David Simple

“ Indeed, it must be confessed, that if David would have been satisfied to have lived in his brother's house in a state of dependency; to have walked about in a rusty coat, and an old tye-wig, like a decayed gentleman, thinking it a favour to have bread, while every visitor at the house should be extolling the goodness of his brother for keeping him; I say, could he have been contented with this sort of behaviour, he might have stayed there as long as he pleased. But Daniel was resolved he should not be on a level with him, who had taken so much pains to get a superior fortune ”

“ David was soon tired of this manner of life, in which he saw no hopes of finding what he was in search of, and in which there was no variety, for the desire of winning seemed to he the only thing thought on by everybody ”

“ I am sure I have lost a great deal by this cursed news." Immediately David was pulled by the sleeve by one who had stood by, and overheard what they had been saying; who whispered him in the ear, to take care what he did, otherwise the man with whom he had been talking would draw him into some snare. Upon which he told his new friend what had passed with the other, and how he had advised him to buy stock. "Did he?" said this gentleman. "I will assure you, I saw that very man sell off as much of that stock as he could, just before you spoke to him ”

“ What this poor creature, whose heart was naturally tender and grateful, felt at seeing himself loaded with benefits from a stranger, I leave to the imagination of every reader, who can have any sense of obligations; and those who have none, I am sure must think enough of trifles, to imagine he must be pleased, after being some time in rags, to have whole clothes to put on.
As soon as the young woman opened her eyes, she got up, and dressed herself in the things David had sent her, and then came to see her brother. She looked very pale and weak, but very beautiful ”

“ David sighed and looked about him. He was tired and hungry, and he did not understand things at all. Something very wrong, very terrible, must be the matter with his father. Here it was almost dark, yet they had no place to go, no supper to eat, while far, far up on the mountain-side was their own dear home sad and lonely without them. Up there, too, the sun still shone, doubtless,—at least there were the rose-glow and the Silver Lake to look at, while down here there was nothing, nothing but gray shadows, a long dreary road, and a straggling house or two in sight. ”

“ More extraordinary than all this to David, however, was the fact that these people regarded HIM, not themselves, as being strange. As if it were not the most natural thing in the world to live with one's father in one's home on the mountain-top, and spend one's days trailing through the forest paths, or lying with a book beside some babbling little stream! As if it were not equally natural to take one's violin with one at times, and learn to catch upon the quivering strings the whisper of the winds through the trees! ”

“ Even the butterfly was forgotten then, for down in the path by the pansy-bed David dropped to his knees in veritable worship.
"Why, you're just like little people," he cried softly. "You've got faces; and some of you are happy, and some of you are sad. And you—you big spotted yellow one—you're laughing at me. Oh, I'm going to play you—all of you. You'll make such a pretty song, you're so different from each other!" And David leaped lightly to his feet and ran around to the side porch for his violin. ”

“ Half an hour later Simeon Holly climbed the stairs to David's room, and as gently and plainly as he could told the boy of this great, good thing that had come to him.
David was amazed, but overjoyed. That he was found to be the son of a famous man affected him not at all, only so far as it seemed to set his father right in other eyes—in David's own, the man had always been supreme. But the going away—the marvelous going away—filled him with excited wonder.
"You mean, I shall go away and study—practice—learn more of my violin?" ”

“ The handsome, intelligent young fellow, with his out-of-the-way strains of knowledge, with his frank self-conceit and his equally frank ignorance, caught the fancy of those who stayed to talk with him. A certain number of persons had been already taken with him in Purcell's shop, and were now vastly amused by the lad's daring and the ambitious range of his first stock.
As for Lord Driffield, on the first occasion when he had dropped in he had sat for an hour at least, talking and smoking cigarettes across David's primitive counter. ”

“ I have government mail and passengers now, but when I'm through--I'll be back."
"What happened--an accident?"
"No, but there will be if you don't 'tend your own business."
The shadow of the black cloud had crept across the Kinemon home.
"I'd thank you to drive the hack to Greenstream and not bother the Sheriff."
"Allan is helpless for life."
"We can do nothing more now. I'll call back this way tonight."
It seemed to David he waited an eternity for his father to move.
"Hunter, you've been a mighty good husband--I pray God will send you back."
"Us Kinemons can revenge our own." ”

“ David's grace shines out more during this conspiracy than at any period of his life. And not only does David's grace appear in a striking point of view, but the genuine devotedness of his dear people also. When we behold a loving band of followers thronging round the weeping, the barefooted David, our hearts are far more deeply touched than when we see them thronging round his throne. We are more thoroughly convinced that his person, and not his office, was the centre of attraction. David had nothing to offer his followers now save fellowship in his rejection ”

“ And here was the Foundry—David could hardly prevent himself from marching into the yard littered with mysterious odds and ends of old iron which had been the treasure house of his childhood. But no Tom—and no familiar face anywhere.
Yes!—there was the shoemaker's cottage, where the prayer-meeting had been, and there, on the threshold, looking at the approaching figure, stood the shoemaker's wife, the strange woman with the mystical eyes. David greeted her as he came near. She stared at him from under a bony hand put up against the sun, but did not apparently recognise him ”

“ And at the words a small figure in a yellow-white nightshirt stopped short. David, violin in hand, had fled from the little hot room, and stood now just inside the kitchen door.
"Who can want a child that has been brought up in that heathenish fashion?" continued Simeon Holly. "According to his own story, even his father did nothing but play the fiddle and tramp through the woods day in and day out, with an occasional trip to the mountain village to get food and clothing when they had absolutely nothing to eat and wear. Of course nobody wants him!" ”

“ David saw he was alive, and felt it good. Surely life was a miracle none could explain. Surely to approach the miracle was to confess it—bask in the glow of knowing life unknowable. He had a vision of the world of men and children and mothers—endless millions massing down the ages. All of them had eyes upturned, had eyes and lips full of prayer. ”

“ David's eyes flew wide open again.
"But my song—I'd have lost it!" he exclaimed. "And father said always when a song came to me to play it at once. Songs are like the mists of the morning and the rainbows, you know, and they don't stay with you long. You just have to catch them quick, before they go. Now, don't you see?"
But Simeon Holly, with a despairingly scornful gesture, had turned away; and David, after a moment's following him with wistful eyes, soberly walked toward the kitchen door. Two minutes later he was industriously working at his task of filling the woodbox. ”

“ Ah, David, what with the flute and the pen, banishment was no pain to thee! . . . He placed the papers, save that one, in my hands, and I, womanlike, asked again for all. "Some day," said he, "come, and I will read it to you. Nay, I will give you a taste of it now," he added, as he brought forth the writing. "Thus it reads."
Here are thy words, Davy. What think thee of them now?
"As I dwell in this house I know Soolsby as I never knew him when he lived, and though, up here, I spent many an hour with him. Men leave their impressions on all around them. ”

“ Where it led to, David did not know, but he proceeded unhesitatingly to try to find out. For some time he climbed the slope in silence, his violin, mute, under his arm; but the white road still lay in tantalizing mystery before him when a by-path offered the greater temptation, and lured him to explore its cool shadowy depths instead.
Had David but known it, he was at Sunny-crest, Hinsdale's one "show place," the country home of its one really rich resident, Miss Barbara Holbrook. ”

“ David is not an ordinary man. Who ever saw an ordinary man who was more a mother to a child than his own mother? Who hides behind the bed-curtain and watches how other people's children are eating, and who weeps for joy at the sight of them? Of whom even the tiniest children are not afraid, and they play with his venerable beard as with the beard of their grandfather? Did not the stupid little Rubin tear out a tuft of grey hair from David Leizer's venerable beard? ”

“ Never, even in her sleep, did she sink to some quiet haven of dream with David: have him there to talk to gently, to be with gladly. Something surging within her took this great Wish and cut it up into bloody fragments and strewed her night with them. All of David was never there: nor all of a single moment with her holding his head on her breast. David’s laughter or David’s troubled frown or David’s voice: or merely David’s name—David, David, David—falling down her night like drippings of blood. And she, lost in this welter of struggle between wish and the real, unable to take sides. ”

“ and therefore, as thinketh the great bishop Hall, 'tis one of the severest imprecations which David ever utter'd against the enemies of the Lord—and, as if he had said, 'I wish them no worse luck than always to be rolling about.'—So much motion, continues he (for he was very corpulent) —is so much unquietness; and so much of rest, by the same analogy, is so much of heaven. ”

“ As he and Reuben, driving their new sheep, mounted the last edge of the moor which separated them from home, the Kinder Valley lay before them, sparkling in a double radiance of morning and of spring. David lingered a minute or two behind his uncle. What a glory of light and freshness in the air—what soaring larks—what dipping swallows! And the scents from the dew-steeped heather—and the murmur of the blue and glancing stream! ”

“ Again David frowned in mild wonder.
"Oh, I wasn't idle, sir. Father said I must never be that. He said every instrument was needed in the great Orchestra of Life; and that I was one, you know, even if I was only a little boy. And he said if I kept still and didn't do my part, the harmony wouldn't be complete, and—"
"Yes, yes, but never mind that now, boy," interrupted Simeon Holly, with harsh impatience. "I mean, did he never set you to work—real work?"
"Work?" David meditated again. Then suddenly his face cleared. ”

“ David was standing outside a trim six-roomed house in the upper part of the little Lancashire town of Wakely, waiting for Lucy Purcell.
She came at last, flushed and discomposed, pulling the door hastily to behind her.
They walked on a short distance, talking disconnectedly of the weather, the mud, and the way on to the moor, till she said suddenly:
'I wish people wouldn't be so good and so troublesome!'
'Did Robert wish to keep you at home?' inquired David, laughing.
'Well, he didn't want me to come out with—anybody but him,' she said, flushing. 'And it's so bad, because one can't be cross. ”

“ While it was going on, David, always with that poignant, shrinking thought of Elise at his heart, looked round to see if there were any women present. Yes, there were three. Two were young, outrageously dressed, with sickly pretty tired faces. The third was a woman in middle life, with short hair parted at the side, and a strong, masculine air. Her dress was as nearly as possible that of a man, and she was smoking vigorously. The rough bonhomie of her expression and her professional air reminded David once more of George Sand. An artist, he supposed, or a writer. ”

“ The gaze of the younger man rested long and lovingly on the pallid face upon the pillow. Never had David looked so grand before. The thin, responsive lips; the care-worn face, compassion and sympathy in every line; the crown of silvery hair, so whitened since Harvey saw it last; the large, far-seeing eyes, homes of the faith and hope that had upborne his life and made it beautiful, out-gazing now beyond the things of time, calm with the last long peace—all these gave to the face that spiritual beauty which is the handiwork of God. ”

“ The lowly prayer which we have been tracing rises ere its close to a vow of renewed praise. It is very beautiful to note how the poet nature, as well as the consciousness of a Divine function, unite in the resolve that crowns the psalm. To David no tribute that he could bring to God seemed so little unworthy—none to himself so joyous—as the music of his harp, and the melody of his songs; nor was any part of his kingly office so lofty in his estimation as his calling to [Pg 225] proclaim in glowing words the name of the Lord, that men might learn to love. ”