with terror that Hugh got into bed beside him and comforted him to sleep in his arms nor did he leave him till it was time to get up when he stole back to his own quarters which happily were at no very great distance I may mention here that it was not long before Hugh succeeded in stopping the wine and reducing the dinner to a mouthful of supper Harry as far as he was concerned yielded at once and his father only held out long enough to satisfy his own sense of dignity and Chapter 18 Chapter 19 of David Elgin Broad this is a Libravox recording all Libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libravox.org David Elgin Broad by George McDonald Chapter 19 The Cave in the Straw All knowledge and wonder which is the seed of knowledge is an impression of pleasure in itself Lord Bacon Advancement of Learning The following morning dawned in a cloud which swathed about the trees down to the roots without having time to become rain they drank it in like sorrow the only material out of which true joy can be fashioned this cloud of mist would yet glimmer in a new heaven namely in the cloud of glooms which would clothe the limes and the chestnuts and the beaches along the ghost's walk but there was gloomy weather within doors as well for poor Harry was especially sensitive and aware of the fact himself again he found him in the library seated in his usual corner with Paul Alexander on his knees he half dropped the book when he entered and murmured with a sigh it's no use I can't read it what's the matter Harry said his tutor I should like to tell you but you will laugh at me I shall never laugh at you Harry never? no never then tell me how I can be sure that I have read this book I do not quite understand you ah I was sure nobody could be so stupid as I am do you know Mr. Sutherland I seem to have read a page from top to bottom sometimes and when I come to the bottom I know nothing about it and doubt whether I have read it at all and then I stare at it all over again till I grow so queer and sometimes nearly scream you see I must be able to say I have read the book why? nobody will ever ask you perhaps not but you know that is nothing I want to know that I have read the book really and truly read it he thought for a moment and seemed to see that the boy not being strong enough to be a law to himself just needed a benign law from without to lift him from the chaos of feeble and mounting notions and impulses within which generated a false law of slavery so he said Harry am I your big brother yes Mr. Sutherland then not you to do what I wish or what you wish yourself what you wish sir then I want you to put away that book for a month at least oh Mr. Sutherland I promised to whom to myself but I am above you and I want you to do as I tell you will you Harry yes put away the book then Harry sprang to his feet put the book on itself and going up to Hugh said you have done it not me certainly Harry the notions of a hypochondriacal child will hardly be interesting to the greater part of my readers but Hugh learned from this lesson about divine law which he never forgot now Harry added he you must not open a book till I allow you no poetry either said poor Harry and his face fell I don't mind poetry so much but of prose I will read as much to you as will be good for you come let us have a bit of gulliver again oh how delightful cried Harry I am so glad you made me put away that tiresome book I wonder why it insisted so on being read Hugh read for an hour and then made Harry put on his cloak not withstanding the rain which fell in a slow thoughtful spring shower taking the boy again on his back he carried him into the woods there he told him how the drops of wet sank into the ground and then went running about through it in every direction looking for seeds little things that wanted to grow and could not till a drop came and gave them drink and he told him how the raindrops were made up in the skies and then came down like millions of angels to do what they were told in the dark earth the good drops went into all the cellars and dungeons of the earth to let out the imprisoned flowers and he told them how the seeds when they had drunk the raindrops wanted another kind of drink next which was much thinner and much stronger but could not do them any good till they had drunk the rain first what is that? said Harry I feel as if you were reading out of the Bible Mr. Sutherland it is the sunlight answered his tutor when a seed has drunk of the water and is not thirsty anymore it wants to breathe next and then the sun sends a long small finger fire down into the grave where the seed is lying and it touches the seed and to grow bigger and bigger till it sends up two green blades out of it into the earth and through the earth into the air and then it can breathe and then it sends roots down into the earth and the roots keep drinking water and the leaves keep breathing the air and the sun keeps them alive and busy and so a great tree grows up and God looks at it and says it is good then they really are living things said Harry certainly thank you Mr. Sutherland I don't think I shall dislike rain so much anymore Hugh took him next into the barn where they found a great heap of straw recalling his own boys' amusements he made him put off his cloak and helped to make a tunnel into this heap Harry was delighted the straw was so nice and bright and dry and clean they drew it out by hand folds and thus excavated a round tunnel to the distance of six feet or so to more extended operations before it was time to go to lunch they cleared half of a hollow sphere six feet in diameter out of the heart of the heap after lunch for which Harry had been very unwilling to relinquish the straw hut Hugh sent him to lie down for a while when he fell fast to sleep as before after he had left the room Euphra said how do you get on with Harry Mr. Sutherland perfectly to my satisfaction answered you do you not find him very slow quite the contrary you surprise me but you have not given him any lessons yet I have given him a great many and he is learning them very fast I fear he will have forgotten all my poor labors before you take up the work where we left it when will you give him any book lessons not for a while yet Euphra did not reply her silence seemed intended to express dissatisfaction at least so Hugh interpreted I hope you do not think it is to indulge myself that I manage Master Harry in this peculiar fashion he said the fact is he is a very peculiar child and may turn out a genius or a weakling just as he is managed at least so it appears to me at present may I ask where you left the work you were doing with him he was going through the eaten grammar for the third time answered Euphra with a defiant glance almost a dislike at you but I need not enumerate his studies for I dare say you will not take them up at all after my fashion I only assure you I have been a very exact disciplinarian what he knows I think you will find he knows thoroughly so saying Euphra rose and with a flush of her cheek walked out of the room in a more stately manner than usual Hugh felt that he had somehow or other offended her but to tell the truth he did not much care for her manner had rather irritated him he retired to his own room, wrote to his mother and when Harry awoke carried him again to the barn for an hour's work in the straw before it grew dusk they had finished a little silent dark chamber as round as they could make it in the heart of the straw all the excavated material they had thrown on the top reserving only a little to close up the entrance when they pleased the next morning was still rainy and when Hugh found Harry in the library as usual he saw that the clouds had again gathered over the boy's spirit he was pacing about the room in a very odd manner the carpet was divided diamond wise in a regular pattern Harry's steps were for the most part planted upon every third diamond as he slowly crossed the floor in a variety of directions for as on previous occasions he had not perceived the entrance of his tutor but every now and then the boy would make the most sudden and irregular change in his mode of progression setting his foot on the most unexpected diamond at one time the nearest to him at another the farthest within his reach when he looked up and saw his tutor watching him he neither started nor blushed but still retaining on his countenance the perplexed anxious expression which Hugh had remarked said to him how can god know on which of those diamonds I am going to set my foot next if you could understand how god knows Harry then you would know yourself but before you have made up your mind you don't know which you will choose and even then you only know on which you intend to set your foot for you have often changed your mind after making it up to what is puzzled as before why Harry to understand how god understands you would need to be as wise as he is so there is no use trying you see you can't quite understand me though I have a real meaning in what I say I see it as no use but I can't bear to be puzzled but you need not be puzzled you have no business to be puzzled you are trying to get into your little brain what is far too grand and beautiful to get into it would you not think it very stupid to puzzle yourself how to put a hundred horses into a stable with twelve stalls Harry laughed and looked relieved it is more unreasonable a thousand times to try to understand such things for my part it would make me miserable to think that there was nothing but what I could understand I should feel as if I had no room anywhere should we go to our cave again oh yes please cried Harry and in a moment he was on his back once more cantering joyously to the barn after various improvements including some enlargement of the interior Hugh and Harry sat down together in the low yellow twilight of their cave to enjoy the result of their labors they could just see by the light from the tunnel the glimmer of the golden hollow all about them the rain was falling heavily out of doors and they could hear the sound of the multitudinous drops of the broken cataract of the heavens a farmer of the insects in a summer wood they knew that everything outside was rained upon and was again raining on everything beneath it while they were dry and warm this is nice exclaimed Harry after a few moments of silent enjoyment this is your first lesson in architecture said Hugh am I to learn architecture asked Harry in a rueful tone it is well to know how things come to be done if you should know nothing more about them Harry men lived in the cellars first of all and next on the ground floor but they could get no further till they joined the two and then they could build higher I don't quite understand you sir I did not mean you should Harry and I don't mind sir but I thought architecture was building so it is and this is one way of building it is only making an outside by pulling out an inside instead of making an inside by setting up an outside Harry thought for a while and then said joyfully I see it sir I see it the inside is the chief thing not the outside yes Harry and not an architecture only never forget that they lay for some time in silence listening to the rain that length Harry spoke I have been thinking of what you told me yesterday Mr. Sutherland about the rain going to look for the seeds that were thirsty for it and now I feel just as if I were a seed lying in its little hole in the earth and hearing the rain drops pattering down all about it waiting I was so thirsty for some kind drop to find me out and give me itself to drink I wonder what kind of flower I should grow up added he laughing there is more truth than you think in your pretty fancy Harry rejoined Hugh and was silent for the memory of David came back upon him recalled by the words of the boy of David whom he loved and honored with the best powers of his nature and whom yet he had neglected and seemed to forget nay whom he had partially forgotten he could not deny the old man whose thoughts were just that of a wise child had said to him once we can no more master Sutherland what were grown till then that neep seed there is though a neep it will be the only odds is that we can that we did not can and that neep seed can's nothing at all about it but on thing Mr. Sutherland we may be sure that whatever it be it will be worth God's making in our grown solemn stillness fell upon his spirit as he recalled these words out of which stillness I presume grew the little parable which follows though Hugh after he had learned far more about the things there and hinted at could never understand how it was that he could have put so much more into it than he seemed to have understood at that period of his history for Harry said wouldn't this be a nice place for a story Mr. Sutherland do you ever tell stories sir I was just thinking of one Harry but it is as much yours as mine for you sowed the seed of the story in my mind do you mean a story that never was in a book a story out of your own head oh that will be grand wait till we see what it will be Harry for I can't tell you yet how it will turn out after a little further pause Hugh began long long ago two seeds lay beside each other in the earth waiting it was cold and rather weary some and to beguile the time the one found means to speak to the other what are you going to be the one I don't know answered the other for me rejoined the first I mean to be a rose there is nothing like a splendid rose everybody will love me then it's alright whispered the second and that was all he could say for somehow when he had said that he felt as if all the words in the world were used up so they were silent again for a day or two oh dear cried the first I've had some water I never knew until it was inside me I'm growing I'm growing goodbye goodbye repeated the other and they still and waited more than ever the first grew and grew pushing itself straight up till at last it felt that it was in the open air for it could breathe and what a delicious breath that was it was rather cold but so refreshing the flower could see nothing for it was not quite a flower yet only a plant and they never see till their eyes come that is till they open their blossoms then they are flowers quite so it grew and grew and kept its head up very steadily meaning to see the sky the first thing and leave the earth quite behind as well as beneath it but somehow or other though why it could not tell it felt very much inclined to cry at length it opened its eye it was morning and the sky was over its head but alas itself was no rose only a tiny white flower it felt yet more inclined to hang down its heading to cry but it still resisted and tried hard to open its eye wide and to hold its head upright and to look full at the sky I will be a star of Bethlehem at least said the flower to itself but its head felt very heavy and a cold wind rushed over it and bowed it down towards the earth and the flower saw that the time of the singing of birds was not come that the snow covered the whole land and that there was not a single flower in sight but itself and it half closed its leaves in terror and the dismay of loneliness but that instant it remembered what the other flower used to say and it said to itself it's alright I will be what I can and thereon it yielded to the wind drooped its head to the earth and looked no more on the sky but on the snow and straight away the wind stopped and the cold died away and the snow sparkled like pearls and diamonds and the flower knew it was the holding of its head up that had hurt it so for that its body came of the snow and that its name was snow drop and so it said once more it's alright and waited in perfect peace all the rest it needed was to hang its head after its nature and what became of the other asked Harry I haven't done with this one yet answered you I only told you it was waiting one day a pale sad looking girl with eyes and long white hands came hanging her head like the snow drop along the snow where the flower grew she spied it smiled joyously and saying ah my little sister are you come stooped and plucked the snow drop it trembled and died in her hand which was a heavenly death for a snow drop for had it not cast a gleam of summer pale as it had been itself upon the heart of a sick girl and the other repeated Harry the other had a long time to wait but it did grow one of the loveliest roses ever seen and at last it had the highest honor ever granted to a flower two lovers smelled it together and were content with it Harry was silent and so was Hugh for he could not understand himself quite he felt all the time he was speaking as if you were listening to David instead of talking himself the fact was he was only expanding in an imaginative soil which David had cast into it there seemed to himself to be more in his parable than he had any right to invent but is it not so with all stories that are rightly rooted in the human what a delightful story Mr Sutherland said Harry at last Euphra tells me stories sometimes but I don't think I ever heard one I liked so much I wish we were meant to grow into something like the flower seeds so we are Harry are we indeed delightful it would be to think that I am only a seed Mr Sutherland do you think I might think so yes I do then please let me begin to learn something directly I haven't had anything disagreeable to do since you came and I don't feel as if that was right poor Harry like so many thousands of good people had not yet learned that God is not a hard task master I don't intend that you should have anything disagreeable to do if I can help it we must do such things when they come to us but we must not make them for ourselves or for each other then I'm not to learn any more Latin am I said Harry in a doubtful kind of tone as if there were after all a little pleasure in doing what he did not like is Latin so disagreeable Harry yes it is rule after rule that has nothing in it I care for how can anybody care for Latin but I'm quite ready to begin if I'm only a seed really you know not yet Harry indeed we shall not begin again I won't let you till you ask me with your whole heart to let you learn Latin I'm afraid that will be a long time and UFO will not like it I will talk to her about it but perhaps it will not be so long as you think and don't mention Latin to me again till you are ready to ask me hardly to teach you and don't give yourself any trouble about it either you can make yourself like anything Harry was silent they returned to the house through the pouring rain Harry as usual mounted on his big brother as they crossed the hall Mr. Arnold came in he looked surprised and annoyed he said Harry down who ran upstairs to get dressed for dinner while he himself half stopped and turned towards Mr. Arnold but Mr. Arnold did not speak and so he followed Harry he spent all that evening after Harry had gone to bed and correcting his impressions of some of the chief stories of early Roman history of which stories he intended commencing a little course to Harry the next day meantime there was very little intercourse between Hugh and Euphra whose surname somehow or other Hugh had never inquired after he disliked asking questions about people to an uncommon degree and so preferred waiting for a natural revelation her later behavior had repelled him impressing him with the notion that she was proud and that she had made up her mind not withstanding her apparent frankness at first to keep him at a distance that she was fitful too and incapable of showing much tenderness even to poor Harry he had already concluded in his private judgment hall nor could he doubt that whether from wrong theories incapacity or culpable indifference she must have taken very bad measures indeed with her young pupil the next day resembled the two former with this difference that the rain fell in torrents seated in their stride bower they cared for no rain they were safe from the whole world and all the tempers of nature then Hugh told Harry about the slow beginnings and the mighty birth of the great Roman people he told him tales of their battles and conquests their strifes at home and their wars abroad he told him stories of their grand bend individuality of their nation and their own he told him their characters their peculiar opinions and grounds of action and the results of their various schemes for their various ends he told him about their love to their country about their poetry and their religion their courage and their hardyhood their architecture, their clothes and their armor, their customs and their laws but all in such language or mostly in such language as one boy might use in telling another for Hugh possessed the gift of a general simplicity of thought one of the most valuable a man can have it cost him a good deal of labor well repating itself not to speak of the evident light of Harry to make himself perfectly competent for this but he had a good foundation of knowledge to work upon this went on for a long time after the period to which I am now more immediately confined every time they stopped to rest in their games as often in fact as they sat down alone Harry's constant request was now Mr. Sutherland mightn't we have something more about the Romans and Mr. Sutherland gave him something more but all this time he never uttered the word Latin Chapter 19 Chapter 20 of David Elgin Broad This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit Libravox.org David Elgin Broad by George McDonald Chapter 20 Larch and Other Hunting For there is neither Busk nor Hay in May that it's Nilshrad Bene and it with new leaves reine those wood is oak recovering reine in winter been to Sene and the earth waxeth proud with all for swat do is that on it fall and the porous state forget in which that winter had it set and then becomes the ground so Prada that it will have a Nilshrad and maketh so quaint his robe and fair that it hath hues and hundred pair of grass and flores of Indian pairs and many hues full that is the robe I mean it with through which the ground to praise and is Chaucer's translation of the Roman of the Rose so past the three days of reine after breakfast the following morning he went to find Harry according to custom in the library he was reading what are you reading Harry as he a poem said Harry and rising as before he brought the book to Hugh it was Mrs. Hemons poems you are fond of poetry Harry yes very whose poems do you like best Mrs. Hemons of course don't you think she is the best sir she writes very beautiful verses Harry which poem are you reading now oh one of my favorites the voice of spring who taught you to like Mrs. Hemons you for of course will you read the poem to me Harry began and read the poem through with much taste and evident enjoyment an enjoyment which seemed however to spring more from the music of the thought and its embodiment and sound and from sympathy with the forms of nature called up thereby this was shown by his mode of reading in which the music was everything in the sense little or nothing when he came to the line and the larch has hung all his tassels forth he smiled so delightedly that he said are you fond of the larch Harry yes very are there any about here I don't know what is it like you said you were fond of it oh yes it is a treat with beautiful tassels you know I think I should like to see one isn't it a beautiful line when you have finished the poem we will go and see if we can find one anywhere in the woods we must know where we are in the world Harry what is all round about us you know oh yes said Harry let us go and hunt the larch perhaps we shall meet spring if we look for her perhaps hear her voice too that would be delightful answered Harry smiling I may just mention here that Mrs. Hemons was allowed to retire gradually till it last she was to be found only in the more inaccessible recesses of the library shelves while by that time Harry might be heard not all over the house certainly but as far off as outside the closed door of the library reading aloud to himself one or other of Macaulay's ballads with an evident enjoyment of the go in it a story with the drama that accompanied me was quite enough for the present to satisfy Harry and Macaulay could give him that if little more as they went across the lawn towards the shrubbery on their way to look for larches and spring Euphra joined them in walking dress it was a lovely morning I have taken you at your word you see Mr. Sutherland said she I don't want to lose my Harry quite Hugh dear kind Euphra had Harry going round to her side and taking her hand he did not stay long with her however nor did Euphra seem particularly to want him there was one thing I ought to have mentioned to you the other night Mr. Sutherland and I dare say I should have mentioned it had not Mr. Arnold interrupted our tet a tet I feel now as if I had been guilty of claiming far more than I have a right to on the score of musical insight I have Scotch blood in me and was indeed born in Scotland though I left it before I was a year old my mother Mr. Arnold's sister married a gentleman who was half Scotch and I was born while they were on a visit to his relatives the Camerons of Lochne his mother my grandmother was a bohemian lady a countess with sixteen quarterings not a gypsy I beg to say Hugh thought she might have been to judge from present appearances but how was he to account for this torrent of genealogical information into which the ice of her late constraint had suddenly thawed it was odd that she should all at once volunteer so much about herself perhaps she had made up one of those minds which need making up every now and then like a monthly magazine and now was prepared to publish it Hugh responded with a question do I know your name then at last you are Miss Cameron you phrase your Cameron at your servicer and she dropped a gay little curtsy to Hugh looking up at him with the flash of her black diamonds then you must sing to me tonight with all the pleasure in gypsy land replied she with the second curtsy lower than the first taking for granted no doubt his silent judgment on her person and complexion by this time they had reached the woods in a different quarter from that which Hugh had gone through the other day with Harry and here in very deed the spring met them with a profusion of richness to which Hugh was quite a stranger the ground was carpeted with prim roses and anamones and other spring flowers which are the loveliest of all flowers they were drinking the sunlight which fell upon them through the budded boughs by the time the light should be hidden from them by the leaves which are the clouds the lower firmament of the woods their need of it would be gone exquisite in living they cared only for the delicate morning of the year do look at this darling Mr. Sutherland exclaimed he phrased as suddenly as she bent at the root of a great beach where grew a large bush of rough leaves with one tiny but perfectly formed prim rose peeping out between is it not a little pet all eyes all one eye staring out of its curtain bed to see what ever is going on in the world you'd better lie down again it is not a nice place she spoke to it as if it had been a kitten or a baby and as she spoke she pulled the leaves yet closer over the little stair so as to hide it quite as they went on she almost obtrusively avoided stepping on the flowers saying she always felt cruel or at least rude when she did so yet she trailed her dress over them in quite a careless way not lifting it at all this was a peculiarity of hers which you never understood till he understood herself all about in the shady places the ferns were busy untucking themselves from their grave clothes unrolling their mysterious coils of life adding continually to the hidden growth as they unfolded the visible in this they were like the other nations of god the infinite all the wild lovely things were coming up for their months life of joy orcas, harlequins cuckoo plants wild arams more properly lords and ladies were coming and coming slowly for had they not a long way to come from the valley of the shadow of death into the land of life at last the wanderers came upon a whole company of bluebells not what Hugh would have called bluebells of scotland are the single poised hairbells but wild hyacinths growing in a damp and shady spot in wonderful luxuriance they were quite three feet in height with long graceful drooping heads hanging down from them all along one side the largest and loveliest of bells one lying close above the other on the lower part while they parted thinner and thinner as they rose towards the lonely one at the top Miss Cameron went into ecstasies over these not saying much but breaking up what she did say with many pridly passionate pauses she had a very happy turn for seeing external resemblances either humorous or pathetic for she had much of one element that goes to the making of a poet namely surface impressibility look harry they are all sad at having to go down there again so soon they are looking at their graves so ruefully harry looks sad and rather sentimental immediately when you glance at Miss Cameron he saw tears in her eyes you have nothing like this in your country have you Mr. Sutherland said she with an apparent effort no indeed answered you and he said no more for a vision rose before him of the rugged pine wood and the single prim rose and of the thoughtful maiden with unpolished speech and rough hands and but this he did not see a soul slowly refining itself to a crystalline clearness and he thought of the grand old grey-haired David and o' Janet with her quaint motherhood and of all the blessed bareness of the ancient time in sunlight and in snow and he felt again that he had forgotten and forsaken his friends how the fairies will be ringing the bells in these airy steeples in the moonlight said Miss Cameron who was surprised and delighted with it all he could not help wondering however after he went to bed that night that Euphra had never before taken him to see these beautiful things and had never before said anything half so pretty to him as the least pretty things she had said about the flowers that morning when they were out with Mr. Sutherland had Mr. Sutherland anything to do with it was he giving Euphra a lesson in flowers such as he had given him in pigs Miss Cameron presently drew Hugh into conversation again and the old times were once more forgotten for a season they are worthy of distinguishing note that trio in those spring woods the boy waking up to feel the flowers and buds were lovelier in the woods than in verses Euphra finding everything about her sentimentality useful and really delighting in the prettiness they suggested to her and Hugh regarding the whole chiefly as a material and means for reproducing in verse such impressions of delight as he had received and still received from all but the highest poetry about nature the presence of Harry and his necessities was certainly a saving influence upon Hugh but however much he sought to realize Harry's life he himself at this period of his history enjoyed everything artistically far more than humanly Margaret would have walked through all this infant summer without speaking at all but with a deep light far back in her quiet eyes perhaps she would not have had many thoughts about the flowers rather she would have thought the very flowers themselves would have been at home with them in a delighted oneness with their life and expression certainly she would have walked through them with reverence and would not have padded or patronized nature by saying pretty things to their children their life would have entered into her and she would have hardly known it from her own I dare say Miss Cameron would have called a mountain a darling or a beauty but there are other ways of showing affection than by padding and petting though Margaret for her part would have needed no art expression because she had the things themselves it is not always those who utter best who feel most sometimes dumb because it would need the large utterance of the early gods to carry their thoughts through the gates of speech but the fancy and skin sympathy of Miss Cameron began already to tell upon you he knew very little of women and had never heard a woman talk as she talked he did not know how cheap this accomplishment is and took it for sensibility imaginativeness and even originality he thought she was far more with nature than he was it was much easier to make this mistake after hearing the really delightful way in which she sang certainly she could not have sung so perhaps not even have talked so except she had been capable of more but to be capable of more and to be able for more are two very distinct conditions many walks followed this extending themselves farther and farther from home as Harry's strength gradually improved it was quite remarkable how his interest in everything external increased an exact proportion as he learned to see into the inside or life of it with most children the interest in the external comes first and with many ceases there but it is in reality only a shallower form of the deeper sympathy and in those cases where it does lead to a desire after the hidden nature of things it is perhaps the better beginning of the two such exceptional cases as Harry's it is of unspeakable importance that both the difference and the identity should be recognized and in doing so he became to Harry his big brother indeed for he led him where he could not go alone as often as Mr. Arnold was from home which happened not unfrequently Miss Cameron accompanied them in their rambles she gave us her reason for doing so on one occasion that she never liked to be out of the way when her uncle might want her traces of an inclination to quarrel with you or even to stand upon her dignity had all but vanished and as her vivacity never failed her as her intellect was always active and as by the exercise of her will she could enter sympathetically or appear to enter into everything her presence was not in the least a restraint upon them on one occasion he found a little way after a butterfly he said to her what did you mean Miss Cameron by saying you were only a poor relation you are certainly mistress of the house on sufferance yes but I am only a poor relation I have no fortune of my own but Mr. Arnold does not treat you as such oh no he likes me he is very kind to me he gave me this ring on my last birthday is it not a beauty she pulled off her glove and showed a very fine diamond on a finger worthy of the ornament it is more like a gentleman's is it not she added drawing it off let me see how it would look on your hand she gave the ring to Hugh who laughing got it with some difficulty just over the first joint of his little finger and held it up for you Fred to see I see I cannot ask you to wear it for me said she I don't like it myself I am afraid however she added with an arch look my uncle would not like it either on your finger put it on mine again holding her hand towards Hugh she continued it must not be promoted just yet besides I see you have a still better one of your own as Hugh did according to her request the words sprang to his lips there are other ways of wearing a ring than on the finger but they did not cross the threshold of speech was it the repression of them that caused that strange flutter and slight pain at the heart which he could not quite understand Chapter 20