 Chapter 9 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 9, Nature. When the soul is kindled or enlightened by the Holy Ghost, then it beholls what God's Father does as a son beholds what his Father does at home in his own house. Jacob Beeman's Aurora, Laws Translation. Margaret began to read Wordsworth, slowly at first, but soon with greater facility. Ere long she perceived that she had found a friend. For not only did he sympathize with her and her love for nature, putting many vague feelings into thoughts and many thoughts into words for her, but he introduced her to nature in many altogether new aspects and taught her to regard it in ways which had hitherto been unknown to her. Not only was the pinewood now dearer to her than before, but its mystery seemed more sacred and at the same time more likely to be one day solved. She felt far more assuredly the presence of a spirit in nature, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns and the round ocean and the living air. For he taught her to take wider views of nature and to perceive and feel the expressions of more extended aspects of the world around her. The purple hillside was almost as dear to her as the firwood now, and the star that crowned its summit at Eve sparkled in a special message to her before it went on its way up the blue. She extended her rambles in all directions and began to get with the neighbors the character of an idle girl. Little they knew how early she rose and how diligently she did her share of the work, urged by desire to read the word of God in his own handwriting, or rather to pour upon that expression of the face of God, which, however little a man may think of it, yet sinks so deeply into his nature and molds it towards its own likeness. Nature was doing for Margaret what she had done before for Wordsworth's Lucy. She was making of her a lady of her own. She grew taller and more graceful. The lasting quiet of her face began to look as if it were ever upon the point of blossoming into an expression of lovely feeling. The principal change was in her mouth, which became delicate and tender in its curves, the lips seeming to kiss each other for very sweetness. But I am anticipating these changes, for it took a far longer time to perfect them than has yet been occupied by my story. But even her mother was not altogether proof against the appearance of listlessness and idleness, which Margaret's behavior sometimes wore to her eyes. Nor could she quite understand or excuse her long, lonely walks, so that now and then she could not help addressing her after this fashion. Meg, Meg, you do try my patience less, idling away your time that get. It's an awful waste of time. Margaret would obey her mother instantly, but with the look of silent expostulation which her mother could not resist. Sometimes, perhaps, if the words were sharper than usual, with symptoms of gathering tears, upon which Janet would say with her honest smile of sweet relenton, hoo-tooths, Baron, never heed me, my barks I ward nor my bite, then Margaret's face would brighten at once, and she would work hard at whatever her mother set her to do, till it was finished, upon which her mother would be more glad than she, and in no haste to impose any further labor out of the usual routine. In the course of reading Wordsworth, Margaret had frequent occasion to apply her words to her mother, but she did not know what to do. In the course of reading Wordsworth, Margaret had frequent occasion to apply to hoo for help. These occasions, however, generally involved no more than small external difficulties which prevented her from taking in the scope of a passage. Hoo was always able to meet these, and Margaret supposed that the whole of the light which flashed upon her mind, when they were removed, was poured upon the page by the wisdom of her tutor, never dreaming, such was her humility with regard to herself and her reverence towards him, that it came from the depths of her own lucent nature, ready to perceive what the poet came prepared to show. Now and then, it is true, she applied to him with difficulties in which he was incapable of aiding her, but she put down her failure in discovering the meaning, after all, which it must be confessed, he sometimes tried to say, to her own stupidity or peculiarity, to his incapacity. She had been helped to so much by his superior requirements and his real gift for communicating what he thoroughly understood. He had been so entirely her guide to knowledge that she would at once have felt self-condemned of impiety in the old meaning of the word, if she had doubted for a moment his ability to understand or explain any difficulty which she could place clearly before him. By and by he began to lend her harder, that is, more purely intellectual books. He was himself preparing for the class of moral philosophy and metaphysics, and he chose for her some of the simpler of his books on these subjects, of course, all of the scotch school, beginning with Abercrombie's intellectual powers. She took this eagerly and evidently read it with great attention. One evening, in the end of summer, he climbed a waist, heatherly hill that lay behind the house of Turrypuffet, and overlooked a great part of the neighboring country, the peaks of some of the greatest of the scotch mountains being visible from its top. Here he intended to wait for the sunset. He threw himself on the heather, that most delightful and luxurious of all couches, supporting the body with the kindly upholding of every part, and there he lay in the great, slumberous sunlight of the late afternoon with the blue heavens into which he was gazing full up, closing down upon him as the light descended the side of the sky. He fell fast asleep. If ever there be an excuse for falling asleep out of bed, surely it is when stretched at full length upon heather and bloom. When he awoke, the last of the sunset was dying away, and between him and the sunset sat Margaret, book in hand, waiting apparently for his waking. He lay still for a few minutes to come to himself before she should see he was awake. But she rose at the moment and, drawing near very quietly, looked down upon him with her sweet sunset face to see whether or not he was beginning to rouse, for she feared to let him lie much longer after sundown. Finding him awake, she drew back again without a word and sat down as before with her book. At length he rose, approaching her, said, Well, Margaret, what book are you at now? Dr. Abercrombie, sir, replied Margaret. How do you like it? Very well, for some things. It makes a body think, but not altogether as I like to think, either. It will be observed that Margaret's speech had begun to improve, that is, to be more like English. What is the matter with it? Well, you see, sir, it takes a body all to bits like, and never puts them together again, and it seems to me that a body's mind or soul, or whatever it may be called, but it's just a body's own cell. Can no more be taken to pieces like, then you could take that red lake out there, out of the blue, or the whole sunset to the heavens and earth. It may be all very well, Mr. Sutherland, but oh, it's not like this. Margaret looked around, her, from the hilltop, and then up into the heavens, where the stars were beginning to crack the blue with their thin, steely sparkle. It seems to me to take all the poetry out of us, Mr. Sutherland. Well, well, said Hugh with a smile. You must just go to Wordsworth to put it in again, or to set you up again after Dr. Abercrombie has demolished you. Then, eh, sir, he shall not demolish me, nor will I trouble Mr. Wordsworth to put the poetry into me again. All the power on us shall not take that ute of me, given it be God's will, for it's his own gift, Mr. Sutherland, you can. Of course, of course, replied Hugh, who very likely thought this too serious a way of speaking of poetry, and therefore, perhaps, rather an irreverent way of speaking of God. For he saw neither the divine in poetry nor the human in God. Could he be said to believe that God made man when he did not believe that God created poetry, and yet loved it as he did? It was to him only a grand invention of humanity in its loftiest development. In this development, then, he must have considered humanity as far as from its origin, and God as the creator of savages carried nothing for poets or their work. They turned as by common consent to go down the hill together. Shall I take the charge of the offending volume? You will not care to finish it, I fear, said Hugh. No, sir, if you please. I never like to leave anything unfinished. I'll read Ilka word in it. A fancy the thing that sets me against it is mostly this, that reading it along with Euclid cannot help by thinking of my own mind as given it were in some geometrical shape or other, walls one and walls another, and sign I try to draw lines and separate this power from that power, the memory from the judgment, and the imagination from the risen, and sign I try to pit them altogether again in their relations to one another. And this I takes the shape of some proposition or other, generally in the second book. Its near hand daises me while I fancy given I understand the parts of the sphere, it would be more to the purpose, but I want to wish I were clear Hugh had had some experiences of a similar kind himself, though not at all to the same extent. He could therefore understand her. You must just try to keep the things altogether apart, said he, and not think of the two sciences at once. But I cannot help it, she replied. I suppose you can, sir, because you're a man. My father can understand things ten times better than me and my mother, and as sooner do I begin to read and think about it, then up comes one of the parallelograms and nothing will drive it to my head again but a versatile of collage or words worth. Hugh immediately began to repeat the first poem of the latter that occurred to him, and I wandered lonely as a cloud. She listened, walking along with her eyes fixed on the ground, and when he had finished gave aside the light and relief, the moment she uttered. She seemed never to find it necessary to say what she felt, least of all when the feeling was a pleasant one, for then it was enough for itself. This was only the second time since their acquaintance that she had spoken of her feelings at all, and in this case they were of a purely intellectual origin. It is to be observed, however, that in both cases she had taken pains to explain thoroughly what she meant at all. It was dark before they reached home, at least as dark as it ever is at this season of the year in the north. They found David looking out with some slight anxiety for his daughter's return, for she was seldom out so late as this, and nothing could the true relation between them have been more evident than in the entire absence from her manner of any embarrassment when she met her father. She went up to him and told him that Mr. Sutherland asleep on the hill and waiting beside him till he woke that she might walk home with him. Her father seemed perfectly content with an explanation which he had not sought, and turning to Hugh said smiling, Well, not to be troublesome, Mr. Sutherland, you might give the old man a turn as well as the young lass. We did not expect you, the nicked, but I am so puzzled with a small enough matter of my sklet in there. Will you now come in and give me a lift? With all my heart said Sutherland, so there were five lessons in that week. When he entered the cottage he had a fine sprig of heather in his hand which he laid on the table. He had the weakness of being proud of small discoveries, the tinier the better, and was always sharpening his senses as well as his intellect to a fine point in order to make them. Heard that by these means he shut out some great ones, which could not enter during such a concentration of the faculties. He would stand listening to the sound of goose feet upon the road, and watch how those webs laid hold of the earth like a hand. He would struggle to enter into their feelings and folding their wings properly on their backs. He would calculate on chemical and arithmetical grounds whether one might not hear the nocturnal growth created by the discovery, as he considered it, that Shakespeare named his two officers of the watch, dogberry and verjuice, the poisonous dogberry and the acid liquor of green fruits, affording suitable names for the stupidly innocuous constables, in a play the very essence of which is much ado about nothing. Another of his discoveries he had during their last lesson unfolded to David who had certainly contemplated his interest. It was that the original forms of the Arabic numerals were these. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. The number for which each figure stands being indicated by the number of straight lines employed in forming that numeral. I fear that the comparative anatomy of figures gives no countenance to the discovery which he flattered and made. After he had helped David out of his difficulty, he took up the heather and stripping off the bells shook them in the hand at Margaret's ear. A half smile like the moonlight of laughter donned on her face and she listened with something of the same expression with which a child listens to the message from the sea and closed in a twisted shell. He did the same at David's ear next. Amon, that's a bonny wee sound. It's just like small sheep bells, fair as sheep I reckon Maggie might do. Let me harken his wheel, said Janet. He obeyed. She laughed. It's Nathan but a wrestling. I would rather hear the sheep ban or the chi routen. Eh, Mr. Sutherland, but you have a gleg ear and a sharp lug. Well, the world's full of bonny sights and sounds, doomed to the very smallest. Or let's Nathan gang. I would not wander new but there might be thousands such like or small altogether for human ears. Just as we can there are creatures as perfect in BLT as any we see but far over small for our own eye and wind in the glass. But for my part I like to see a heap of things at once and take them all in together and see them playing into on another's hand like. I was just thinking as I came home in the night in the sunset who it would have been no wise so complete with all its red and gold and green given it had not been for the cold blue east behind it with the tall three shivering starneys looking through it and do it lest the world to come it will be all the warmer to them it had not or muck will happen in here but I'm just havering, clean havering Mr. Sutherland concluded David with an apologetic humor I suppose you could easily believe with Play-Doh David that planets make a grand choral music as they roll about the heavens only that as some sounds are too small so that is too loud for us to hear. I could well believe that was David's unhesitating answer Margaret looked as if she not only could believe it but would be delighted to know that it was true neither Janet nor Hugh gave any indication of feeling on the matter and Chapter 9 Chapter 10 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 Chapter 10 Harvest So a small seed that in the earth lies hid and dies, reviving bursts her cloudy side adorned with yellow locks of new as born and doth become a mother great with corn. Of grains brings hundreds with it, which when old enrich the furrows with a sea of gold. Sir William Drummond hymn of the resurrection Hugh had watched the green corn grow and ear and turn dim then brightened to yellow and ripen at last under the declining autumn sun and the low, skirting moon of the harvest which seems too full and heavy with mellow and bountiful light to rise high above the fields which it comes to bless with perfection. The long threads on each of which hung an oak grain. The harvest here was mostly of oats had got dry and brittle and the grains began to spread out their chaff wings as if ready to fly and rustled with sweet sounds against her as the wind, which used to bellow the fields like the waves of the sea now swept gently and tenderly over it, helping the sun and moon in the drying and ripening of the joy to be laid up for the dreary winter. Most graceful of all hung those delicate oats, next bowed the bearded barley and stately and wealthy and strong stood the few fields of wheat of a rich, ruddy golden hue. Above the yellow harvest rose and above the hills the pale blue autumnal sky full of light and heat but fading somewhat from the color with which it deepened above the vanished days of summer for the harvest here is much later than in England. At length the day arrived when the sickle must be put into the barley soon to be followed by the scythe in the oats. And now came the joy of labor. Everything else was abandoned for even when there was no fear of a change of weather to urge to labor prolonged beyond the natural hours, there was weariness enough in the work of the day to prevent even David from reading in the hours of bodily rest anything that necessitated mental labor. Janet and Margaret betook themselves to the reaping hook and the somewhat pale face of the latter needed but a single day to change it to the real harvest hue the brown livery of series. But when the oats were attacked then came the tug of war. The Laird was in the fields from morning to night and the boys would not stay behind but with their father's permission much to the Tudor's contentment devoted what powers they had to the gathering of the fruits of the earth. Hue himself whose strength had grown amazingly during his stay at Turry Puffet and who though he was quite helpless at the sickle thought he could wield scythe would not be behind. Throwing off coat and waste coat and tying his handkerchief tight around his loins he laid hold on the emblematic weapon of time and death determined likewise to earn the name of Reaper. He took the last scythe it was desperate work for a while and he was far behind the first bout but David who was the best scyther in the whole countryside and of course had the leading scythe seen the Tudor dropping behind put more power into his own arm finished his bout and brought up hues before the others had done sharpening their scythe for the next. Take care and ne'erax yourself or sore Mr. Sutherland you'll be up with the best of them in a day or two but given ye T'ov at itaboon your strength you'll clean for Finland. Take a good sweep with the scythe at he may have the weight of it to call through the straight and take the ne'er at being hind most. Here Maggie Madoo come and gather to Mr. Sutherland. One of the young gentlemen can take your place at the binding. The work of Janet and Margaret had been to form bands for the sheaves by folding together cunningly the heads of two small handfuls of the corn so as to make them long enough together to go around the sheave. Then to lay this down for the gatherer to place enough of the mown corn upon it and alas to bind the band tightly around by another skillful twist an insertion of the ends and so form a sheave. From the work David called his daughter desirous of giving Hugh a gatherer who would not be disrespectful to his awkwardness. This arrangement however was far from pleasing to some of the young men in the field and brought down upon Hugh who was too hard wrought to hear them at first many sly hits of country wit and human contempt. There had been sometime great jealousy of his visits to David's cottage. For Margaret though she had very little acquaintance with the young men of the neighborhood was greatly admired amongst them and not regarded as so far above the station of many of them as to render aspiration useless. Their remarks to each other got louder and louder till Hugh at last heard some of them and could not help being annoyed not by their wit or personality but by the tone of contempt in which they were uttered. Take care of your legs sir it will be ill-cutten upon stumps. Fags, he's taken the wings off of part trick. Given he gone that get he'll cut 12 outs at once. You'll have the scythe or the dyke man take 10. Pah sir you taken off my leg at the hip. You're shavin' or close you'll draw the blood sir. Hoot man let's alone the gentleman's only mistaken his trade and imagines he's how can aggrave and so on. Hugh gave no further sign of hearing their remarks then lay in increased exertion. Looking round however he saw that Margaret was vexed evidently not for her own sake. He smiled to her to console her for his annoyance and then ambitious to remove the cause of it made a fresh exertion, recovered all his distance and was in his own place with the best of them at the end of the bout. But the smile that had passed between an escape unobserved and he had aroused yet more the wrath of the use by threatening soon to rival them in the excellences to which they had in a special claim. They had regarded him as an interloper who had no right to captivate one of their rank by arts beyond their reach so it was still less pardonable to dare them to a trial of skill with their own weapons. To the fire of this jealousy the admiration of the layered added fuel for he was delighted with the spirit which he laid himself to the scythe. But all the time nothing was further from Hughes' thoughts than the idea of rivalry with them. Whatever he might have thought of Margaret in relation to himself he never thought of her though laboring in the same field with them as in the least degree belonging to their class or standing in any possible relation to them except that of a common work. In ordinary the laborers would have had sufficient respect for the other in superior position to prevent them from giving such decided and articulate utterance to their feelings. But they were incited by the presence and example of a man of doubtful character from the neighboring village a traveled and clever ne'er-do-wheel whose reputation for wit was equal by his reputation for courage and skill as well as profligacy. Roused by the effervescence of his genius they went on from one thing to another till Hughes saw it must be what it stopped to somehow else he must abandon the field. They dare not have gone so far if David had been present but he had been called away to superintend some operations in another part of the estate and they paid no heed to the expostulations of some of the older men. At the close of the day's work therefore he walked up to this fellow and said I hope you will be satisfied with insulting me all today and leave it alone tomorrow. The man replied with an oath and a gesture of rude contempt I did not care the black of four my nails for any scalp dup of the lot of you. Hughes Highland blood flew to his brain and before the rascal finished his speech he had measured his length on the stubble he sprang to his feet in a fury threw off the coat which he had just put on and darted at Hughes who had by this time recovered his coolness and was besides notwithstanding his unusual exertions the more agile of the two the other was heavier and more powerful Hughes sprang aside as he would have done from the rush of a bull and again with a quick blow felt his antagonist beginning rather to enjoy punishing him he now went in for it and before the other would yield he had rendered his next day's labor somewhat doubtful he withdrew with no more injury to himself than the little water would remove Janet and Margaret had left the field before he addressed the man he went home into bed more weary than he had ever been in his life before he went to sleep however he made up his mind to say nothing of his encounter to David but to leave him to hear of it from other sources he could not help feeling a little anxious as to his judgment upon it that the Laird would approve he hardly doubted but for his opinion he cared very little David, a wanderer at Hughes said Janet to her husband the moment he came home to let the young lad wrestle himself dead that get with the scythe his bones is but soft yet it was not a dry stick on him or he won half the length of the first bout he soared this jasket as a warrant ne fear of him Janet it'll do him good Mr. Sutherland's no feckless wintelstray of a crater did he hold his own at all with love hold his own today he might be pit and nest yourself or he'll cut the legs off of any other man in the corn a glove pleasure mantled in Margaret's face at her mother's praise of Hugh Janet went on but I was just clean affronted with the way at the young Chills behaved themselves to him I thought I heard a tooth moot of the kind before I left but I thought it better to take no notice of it I'll be with you today the morn though and I'm thinking I'll clap her out's hand on their mouths as I hear any more of it from but there was no occasion for interference on David's part Hugh made his appearance not it is true with the earliest in the Hairstrig but after breakfast with the Laird who was delighted with the way in which he had handled his scythe the day before and felt twice the respect for him in consequence it must be confessed he felt very stiff the best treatment for stiffness being the homeopathic one of more work he had soon restored the elasticity of his muscles and lubricated his aching joints his antagonist of the foregoing evening was nowhere to be seen and the rest of the young men were shame faced and respectful enough David having learned from some of the spectators the facts of the combat suddenly as they were walking home together held out his hand to Hugh shook his head and said Mr. Sutherland I'm sore of leech tea for giving that rat Jamie Og a good dune set and he's a course crater but the worst mount have meat and so I did not like to refuse him when he came for work but it's a greater kindness to clout him nor to plead him they say you made an awful monty of him but it's to be hoping he'll live too thank you there's some folk I suspect no argument but from stiket knaves and it'll feel cruel to hold it from them give me how to give them I have had enough a do to hold my own hands off of the Ted but it comes a handle better from you Mr. Sutherland Hugh wielded the scythe the hole of the harvest and Margaret gathered to him by the time it was over leading home and all he measured an inch less about the waist was as brown as a berry and as strong as an ox or owls as David called it when thus describing Mr. Sutherland's progress in corporal development for he took a fatherly pride in the youth to whom at the same time he looked up with submission as his master in learning chapter 10 chapter 11 of David Elgin Broad this is a Libravox recording all Libravox recordings are available on the Libravox web-domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libravox.org David Elgin Broad by George McDonald chapter 11 a change and no change affliction when I know it is but this a deep alloy whereby man together is to bear the hammer and the deeper still we still arise more image of his will cloud twix dusts and light and death at longest but another night man is his own star and that soul that can be honest is the only perfect man John Fletcher upon an honest man's fortune had Sutherland been in love with Margaret those would have been happy days and that a yet more happy night when under the mystery of a low moonlight and a gathering storm the crop was cast in haste to the carts and hurried home to be built up in safety when a strange low wind crept sign across the stubble as if it came wandering out of the past in the land of dreams lying far off and withered in the green west and when Margaret and he came and went in the moonlight like creatures in a dream for the vapors of sleep were floating in Hughes brain although he was awake and working Margaret he said as they stood waiting a moment for the cart that was coming up to be filled with sheaves what does that wind put you in mind of Oshin's poems replied Margaret without a moment's hesitation Hugh was struck by her answer he had meant something quite different but it harmonized with his feeling about Oshin for the genuineness of whose poetry Highlander as he was he had no better argument to give than the fact that he produced in himself an altogether peculiar mental condition that the spiritual sensations he had in reading them were quite different from those produced by anything else prose or verse in fact that they created moods of their own in his mind he was unwilling to believe apart from national prejudice which have not prevented the opinions on this question from being as strong on the one side as on the other that this individuality of influence to mere affectations of a style which had never sprung from the sources of real feeling could they he thought possessed the power to move us like remembered dreams of our childhood if all that they possessed of reality was a pretended imitation of what never existed and all that they inherited from the past was the halo of its strangeness but Hugh was not in love with Margaret though he could not help feeling the pleasure of her presence any youth must have been the better for having her near him but there was nothing about her quiet self-contained being free from manifestation of any sort to rouse the feelings commonly called love in the mind of an inexperienced youth like Hugh Sutherland I say commonly called because I believe that within the whole sphere of intelligence there are no two loves the same not that he was less easily influenced than other youth a shining girl might have caught him at once if she had no other beauty than sparkling eyes but the womanhood of the beautiful Margaret kept so still in its pearly cave that it rarely met the glance of neighboring eyes how Margaret regarded him I do not know but I think it is with a love almost entirely one with reverence and gratitude cause for gratitude she certainly had though less than she supposed and very little cause for reverence but how could she fail to revere one to whom even her father looked up of course David's feeling of respect for Hugh must have sprung chiefly from intellectual grounds and he could hardly help seeing if he thought it all on the subject which is doubtful that Hugh was as far behind Margaret in the higher gifts and graces as he was before her in intellectual acquirement but whether David perceived this or not certainly Margaret did not even think in that direction she was pure of self judgment conscious of no comparing of herself with others least of all with those next to her at length the harvest was finished or as the phrase of the district was a phrase with the derivation or even the exact meaning of which I am unacquainted knowing only that it implies something in close association with the feast of harvest home called the Kern in other parts of Scotland there after the field they bear to the frost of morning and evening and to the wind that grew cooler and cooler with the breath of winter who lay behind the northern hills and waited for this hour but many lovely days remained of quiet and slow decay of yellow and red leaves of warm noons and lovely sunsets followed by skies green from the west horizon to the zenith and walked by a moon that seemed to draw up to her all the white mist from pond and river and pool to settle again and whore frost during the colder hours that precede the dawn at length every leafless tree sparkled in the morning sun encrusted with fading gems and the ground was hard underfoot and the hedges were filled with frosted spider webs and winter had laid the tips of his fingers on the land soon to cover it deep with the flickering snowflakes shaken from the folds of his outspread mantle but long air this David and Margaret had returned with the renewed diligence and power strengthened by repose or at least by intermission to their mental labors and Hugh was as constant a visitor at the cottages before the time however drew nigh when he must return to his studies at Aberdeen and David and Margaret were looking forward with sorrow to the loss of their friend Janet too could not bide to think of it he'll take the daylight with him aduth malas she said as she made the ports for breakfast one morning and looked down anxiously at her daughter seated on the creepy by the angle milk nene mother replied Margaret looking up from her book he'll leave such gifts behind him as he'll make daylight though dark and then she spent her head and went on her reading as if she had not spoken the mother looked away with a sigh and a slight and shake of the head but matters were to turn out quite differently from all anticipations before the day arrived on which Hugh must leave for the university a letter from home informed him that his father was dangerously ill he hastened to him but only to comfort his last hours by all that a son could do and to support his mother by his presence during the first hours of her loneliness but anxious thoughts for the future which so often forced themselves on the attention of those who would gladly prolong their brooding over the past compelled them to adopt an alteration of their plans for the present the half-pay of major Sutherland was gone of course and all that remained for Mrs. Sutherland was a small annuity secured by her husband's payments to a certain fund for the use of officers' widows from this she could spare but a mere trifle for the completion of Hugh's university education while the salary he had received at Turry Puffet almost the whole of which he had saved was so small as to be quite inadequate for the very moderate outlay necessary he therefore came to the resolution to write to the Laird an offer if they were not yet provided with another tutor in his relation to the young gentleman for the winter it was next to impossible to spend money there and he judged that before the following winter he should be quite able to meet the expenses of his residence at Aberdeen during the last session of his course he would have preferred trying to find another situation had it not been that David and Janet and Margaret had made there a home for him whether Mrs. Glasford was altogether pleased at the proposal I cannot tell but the Laird wrote a very gentlemen-like epistle condoling with him and his mother upon their loss and urging the usual common places of consolation the letter ended with the hearty acceptance of Hugh's offer and strange to tell the unsolicited promise of an increase of salary to the amount of five pounds this is another to be added to the mini-proofs that verisimilitude is not in the least an essential element of verity he left his mother as soon as circumstances would permit and returned to Turry Puffett in a boat for the winter very different indeed from that in which he had expected to spend it he reached the place early in the afternoon received from Mrs. Glasford a cold I hope you're well Mr. Sutherland found his pupils actually reading and had from them a welcome rather boisterously evidenced told them to get their books and sat down with them at once with their labors he spent two hours thus had a hearty shake of the hand from the laird when he came home and after a substantial tea walked down to David's cottage where a welcome awaited him worth returning for come your ways but said Janet who met him as he opened the door without any prefertory knock and caught him with both hands I'm glad to see your bonny face once more where I'll just David stood in the middle of the floor waiting for him come away my bonny lad was all his greeting as he held out a great fatherly hand to the youth and grasping in the wand clapped him on the shoulder with the other the water standing in his blue eyes the while he thought of his own father and could not restrain his tears Margaret gave him a still look full in the face and seeing his emotion did not approach to offer him any welcome she hastened instead to place a chair for him as she had done when first he entered the cottage and when he had taken it sat down at his feet on her creepy with true delicacy no one took any notice of him for some time David said it last and who's your poor mother Mr. Sutherland she's pretty well was all he could answer it's a soft stroke to buy it said David but it's a grand thing when a man's one will throw it when my father died on my twill I was so prude to see him lying there in the cold grandeur of death and no man at darts say he ever did respect the thing I did not become him I just gloried in the midst of my greeting he was put poor old shepherd Mr. Sutherland with hair as white as the sheep had followed him and I what as they followed him he followed the great shepherd and followed and followed till he just followed him home where we're all bound and some of us far on the road thanks to him and with that David rose and got down the Bible and opening it reverently read with the solemn slightly tremulous voice the 14th chapter of St. John's Gospel when he had finished they all rose as by one accord and knelt down and David prayed a thou in whose sight or death is precious and no light matter what through darkness leads to light and through death to the greater life we cannot believe that thou wouldst give us only good thing to take the same again for that would be but barren's play we believe that thou takes that thou may give again the same thing better nor for more of it and better nor we could have received it otherwise just as the Lord took himself from the sight of them at loved him wheel that instead of being visible he might hide himself in their very hearts come now and abide in us and take us to Biden thee and son given we be all in thee we cannot be that far from one another though some should be in heaven and some upon earth Lord help us to do our work like thy men and maidens doing the stare reminding ourselves at them that we miss have only gone up the stare and given to our to hold things to thy hand in thy own presence chamber where we hope to be called our long and to see thee and our son whom we love a boon and in his name we say amen he rose from his knees with the sense of solemnity and reality that he had never felt before little was said that he'd been supper was eaten if not in silence yet with nothing that could be called conversation and almost in silence David walked home with you his father seemed to walk beside him he felt as if he had been buried with him and had found that the sephulcher was clothed with green things and roofed with stars was in truth the heavens and the earth in which his soul walked abroad if you looked a little more into his bible and tried a little more to understand it after his father's death it is not to be wondered at it is but another instance of the fact that whether from education or from the leading of some higher instinct we are ready in every more profound trouble to feel as if a solution or refuge lay somewhere lay in the sounds of wisdom perhaps to be sought and found in the best of books the deepest of all the mysteries treasuries of words but David never sought to influence you to this end he read the bible in his family but he never urged the reading of it on others sometimes he seemed rather to avoid the subject of religion altogether and yet it was upon those very occasions that if he once began to speak he would pour out before he ceased some of his most impassioned utterances chapter 11 chapter 12 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 McDonald chapter 12 knowledge blows up but charity builds us up Lord Bacon's Rendering of First Corinthians 8.1 things went on as usual for a few days when he began to encounter a source of suffering of a very material and unromantic kind but which nevertheless had been able before now namely at the commencement of his tutorship to cause him a very sufficient degree of distress it was this that he had no room in which he could pursue his studies in private without having to endure a most undesirable degree of cold in summer this was a matter of little moment for the universe might then be his secret chamber but in a scotch spring or autumn not to say winter a bedroom without a fireplace which strange to say was the condition of his was not a study in which doc could operate to much satisfactory result indeed pain is a far less hurtful enemy to thinking than cold and to have to fight such suffering and its benumbing influences as well as to follow out a train of reasoning difficult at any time and requiring close attention is too much for any machine whose thinking wheels are driven by nervous gear sometimes for he must make the attempt he came down to his meals quite blue with cold as his pupils remarked to their mother but their observation never seemed to suggest to her mind the necessity of making some better provision for the poor tutor and Hugh after the way in which he had behaved to him was far too proud to ask of her favor even if he had had hopes of receiving his request he knew too that in the house the layer to interfere in the smallest degree must impale far more than he dared the prospect therefore of the coming winter in a country where there was scarcely any afternoon and where the snow might lie feet deep for weeks was not at all agreeable he had as I have said begun to suffer already for the mornings and evenings were cold enough now although it was a bright dry October one evening Janet remarked that he had caught cold for he was hosting SAR and this led Hugh to state the discomfort he was condemned to experience up at the hall house we'll said David after some silent deliberation that settles it we mouth said to boot it immediately of course Hugh was quite at loss to understand what he meant and begged him to explain you see reply David we have very little who's room in this bit caught for except this kitchen we have put the Ben War Janet in me sleeps and so last year I spake to the layer to let me have as mucle timber as I would need to beg a kind of lean to to the house behind so that we might have a kind of a bit parley like or rather roomy at any of us might retire till bit for a bit given we wanted to be your own loans he had an objection honest man but somehow or other I never set hand to it but knew the was mount be up before the wat weather sets in so I was be at it in the morning and maybe you'll lend me a hand Mr. Sutherland and take with your wages in the house room and fire after it's done thank you hardly said Hugh that would be delightful it seems too good to be possible but will not wooden walls be rather a poor protection against such winters as I suppose you have in these parts who to it's Mr. Sutherland you might give me credit for a rather more rum gumption nor that comes till Timmer was the only thing I not needed to spear for the love lies to anybody's hands a few carefully saw from the hill behind the who's and a handful of stones for the Chimla would add the quarry there's enough therefore turn a horn blasted more and we'll saw the wood ourselves and given we had once the ways up we can carry on the inside at or leisure that's the way at the maker does with ourselves he gives us the was and the material and a whole lifetime maybe more to furnish the who's capital exclaimed Hugh I'll work like a horse and we'll be added to mourn let's be added to four daylight and one or two of the lads will lend me a hand after work hours and there's yourself Mr. Sutherland worth one and a half ordinary workers and we'll haul truth enough for the ways in a jiffy I'll mark a few saplings in the wood here at the dinner time and we'll have them for box and couples and things and there's plenty dry enough for birds and then the shed and being but to lean to there'll be but half work he can they went out directly in the moonlight to choose the spot and soon came to the resolution to build it so that a certain back door which added more to the cold in winter than to the convenience in summer should be the entrance to the new chamber the chimney was the chief difficulty but all the materials being in the immediate neighborhood and David capable of turning his hands to anything no obstruction was feared indeed he said about that part first as was necessary and had soon built a small chimney chiefly of stones and lime while under his directions the walls were making progress at the same time by the labor of Hugh and two or three of the young men from the farm who were most ready to oblige David with their help although they were still rather unfriendly to the Collinier as they called him but Hugh's frankness soon won them over and they all formed within a day or two a very comfortable party of laborers they worked very hard for if the rain should set in before the roof was on their labor would be almost lost from the soaking of the walls they built them of turf very thick with a slight slope on the outside towards the roof before commencing which they partially cut the windows out of the walls putting wood across to support the top I should have explained that the turf used in building was the upper and coarser part of the peat which was plentiful in the neighborhood the thatched eaves of the cottage itself projected over the joining of the new roof so as to protect it from the drip and David soon put a thick thatch of new straw upon the little building secondhand windows were procured at the village and the holes in the walls cut to their size they next proceeded to the saw pit in the estate for almost everything necessary for keeping up the offices was done on the farm itself where they saw thin planks of deal to floor and line the room and make it more cozy these David planed upon one side and when they were nailed against slight posts all around the walls and the joints filled in with putty the room began to look most enticely habitable the roof had not been thatched two days before the rain set in but now they could work quite comfortably inside and as the space was small and the four nights were long they had it quite finished before the end of November David bought an old table in the village and one or two chairs mended them up made a kind of rustic sofa or saddle put a few bookshelves against the wall had a peat fire lighted on the earth every day and at length one Saturday evening they had supper in the room and the place was consecrated henceforth to friendship and learning from this time every evening as soon as lessons and the meal which immediately followed them were over Hubert took himself to the cottage on the shelves of which all his books by degrees collected themselves and there spent the whole long evening generally till 10 o'clock the first part alone reading or writing the lasting company with his pupils who diligent as ever now of course made more rapid progress than before in as much as the lessons were both longer and more frequent the only drawback to their comfort was that they seemed to have shut Janet out but she soon remedied this by contriving to get through with her housework earlier than she had ever done before and taking her place on the saddle behind them knitted away diligently at her stocking which to inexperienced eyes seemed always the same and always in the same state of progress notwithstanding that she provided the clothes of the whole family blue and gray ribbed and plain her occasional withdrawings to observe the progress of the supper were only a cheerful break in the continuity of labor little would the passer-by imagine that beneath that roof which seemed worthy only of the name of a shed there sat in a snug little homely room such a youth as Hugh such a girl as Margaret such a grand peasant king as David and such a true-hearted mother of knowledge Janet there were no pictures and no music for Margaret kept her songs for solitary places but the sound of verse was often the living wind which set a waving the tops of the trees of knowledge fast growing in the sunlight of truth the thatch of that shed roof was like the grizzled hair of David beneath which lay the temple not only of holy but of wise and poetic thought it was like the Sylvan abode of the gods the architecture and music are all of their own making in their kind the more beautiful the more simple and rude and if more doubtful in their intent and less precise in their finish yet there in the fuller of life and its grace and the more suggestive of deeper harmonies chapter 12 chapter 13 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 McDonald chapter 13 Heraldry and like his father of face and of stature and false of love it came him of nature as death the fox renard the fox's son kinder he could his old father's Wanda without lore as can a Drake swim when it is caught and carried to the brim Chaucer legend of Phyllis of course the yet more lengthened absences of Hugh from the house were subjects of remark as at the first but Hugh had made up his mind not to trouble himself the least about that for some time Mrs. Glasford took no notice of them to himself but one evening just as he was finished and he was rising to go her restraint gave way and she uttered one spiteful speech thinking it no doubt so witty that it ought to see the light you're a day laborer it seems Mr. Sutherland and gone home at night it's actually so madame rejoined Hugh there is no other relation between you and me than that of work and wages you have done your best to convince me of that by making it impossible for me to feel that this house is in any sense my home with this grand speech he left the room and from that time till the day of his final departure from Terry Puffett there was not a single illusion made to the subject he soon reached the cottage when he entered the new room which was always called Mr. Sutherland study the mute welcome afforded him by the signs of expectation in the glow of the waiting fire and the arms of the elbow chair which was now called his as well as the room made ample amends to him for the unfriendliness of mrs. glassford going to the shelves to find the books he wanted he saw that they had been carefully arranged on one shelf and that the others were occupied with books belonging to the house he looked at a few of them they were almost all old books and such as may be found in many scotch cottages for instance Boston's four fold state in which the ways of God and man may be seen through a four fold fog Erskine's divine sonnets which will repay the reader and laughter for the pain it cost his reverence producing much the same effect that a Gothic cathedral might reproduced by the pencil and from the remembrance of a Chinese artist who had seen it once Drell and Cort on death with the famous ghost hoax of Defoe to help the bookseller to the sale of the unsaleable the scott's worthies opening of itself at the memoir of Mr. Alexander Peyton the pilgrim's progress that wonderful inspiration feeling never saved when the theologian would sometimes snatched a pen from the hand of the poet thereon in a spasio village dialogues and others of a like class to these must be added a rare edition of blind harry it was clear to you unable as he was fully to appreciate the wisdom of David that it was not from such books as these that he had gathered it yet such books as these formed all his store he turned from them found his own and sat down to read by and by David came in more soon I doubt Mr. Sutherland I'm disturbing you not at all answered you besides I am not much in a reading this evening Mrs. glassford has been annoying me again poor body what she's been saying new thinking to amuse David he recounted the short passage between the them recorded above David however listened with a very different expression of countenance from what you had anticipated and when he had finished took up the conversation in a kind of apologetic tone we'll bet you see said he his palms together she has not just had altogether fair play she does not come with a good breed man it's a fine thing to come with a good breed they have a hantel to answer for it come of descent decent forebears I thought she brought the layer to good property said you not quite understanding David all right she brought him cow penfuls of silver but who was it gotten and you can it's no riches that make a good breed except it be a maggots the richer cheese the more maggots you can you might not spake of this but the mistresses father was wheeled can't to have made his solar by the fardens and bowbees and creeping crafty ways he was a bit merchant and Aberdeen and I keep it his thumb wheel a hint the paint of the aisle wand so it made him made an inch or two upon ilky yard he sold so he took from his soul and put into the silver bag and had little to give his daughter but a good torture Mr. Sutherland it's a fine thing to come a decent folk no to look at yourself I can nothing about your family but you seem at eyesight to come of a good breed for the bodily part of you that's a small matter but from what I have seen and I trust in God I'm no mistaken you come of the right breed for the mind is wheel I'm no flattering you Mr. Sutherland but just landed upon you at giving you had an honest father and grandfather and especially a good mother you have a hate to answer for and you ought never to be hard upon them it has some creeping creatures for they cannot help it so well as the like of you and me can David was not given to boasting he had never heard anything suggesting it from his lips before he turned full round and looked at him on his face lay a solemn quiet either from a feeling of his own responsibility or a sense of the excuse that must be made for others what he had said about signs of breed in his exterior certainly applied to himself as well his carriage was full of dignity and a certain rustic refinement his voice was wonderfully gentle but deep and slowest when most impassioned he seemed to have come of some gigantic anti-deluvian breed there was something of the titans slumbering about him he would have been a stern man but for an unusual amount of reverence that seemed to over flood the sternness and change it into strong love no one had ever seen him thoroughly angry his simple displeasure with any of the laborers the quality of whose work was deficient would go further than the lairds ose he sat looking at David who supported the look with that perfect calmness that comes of unconscious simplicity the length used eyes sank before David's as he said I wish I had known your father then David my father was such a one as I told you the other day Mr. Sutherland I'm a right there a pure simple god fear and shepherd and never gave his dog an ill-deserved word nor took the skin of any poor lamby what's wool he was clipping between the shears he was well worthy of the grave and my mother was just such like with Abelins rather more hold know my father hear her books they're her books mostly upon the scalp they're a bone your own Mr. Sutherland I honor them for her sake though I seldom trouble them myself she go me a kind of scunner at them honest woman with garing me rated them of Sundays till the near scum fished at the good that was in me by another there's doctrine for you Mr. Sutherland added David with a queer laugh I thought that they could hardly be your books at you but I have an old book and that brings me upon my pedigree Mr. Sutherland for the first man has as long a pedigree as the greatest only he can less about it that's all and I want for your lords and ladies it's no of their to their credits that's told of their hither come and that's all against a breed you can a willful sin in the father may be a sinful weakness in the son and that's what I call no fair play so saying David went to his bedroom once he returned with the very old looking book which he laid on the table before you he opened it and saw that it was a volume of Jacob ballman in the original language you found out afterwards upon further inquiry that it was in fact a copy of the first edition of his first work the Aurora printed in 1612 on the title page was written a name either in German or old English character he was not sure wids but he was able to read it Martin Elgin Broda David having given him time to see all this went on that book has been in our family far longer nor I can I need not say I cannot read a word of it nor I never heard of one that could but I cannot help telling you curious thing Mr. Sutherland in connection with the name on that book there's a gravestone a very old one who I cannot well make would though I good ends Aaron to Aberdeen to see it and the name upon that gravestone is Martin Elgin Brod but made mention of in a strange fashion and I'm no sure all together about how you'll take for it sounds rather fearsome at first hearing of it but you have it as I read it here lie I Martin Elgin Brod have mercy of my soul Lord God as I would do were I Lord God and you were Martin Elgin Brod certainly you could not help a slight shudder at what seemed to him the irreverence of the epitaph if indeed it was not the serving of a worse epitaph but he made no remark and after a moment's pause David resumed I was uncle ill pleased with it at first as you may suppose Mr. Sutherland but after a while I be good began and good through two or three bits of reasoning aborted in this way by the nature of it this mountain be the man's own making this epitaph for no other body could have done it and he had left it in his will to be on the dead stone no doubt in the contemplation of death a man would no be likely to desire the perpetuation of a blasphemy upon a tablet of stone to stand against him for centuries in the face of God and man therefore could not have born the look to him of the presumptuous word of a proud man even mean himself with the almighty so what was it then and made him make it it seems to me though I confess Mr. Sutherland I may be led astray by the natural desire that a man has to think wheel of his own forebears for at he was a forebear of my own I cannot will do it the name being by no means a common one in Scotland only way I'm saying it seems to me that it's just the Darren way maybe a child like way of judging as Job might have done the Lord by himself and saying a given he Martin Elgin broad would have mercy surely the Lord was not less merciful than he was the offspring of the most high was as it were aware of the same spirit in the father of him as moved in himself he felt that the mercy in himself was one of the best things and he could not think at there would be less of it in the father of lights from whom come at Ilka good and perfect gift and maybe he remembered at the savior himself said be perfect as your father in heaven perfect and that the perfection of God as he had just painted would afford consistent in causing his body son to shine on the evil and the good and his collar rain to fall upon the just and the unjust it may well be doubted whether David's interpretation of the epitaph was the correct one it will appear to most of my readers to breathe rather doubt lighted up by hope then of that strong faith which had read in it but whether from family partiality and consequent unwillingness to believe that his ancestor had been a man who having led a wild airing and evil life turned it last towards the mercy of God as his only hope which the words might imply or simply that he saw this meaning to be the best this was the interpretation which David had adopted but in her post you supposing he thought all that why should he therefore have it carved on his tombstone I have thought about that too answer David for all thing a body has but few ways of saying his say to his brother men Robbie Burns could do it in song after song but maybe this epitaph was all that all Martin was able to make he might not have had the gift of utterance but there may be more in it nor that given the clergy had the times weren't a gay handle more in Lichten nor a foul of the clergy here boots he would have heard a heap of boot the glory of God as the thing that God himself was most anxious about upholding just like a prude creature of a king and that he would make men and feed them and cleave them and give them bra waves and toddling bare knees and sign damn them for his own glory maybe he would not get many of them that would speck so furrowed nowadays for they gone with the tide just like the love but in my old minis books I have read just as much as that in warrants too many on that speck like that have made out a good meaning in it but heck man it's an awesome devilish way of saying a holy thing now what better could poor old Martin do seeing he had no all word to say in the court life long nor just say his own word as pitilies might be in the courtyard after he was dead an ore and ore again with the tongue stone let them take it or let it alone I'd like it that's my defense of my old looky daddy haven't dressed his brave old soul but are we not in danger said Hugh of thinking too lightly and familiarly of the maker when we proceed to judge him so ourselves Mr. Sutherland replied David very solemnly I did not think I can be in muckled danger of lick-glying him when I can in my own soul as well as she was healed of her plague and I would be a horse in that pluck or a pig in that sty not merely if it was his will for who can stand against that but if it was for his glory I in comfort myself and the time that changes was only with the thought that after and all his blessed hands made the pigs too but a moment ago David you seem to me to be making rather little of his glory of his glory as they consider glory I after a worldly fashion that's no better nor pride and in him would only be a greater pride but his glory consistent in his trouth and love and kindness and grand self-forget and devotion to his creatures Lord man it's unspeakable I care little for his glory either given by that you mean the praise of man a heap of the anxiety for the spread of his glory seems to me but a desire for the sympathy of other folk there's no fear but men will praise him in the good time that is when they can but Mr. Sutherland for the glory of God rather than if it were possible one jot or one tittle should fail I call God to witness I would gladly go to hell itself for no evil worth the full name can befall the earth or any creature in it as long as God is what he is for the glory of God Mr. Sutherland I would die the death for the will of God I'm ready for anything he likes I cannot surly be in muckled danger of licked lying him a glory in my God the almost passionate earnestness with which David spoke alone have made it impossible for you to reply at once after a few moments however he ventured to ask the question would you do nothing that other people should know God than David anything that he likes but I would take tent of interfering he's added himself from morning to night from years end to years end but you seem to me to make out that God is nothing but love I nothing but love therefore no because we are told he is just would he be long just if he did not love us but does he not punish sin would it be any kindness not to punish sin not to use a means to put away the ill thing from us whatever may be meant by the place of misery depend upon it Mr. Sutherland it's only another form of love love shining through the fogs of ill and so great looks something very different thereby man rather nor see my Maggie and you'll know do I love her rather nor see my Maggie do an ill thing I'd see her lying dead at my feet but supposing the ill thing once done it's not my feet I would lay her but upon my heart with my old arms about her to hold the further ill off of her and so mortal man be more just than God shall a man be more pure than his maker oh my God my God the entrance of Margaret would have prevented the prosecution of this conversation even if it had not already drawn to a natural close not that David would not have talked thus before his daughter but simply that minds like instruments need to be brought up to the same pitch before they can atone together and that one feels this instinctively on the entrance of another who has not gone through the same immediate process of gradual elevation of tone their books and slates were got out and they sat down to their work but Hugh could not help observing that David in the midst of his lines and angles and algebraic computations would every now and then glance up at Margaret with the look of tenderness in his face yet deeper and more delicate in its expression than ordinary Margaret was however quite unconscious of it pursuing her work with her ordinary even diligence but Janet observed it what hails the Baron David at you look at her that get she said she nothing else her woman do you never look at the body but when something hails them oh aye but no that get well maybe I was thinking who I would look at her given anything did hail her who to did not further the ill hither by making a bind don't sit in the bed for it all David's answer to this was one of his own smiles at supper for it happened to be Saturday Hugh said I've been busy between wiles inventing or perhaps discovering an etymological pedigree for you David well let's hear it said David first do you know that that volume with your ancestors name on it was written by an old German shoemaker perhaps only a cobbler for anything I know nothing about it more or less answer David he was a wonderful man some people think he was almost inspired maybe, maybe was all David's doubtful response at all events though I know nothing about it myself he must have written wonderfully for a cobbler for my part replied David if I see no wonder in the man I can see but little in the cobbler what force should not a cobbler write wonderfully as well as another it's a trade at furthers meditation my grandfather was a cobbler as he call it and they say he was no fool in his own way either then it does go in in the family cried Hugh triumphantly I was in doubt at first whether your name referred to the breath of your shoulders David as transmitted from some ancient sire whose back was an L want broad for the G might come from a W or V for anything I know to the contrary but it would have been bread in that case and now I am quite convinced that that Martin or his father was a German a friend of old Jacob Baillman who gave him the book himself and was besides of the same craft and he coming to this country with a name hard to be pronounced they found a resemblance in the sound of it to his occupation and so gradually corrupted his name to them on Cooth into El Sin Broad El Shin Broad then El Gin Broad with the soft G and lastly El Gin Broad as you pronounce it now with the hard G this name turned from scotch into English would then be simply Martin Albor the cobbler is in the family David descended from Jacob Baillman himself by the mother's side this heraldic blazin amused them all very much and David expressed his entire concurrence with it declaring it to be incontrovertible Margaret laughed heartily besides its own beauty two things made Margaret laugh of some consequence one was that it was very rare and the other that it revealed her two regular rows of dainty white teeth suiting well to the whole build of the maiden she was graceful and rather small with a head which but for its smallness might have seemed too heavy for the neck that supported it so ready it always was to droop like a snow drop the only parts about her which you disliked were her hands and feet the former certainly had been reddened and roughened by household work but they were well formed notwithstanding the latter he had never seen notwithstanding the barefoot habits of scotch maidens for he saw Margaret rarely except in the evenings when she was dressed to receive him certainly however they were very far from following the shape of the clumsy country shoes by which he misjudged their proportions had he seen them as he might have seen them some part of any day during the summer their form at least would have satisfied him and chapter 13 chapter 14 of David Elgid Brot this is a Libra Vox recording all Libra Vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libra Vox.org David Elgid Brot by George McDonald chapter 14 winter out of whose womb came the ice and the oryfrost of heaven who hath gendered it the waters are hit as with the stone and the face of the deep is frozen he giveth snow like wool he scattereth the oryfrost like ashes Job 38 29 and 30 Psalm 147 16 winter was fairly come at last a black frost had bound the earth for many days and at length a peculiar sensation almost the smell of snow in the air indicated in approaching storm the snow fell at first in a few large unwilling flakes that fluttered slowly and heavily to the earth where they lay like the foundation of the superstructure that was about to follow faster and faster they fell wonderful multitudes of delicate crystals adhering in shapes of beauty which outvide all that jeweler could invent or execute of ethereal starry forms structures of evanescent yet prodigal loveliness till the whole air was obscured by them and night came on hastened by an hour from the gathering of their white darkness in the morning all the landscape was transfigured the snow had ceased to fall but the whole earth houses, fields and fences ponds and streams were changed to whiteness but most wonderful looked the trees every bow and every twig thickened and bent earthward with its own individual load of the fairy ghost birds each retained the semblance of its own form wonderfully magically altered by its thick garment of radiant whiteness shining gloriously in the sunlight it was the shroud of dead nature but a shroud that seemed to prefigure a lovely resurrection for the very deathrope was unspeakably witchingly beautiful again at night the snow fell and again and again with intervening days of bright sunshine every morning the first fresh footprints were a new wonder to the living creatures the younghearted amongst them at least who lived and moved in this death world this subpulchral planet buried in the shining air before the eyes of its sister stars in the blue deathless heavens paths had to be cleared in every direction towards the outhouses and cleared every morning till at last the walls of solid rain stood higher than the head of little Johnny as he was still called though he was 12 years old it was a great delight to him to wander through the snow avenues in every direction and great fun it was both to him and his brother when they were tired of snowballing each other and every living thing about the place except their parents and tutor to hollow out mysterious caves and vaulted passages sometimes they would carry these passages on from one path to within an inch or two of another and their lion weight till some passerby unwitting of harm was just opposite their lurking cave when they would dash through the solid wall of snow with a hideous yell almost endangering the wits of the maids and causing a recoil and startle ejaculation even of the strong man on whom they chanced to try their powers of alarm Hugh himself was once glad to cover the confusion of his own fright with the hearty fit of laughter into which the perturbation of the boys upon discovering whom they had startled through him it was rare fun to them but not to the women about the house who moved from place to place in a state of chronic alarm scared by the fear of being scared to one of them going into hysterics real or pretended it was found necessary to put a stop to the practice but not however before Margaret had had her share of the jest Hugh happened to be looking out of his window at the moment watching her indeed as she passed toward the kitchen with some message from her mother when an indescribable monster a chaotic mass of legs and snow burst as if out of the earth upon her she turned pale as the snow around her and Hugh had never observed before how dark her eyes were she sprang back with the grace of a startled deer she uttered no cry however perceiving in a moment who it was gave a troubled little smile and passed on her way as if nothing had happened Hugh was not sorry when maternal orders were issued against the practical joke the boys did not respect their mother very much but they dare not disobey her when she spoke in a certain tone there was no pathway cut to David's cottage to attract Trotten except what David coming to the house sometimes and Hugh going every afternoon to the cottage made between them Hugh often went to the knees in snow but was well dried and warmed by Janet's care when he arrived she had always a pair of stockings and slippers ready for him at the fire to be put on the moment of his arrival and exchanged again for his own dry and warm before he footed once more the ghostly waste when neither moon was up nor stars were out there was a strange eerie glimmer from the snow that lighted the way home and he thought there must be more light from it than could be accounted for merely by the reflection of every particle of light that might fall upon it from other sources Margaret was not kept to the house by the snow even when it was falling she went out as usual not of course wandering far walking was difficult now but she was in little danger of losing her way for she knew the country as well as anyone and although its face was greatly altered by the filling up of its features and the uniformity of the color yet those features were discernible to her experienced eye through the sheet that covered them it was only necessary to walk on the tops of dykes and other elevated ridges to keep clear of the deep snow there were many paths between the cottages and the farms in the neighborhood in which she could walk with comparative ease and comfort but she preferred wandering away through the fields and towards the hills sometimes she would come home like a creature of the snow born of it and living in it so covered was she from head to foot with its flakes David used to smile at her with peculiar complacency on such occasions it could be the playmate of nature Janet was not altogether indulgent to these freaks as she considered them of Margret she had quite given up calling her Meg since she took to the book so evened it but whatever her mother might think of it Margret was in this way laying up a store not only of bodily and mental health but of resources for thought and feeling of secret understandings and communions with nature and everything simple and strong and pure through nature then which she could have accumulated nothing more precious this kind of weather continued for some time till the people declared they had never known a storm last so long on every default that is without intermission but the frost grew harder and then the snow instead of falling in large adhesive flakes the small dry flakes of which the boys could make no snobaws all the time however there was no wind and this not being a sheep country there was little uneasiness or suffering occasioned by the severity of the wind weather beyond what must befall the poor classes in every northern country during the winter one day David heard that a poor old man of his acquaintance was dying and immediately set out to visit him at a distance of 2 or 3 miles he returned in the evening only in time for his studies for there was of course little or nothing to be done at present in the way of labor as he sat down to the table he said I have seen a wonderful sight since I saw you Mr. Sutherland I go to see an old Christian whose body and brain are now worn he was never on anything remarkable for intellect and just took the minister and told him for true and keep it the good of it for his hurt was erect and his faith a-handled stronger than maybe it had on a right to be according to his own opinions but there is something far better nor his opinions in the heart of Ilke Godfairn body when I go to put the horse he was sitting in his old armchair by the side of the fire and his face looked at days like picked in it but what came new and then from a low in the fire the snow was drifting a weeaboot the bitwannock of his old eye was thicked upon it and all that he said taking no notice of me was just the birdies is fluttering the birdies is fluttering I spake to him and tried to ruse him with the odd thing after another but I might as well have spoken to the door-cheek all the notice that he took never a word he spake but I the birdies is fluttering at last it came to my mind that the body was I full of one of the psalms in particular and so I just said to him at last John have you forgotten the 23rd Psalm forgotten the 23rd Psalm quote he and his face lighted up in a moment from the inside the Lord's my shepherd and I have followed him through all the s'more and drift of the world and he'll bring me to the green pastures and the still waters of his summer kingdom at the long last I shall not want and I have wanted for Nathan he had been a shepherd himself in his young days and soon he go'd with a kind of personal commentary on the whole Psalm from beginning to the end and sign he just fell back into the old croon and song the birdies is fluttering the lick died out of his face and all that I could say could not bring him back the lick to his face nor the sense to his tongue he'll soon be in a better world so I was just forced to leave him but I promised his doctor poor body that I would call again see him the morn's afternoon it's Uncle Dawey work for her for they have scarce in neighbor within reach of them in case of change and there had hardly been a crater inside of their door for a week the following afternoon David set out according to his promise before his return the wind which had been threatening to wake all day had risen rapidly and now blew a snowstorm of its own when you open the door to take his usual walk to the cottage just as darkness was beginning to fall the sight he saw made his young strong heart dance with delight the snow that fell made but the small part of the wild confused turmoil in an uproar of the tenfold storm for the wind raving over the surface of the snow which as I have already explained lay nearly as loose as dry sand swept it in thick fierce clouds along with it tearing it up and casting it down again no one could tell where for the whole air was filled with drift as they call the snow when thus driven a few hours of this would alter the face of the whole country leaving some parts bare and others buried beneath heaps on heaps of snow called here snow reese for the world snow reese does not mean the lovely garlands hung upon every tree and bush in its feathery fall but awful mounds of drifted snow that may be the smooth soft white sephalcurs of dead men smothered in the lapping folds of the almost solid wind path or way was none before him he could see nothing but the surface of a sea of froth and foam as it appeared to him with the spray torn from it whirled in all shapes and contortions and driven in every direction but chiefly in the main direction of the wind in long sloping spires of misty whiteness swift as arrows and as keen upon the face of him who dared to oppose them he plunged into it with a wild sense of life and joy in the rest of his short walk however if walk it could be called which was one chain of plunges and emerging struggles with the snow and wrestles with the wind he felt that it needed not a stout heart only but sound lungs and strong limbs as well to battle with the storm even for such a distance when he reached the cottage he found Janet in considerable anxiety not only about David who had not yet returned but about Margaret whom she had not seen for some time and who must be out somewhere in the storm the well hissy he suggested that she might have gone to meet her father to lord forbid ejaculated Janet the road lies or the top of the house cock as eerie and bare a place as ever was hill moss with never a scon or build in it from the top side to the other the wind there just gone clean wood all together and there was money a well he foreby that giving you fall into it you would never come at the bottom of it the lord preserves us I was David was home how could you let him go Janet let him gone laddie it's a strong tower to would hold our bind David when he considers you bud to gone and we're into the deals bike but I'm not that feared about him I must believe he's under special protection if ever man was off to be and he's no more feared at the storm nor again the snow was angels feathers flutter and wood to the wings all a boot him but I'm no easy in my mind to boot Maggie that will hissy you and she be meeting her father and chance to miss him the lord can what may come of her he tried to comfort her but all that could be done was to wait David's return the storm seemed to increase rather than abate its force the footprints you had made had all but vanished already at the very door of the house which stood quite in the shelter of the fur would as they looked out a dark figure appeared within a yard or two of the house the lord granted be my Baron prayed poor Janet but it was David and alone Janet gave a shriek David was Maggie I have not seen the Baron replied David in repressed perturbation she's no there it is she the next she's no at home David that's all that I can forget she the Lord can she smold in the snow by this time she's in the Lord's hands Janet be she and eat the snow race did not forget that woman who long is it since she missed her an hour and more I did not can who long I'm clean do it with dread I'll away and look for her just hold the hurt in her till I come back Mr. Sutherland I won't be left behind David I'm going with you you did not can wait here saying Mr. Sutherland I would soon have two of you to seek in place so on never heed me I'm going on my own account come what may we'll we'll I do not buy to differ I'm going up to the Burnside hold your to the farm and spare given on anybody's seen her and the lads will be able to look for her in a jiffy my poor lassie the silent must have accompanied the last words was lost in the wind as they vanished in the darkness Janet fell underneath in the kitchen with the door wide open and the wind drifting in the powdery snow and scattering it from the floor a picture of more thorough desolation can hardly be imagined she soon came to herself however and reflecting that if the lost child was found there must be a warm bed to receive her else she might be a second time lost she rose and shut the door and mended the fire it was as if the dumb attitude of her prayer was answered for those she had never spoken or even thought a word strength was restored to her distracted when she had made every preparation she could think of she went to the door again opened it and looked out it was a region of howling darkness tossed about by pale snowdrifts out of which it seems scarce more hopeful that welcome faces would emerge than that they should return to our eyes from the vast unknown in which they vanish at last she closed the door once more and knowing nothing else to be done sat down on a chair with eyes on her knees and her eyes fixed on the door the clock went on with its slow swing tick tack tick tack an utterly inhuman time measure but she heard the sound of every second through the midst of the uproar in the fir trees which bent their tall heads hissing to the blast and swinging about in the agony of their strife the minutes went by till an hour was gone there was neither sound nor hearing but of the storm and the clock still she sat and stared her eyes fixed on the door latch suddenly without warning it was lifted and the door opened her heart bounded and fluttered like a startled bird but alas the first words she heard were is she no come yet it was her husband followed by several of the farm servants he had made a circuit to the farm and finding that Hugh had never been there hoped though with trembling that Margaret had already returned home the question fell upon Janet's heart like the sound of the earth on the coffin lid and her silent stare was the only answer David received but at that very moment like a dead man burst from the tomb entered from behind the party at the open door silent and white with rigid features and fixed eyes Hugh he stumbled in leaning forward with long strides dragging something behind him he pushed and staggered through them as if he saw nothing before him and as they parted they saw that it was Margaret or her dead body that he dragged after him he dropped her at her mother's feet and fell himself on the floor before they were able to give him any support David who was quite calm got the whiskey bottle out and tried to administer some to Margaret first but her teeth were firmly set to all appearances she was dead one of the young men succeeded better with Hugh whom at David's direction they took into the study while he and Janet got Margaret undressed and put to bed with hot bottles all about her for in warmth lay the only hope of restoring her after she had lain thus for a while she gave a sigh and when they had succeeded in getting her to swallow some warm milk she began to breathe and soon seemed to be only fast asleep after half an hour's rest and warming Hugh was able to move and speak David would not allow him to say much however but got him to bed sending word to the house that he could not go home that night he and Janet sat by the fireside all night listening to the storm that still raved without and thanking God for both of the lives every few minutes a tiptoe excursion was made to the bedside and now and then to the other room both the patient slept quietly towards morning Margaret opened her eyes and faintly called her mother but soon fell asleep once more and did not awake again till nearly noon when sufficiently restored to be able to speak the account she gave was that she had set out to meet her father but the storm increasing she had thought it more prudent to turn it grew in violence however so rapidly and beat so directly in her face she was soon exhausted with struggling and binomed with the cold the last thing she remembered was dropping as she thought into a hole and feeling as if she were going to sleep in bed yet knowing it was death and thinking how much sweeter it was than sleep Hugh's account was very strange and defective but he was never able to add anything to it he said that when he rushed out into the dark the storm seized him like a fury beating him about the head and face with icy wings till he was almost stunned he took the road to the farm which lay through the fur wood but he soon became aware that he had lost his way and might tramp about in the fur wood till daylight if he lived as long then thinking of Margaret he lost his presence of mind and rushed wildly along he thought he must have knocked his head against the trunk of a tree but he could not tell for he remembered nothing more than himself dragging Margaret with his arms around her through the snow and nearing the light in the cottage window where or how he had found her or what the light was that he was approaching he had not the least idea he had only a vague notion that he was rescuing Margaret from something dreadful Margaret for her part had no recollection of reaching the fur wood and as long before morning all traces were obliterated remained a mystery Janet thought that David had some wonderful persuasion about it but he was never heard even to speculate on the subject certain it was that he had saved Margaret's life he seemed quite well next day for he was of a very powerful and enduring frame for his years she recovered more slowly and perhaps never altogether overcame the effects of death's embrace that night from the moment when Margaret was brought home the storm gradually died away and by the morning all was still but many starry and moonlit nights glimmered and passed before that snow was melted away from the earth and many a night Janet awoke from her sleep with a cry thinking she heard her daughter moaning deep in the smooth ocean of snow and could not find where she lay the occurrences of this dreadful night could not lessen the interest his cottage friends felt in hue and a long winter passed with daily and lengthening communion both in study and in general conversation I fear some of my younger readers will think my story slow and say what are they not going to fall in love with each other yet we have been expecting it ever so long I have two answers to make to this the first is I do not pretend to know so much about love as you excuse me and must confess I do not know whether they were in love with each other or not the second is that I dare not pretend to understand thoroughly such a sacred mystery as the heart of Margaret and I should feel it rather worse than presumptuous to talk as if I did even Hughes is known to me only by gleams of light thrown now and then and here and there upon it perhaps the two answers are only the same answer in different shapes Mrs. Glasford however would easily answer the question if an answer is all that is wanted for she notwithstanding the facts of the story which she could not fail to have heard correctly from the best authority and notwithstanding the nature of the night which might have seemed sufficient to overthrow her conclusions uniformly remarked as often as their escape was alluded to in her hearing let them take it they had no business to be with each other Chapter 14