George MacDonald

“ There was no Elsie Duff, with head drooping over her knitting, seated in the summer grass on the other side of a singing brook. Her head was aching on her pillow because I had struck her with that vile lump; and instead of the odour of white clover she was breathing the dregs of the hateful smoke with which I had filled the cottage. I sat down, cold as it was, on the frozen hillock, and buried my face in my hands. Then my dream returned upon me. This was how I sat in my dream when my father had turned me out-of-doors. Oh how dreadful it would be! I should just have to lie down and die. ”

“ It is the sun that is the life of the world. Not only does he make the rain rise to fall on the seeds in the earth, but even that would be useless, if he did not make them warm as well—and do something else to them besides which we cannot understand. Farther down into the earth than any of the rays of light can reach, he sends other rays we cannot see, which go searching about in it, like long fingers; and wherever they find and touch a seed, the life that is in that seed begins to talk to itself, as it were, and straightway begins to grow. ”

“ For on the opposite side of the stream, on the grass, like a shepherdess in an old picture, sat a young girl, about my own age, in the midst of a crowded colony of daisies and white clover, knitting so that her needles went as fast as Kirsty’s, and were nearly as invisible as the thing with the hooked teeth in it that looked so dangerous and ran itself out of sight upon Turkey’s mother’s spinning-wheel. A little way from her was a fine cow feeding, with a long iron chain dragging after her. ”

“ Angus. And so we’re fitted, I hope.’ ‘Not at all,’ said Angus, who as I told you was a wise man and a knowing; ‘not one bit,’ said Angus. ‘The kelpie’s hide is thicker than three bull-hides, and none of your weapons would do more than mark it.’ ‘What am I to do then, Angus, for kill him I will somehow?’ ‘I’ll tell you what to do; but it needs a brave man to do that.’ ‘And do you think I’m not brave enough for that, Angus?’ ‘I know one thing you are not brave enough for.’ ‘And what’s that?’ said Allister, and his face grew red, only he did not want to anger Nelly’s father. ”

“ Turkey told him.
“How comes it that nobody heard our shouting, then?”
“You know, sir,” answered Turkey, “the old man is as deaf as a post, and I dare say his people were all fast asleep.”
The snow was falling only in a few large flakes now, which sank through the air like the moultings of some lovely bird of heaven. The moon had come out again, and the white world lay around us in lovely light. A good deal of snow had fallen while we lay in the peats, but we could yet trace the track of the two horses. ”

“ His tones grew louder and louder—but had not yet risen above a sharp whisper, when at length a small trembling voice cried “Turkey! Turkey!” in prolonged accents of mingled hope and pain. There was a sound in the bushes above me—a louder sound and a rush. Turkey sprang to his feet and vanished. I followed. Before I reached the top, there came a despairing cry from Davie, and a shout and a gabble from Willie. Then followed a louder shout and a louder gabble, mixed with a scream from the bagpipes, and an exulting laugh from Turkey. ”

“ I opened the front door and went out. The world itself was no better. The day had hardly begun to dawn. The dark dead frost held it in chains of iron. The sky was dull and leaden, and cindery flakes of snow were thinly falling. Everywhere life looked utterly dreary and hopeless. What was there worth living for? I went out on the road, and the ice in the ruts crackled under my feet like the bones of dead things. I wandered away from the house, and the keen wind cut me to the bone, for I had not put on plaid or cloak. ”

“ Out of the dark earth he thus brings all the lovely green things of the spring, and clothes the world with beauty, and sets the waters running, and the birds singing, and the lambs bleating, and the children gathering daisies and butter-cups, and the gladness overflowing in all hearts—very different from what we see now—isn’t it, Ranald?”
“Yes, father; a body can hardly believe, to look at it now, that the world will ever be like that again.”
“But, for as cold and wretched as it looks, the sun has not forsaken it. ”

“ A fitful little breeze, as if itself subject to the influence of the heat, would wake up for a few moments, wave a few heads of horse-daisies, waft a few strains of odour from the blossoms of the white clover, and then die away fatigued with the effort. Turkey took out his Jews’ harp, and discoursed soothing if not eloquent strains.
At our feet, a few yards from the mound, ran a babbling brook, which divided our farm from the next. Those of my readers whose ears are open to the music of Nature, must have observed how different are the songs sung by different brooks. ”

“ True, Mrs. Mitchell was there, but there was another there as well. Even Kirsty would not do in this terror. Home was the only refuge, for my father was there. I sped for the manse.
But as I approached it a new apprehension laid hold of my trembling heart. I was not sure, but I thought the door was always locked at night. I drew nearer. The place of possible refuge rose before me. I stood on the grass-plot in front of it. There was no light in its eyes. Its mouth was closed. It was silent as one of the ricks. Above it shone the speechless stars. Nothing was alive. Nothing would speak. ”

“ But watch how the strength of such people, their calmness and common sense, fares when the grasp of suffering lays hold upon them. It was a sad sight—that abject hopeless misery I saw this afternoon. If his mind had been an indication of the reality, one must have said that there was no God—no God at least that would have anything to do with him. The universe as reflected in the tarnished mirror of his soul, was a chill misty void, through which blew the moaning wind of an unknown fate. As near as ever I saw it, that man was without God and without hope in the world. ”

“ It was an old Highland legend, which she adorned with the flowers of her own Celtic fancy, and swathed around the form so familiar to us all.
“There is a pot in the Highlands,” began Kirsty, “not far from our house, at the bottom of a little glen. It is not very big, but fearfully deep; so deep that they do say there is no bottom to it.”
“An iron pot, Kirsty?” asked Allister.
“No, goosey,” answered Kirsty. “A pot means a great hole full of water—black, black, and deep, deep.”
“Oh!” remarked Allister, and was silent.
“Well, in this pot there lived a kelpie.” ”

“ But Kirsty kept her eyes on her knitting, and did not resume.
“Is that all, Kirsty?” said Allister.
Still Kirsty returned no answer. She needed all her force to overcome the anger she was busy stifling. For it would never do for one in her position to lose her temper because of the unbelieving criticism of a herd-boy. It was a curious instance of the electricity flashed out in the confluence of unlike things—the Celtic faith and the Saxon works. For anger is just the electric flash of the mind, and requires to have its conductor of common sense ready at hand. ”

“ Lifting my head after the first vexation was over, I thought I saw a shadow pass from the window. Although I could not positively say I saw it, I had a conviction it was Turkey, and my heart began to turn again towards him. Emboldened by the fancied proximity, I attempted my lesson once more, but that moment Peter was down upon me like a spider. At last, however, growing suddenly weary of the sport, he desisted, and said:
“Ran, you can stay if you like. I’ve learned my catechism, and I don’t see why I should wait his time.” ”

“ I remember so well how a single ray of sunlight fell on the floor from the little window in the roof, just on the foot that kept turning the spinning-wheel. Its hum sounded sleepy in my ears. I gazed at the sloping ray of light, in which the ceaseless rotation of the swift wheel kept the motes dancing most busily, until at length to my half-closed eyes it became a huge Jacob’s ladder, crowded with an innumerable company of ascending and descending angels, and I thought it must be the same ladder I used to see in my dream. ”

“ Jamie Duff, the most harmless and conscientious creature, who would not have injured a young fir upon any temptation, did take a wrong direction, caught his foot in a hole, fell into a furze bush, and, nearly paralysed with terror, was seized by the long fingers of Adam, and ignominiously lifted by a portion of his garments into the vast aërial space between the ground and the white, pock-pitted face of the keeper. ”

“ We seldom went into her grandmother’s cottage, for she did not make us welcome. After we had taken her home we generally repaired to Turkey’s mother, with whom we were sure of a kind reception. She was a patient diligent woman, who looked as if she had nearly done with life, and had only to gather up the crumbs of it. I have often wondered since, what was her deepest thought—whether she was content to be unhappy, or whether she lived in hope of some blessedness beyond. It is marvellous with how little happiness some people can get through the world. ”

“ The sun was not a scientific sun at all, but one such as you see in penny picture-books—a round, jolly, jocund man’s face, with flashes of yellow frilling it all about, just what a grand sunflower would look if you set a countenance where the black seeds are. And the moon was just such a one as you may see the cow jumping over in the pictured nursery rhyme. ”

“ If Turkey’s first object had been their utter demolition, he could not have treated them more unmercifully. It was no time for gentle measures: my life hung in the balance. But this was more than Willie could bear. He turned from us, and once again pursued his pipes. When he had nearly overtaken him, Turkey gave them a last masterly kick, which sent them flying through the air, caught them as they fell, and again sought the bog, while I, hoisting Davie on my back, hurried, with more haste than speed, towards the manse. ”

“ I was still seated on Missy. To go home having done nothing for Jamie, and therefore nothing for Elsie, after all my grand ideas of rescue and restoration, was too mortifying. I should feel so small when I woke in the morning! And yet suppose the something which gave that fearful cry in the cottage should be out roaming the fields and looking for mel I had courage enough, however, to remain where I was till Andrew came out again, and as I sat still on the mare’s back, my courage gradually rose. Nothing increases terror so much as running away. ”

“ Allister, Turkey, and I started to our feet, Allister with a cry of dismay, Turkey grasping his stick.
“It’s the kelpie!” cried Allister.
But the harsh voice of the old witch followed, something deadened by the intervening door.
“Kirsty! Kirsty!” it cried; “open the door directly.”
“No, no, Kirsty!” I objected. “She’ll shake wee Davie to bits, and haul Allister through the snow. She’s afraid to touch me.”
Turkey thrust the poker in the fire; but Kirsty snatched it out, threw it down, and boxed his ears, which rough proceeding he took with the pleasantest laugh in the world. ”

“ My elder brother Tom always had his meals with him, and sat at his lessons in the study. But my father did not mind the younger ones running wild, so long as there was a Kirsty for them to run to; and indeed the men also were not only friendly to us, but careful over us. No doubt we were rather savage, very different in our appearance from town-bred children, who are washed and dressed every time they go out for a walk: that we should have considered not merely a hardship, but an indignity. To be free was all our notion of a perfect existence. ”

“ In all my experience I have never yet known a man in whose heart I could not find proofs of the shining of the great Sun. It might be a very feeble wintry shine, but still he was there. For a human heart though, it is very dreadful to have a cold, white winter like this inside it, instead of a summer of colour and warmth and light. There’s the poor old man we are going to see. They talk of the winter of age: that’s all very well, but the heart is not made for winter. A man may have the snow on his roof, and merry children about his hearth ”

“ Sun, moon, and stars were gone; the ladder of light had vanished; and I lay sobbing on my pillow.
I have taken up a great deal of room with this story of a dream, but it clung to me, and would often return. And then the time of life to which this chapter refers is all so like one, that a dream comes in well enough in it. There is a twilight of the mind, when all things are strange, and when the memory is only beginning to know that it has got a notebook, and must put things down in it. ”

“ Then came a shrill, suppressed scream; and we heard the voice of a girl, crying:
“Grannie! grannie! What’s the matter with you? Can’t you speak to me, grannie? They’ve smothered my grannie!”
Sobs and moans were all we heard now. Peter had taken fright at last, and was busy undoing the rope. Suddenly he flung the door wide and fled, leaving me exposed to the full gaze of the girl. To my horror it was Elsie Duff! She was just approaching the door, her eyes streaming with tears, and her sweet face white with agony. I stood unable to move or speak. ”

“ We should get tired of the sunlight itself, beautiful as it is, if God did not send it away every night. We’re not even fit to have moonlight always. The moon is buried in the darkness every month. And because we can bear nothing for any length of time together, we are sent to sleep every night, that we may begin fresh again in the morning.”
“I see, father, I see,” I answered.
We talked on until we came in sight of John Jamieson’s cottage.
What a poor little place it was to look at—built of clay, which had hardened in the sun till it was just one brick! ”

“ We were at the wrong end of the night too.
“I’m in a kind of ditch, I think, father,” I cried—the place we fell off on one side and a stone wall on the other.”
“That can hardly be, or I shouldn’t have got out,” he returned. “But now I’ve got Missy quiet, I’ll come to you. I must get you out, I see, or you will be snowed up. Woa, Missy! Good mare! Stand still.”
The next moment he gave a joyous exclamation.
“What is it, father?” I cried.
“It’s not a stone wall; it’s a peat-stack. That is good.”
“I don’t see what good it is. We can’t light a fire.” ”