Renown

“ Young Renwick too caught up the torn flag, nobly saying, “They are but standard-bearers who have fallen; the Master lives.” Thus one after another on blood-stained scaffold, or on blood-soaked field, fell the precious seed-grain, to rise in harvests manifold, till just at the darkest hour before the dawn of Renwick’s martyrdom closed the red roll in 1688—the year of the revolution—and the seed so long sown in tears was reaped in joy. ”

“ Their ranks separated themselves brutally from one another, like so many categories; the pots stood in military array, and each of them bore a label, which had to do with botany rather than with gardening, and gave evidence rather of science than of art. This circumstance gave one food for meditation. After all, could I admit for a moment that Lerne could possibly do gardening for pleasure?
Prosecuting my researches, I let my charmed eyes wander over all those marvels, incapable in my ignorance of naming any of them. ”

“ But the prettiest of all those hybrids was perhaps a rose tree with ox-eyes for flowers and crab-apples for fruit.
In the center of the rotunda a bush showed a mingling of leaves so dissimilar as those of the holly, the lime and the poplar. Having pressed them apart I satisfied myself that they issued all three from a single stem.
[71] It was the triumph of grafting—a science that Lerne had for fifteen years been pushing to the verge of the miraculous, so far indeed that the results presented a somewhat disquieting spectacle. “When man sets his hand to Life, he makes monsters.” ”

“ Who could be wise here after years of brick and mortar?
“Where are your eyes, Renny,” he cried, “that you don’t grow wild when you look around you? See the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves; listen to the murmur of the wind in the branches; hear the trickle of the brook down there; notice the smooth bark of the beech and the rugged covering of the oak; smell the wholesome woodland scents. Renmark, you have no soul, or you could not be so unmoved. It is like paradise. It is—Say, Renny, by Jove, I’ve forgotten that jug at the barn!” ”

“ Renny pictured the soul of the foal, strong-legged, set free, galloping with glad squeals toward some celestial meadow, its eyes like stars, its tail a flaming meteor, its flying hoofs striking bright sparks from rocky planets. "What a blithering ass I am—worse than Eden. ”

“ You owe her some sort of reparation. On Sunday, the clerk’s wife will be seated as usual in the last row, near the church-door; at the Belief, you will go and fetch her and lead her by the hand to your seat of honour, which she is better worthy to occupy than you are.”
The poor creature did mechanically what she was bid, and she had ceased to be a sentient being. From this time forth, little was ever seen of the flax-crusher and his family. The manor had become, as it were, a tomb, from which issued no sign of life. ”

“ And yet, as the spirit departed from it into the Unknown, the dead body of my uncle seemed to me to grow more beautiful. The soul is so praised in comparison with the flesh, that one is [266] astonished at seeing the latter become beautiful at the departure of the former. I followed the progress of the phenomenon on Lerne’s features. The Great Mystery shed the light of a divine serenity over his brow, as if life were a cloud whose passing reveals some strange sun; and thus whilst the countenance took on the hue of white marble, the puppet became a statue. ”

“ I have often played, you know, on its lawns and among the branches of its trees; it’s a godfather that has dandled me on its knee—like—like you, uncle.”
“Yes, yes,” said Lerne evasively. “All the same you will soon have had enough of it.”
“Not at all. The park of Fonval is my earthly paradise.”
“There you are right. It’s just that,” he said laughingly, “the forbidden tree grows in its inclosure. Every hour you will come up against the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge which you must not touch. It’s dangerous. In your position I should go out for a run in your mechanical carriage. ”

“ Then, throwing aside his bow and arrow, Zal stroked the golden plumage of his kind foster-mother, questioning her as to the proud warrior and his host who tarried upon the rocks below. Whereupon, first caressing him lovingly with her beak, the Simurgh then said:
“O thou my Nestling! verily, I have reared and been unto thee as a mother, but now the time is come when I must give thee back unto thy people. For lo! the warrior who gazeth at us so longingly from afar is thy father, Saum the hero, Pehliva of the World, greatest among the great; and he hath come hither to seek his son. And behold! ”

“ You have not said anything to Johann?”
“Yes, why?”
“Oh, but he will inform the others, and the others will repeat it before Nell! Nell will know it, uncle, that is certain. They will tell her, and Donovan’s soul will learn that it no longer has a human body. It must not be! It must not be!”
“There is no danger, Nicolas, I assure you.”
“No danger! Those men are scoundrels, I tell you! Let me prevent this catastrophe! Time is passing, let me in, I entreat you! Please, for a second, I entreat you! Damn it all, I will pass!”
[251] The lessons I had learned from the bull stood me in good stead ”

“ Verily, thou wouldst not crush even the tiny ant that beareth a grain of corn, for she hath life, and sweet life is a boon; therefore spare thy brother. For thy father’s sake, grant that I may yet behold the sun. I ask only to live in peace and retirement.”
Alas! strange to say, these words of piteous pleading but angered Tur the more, so that, drawing from his boot a poisoned dagger, he thrust it deep into the breast of gentle Irij. And behold, the Kingly Cedar fell, never again to raise his glorious head in the sunshine of the world. ”

“ There came frequently too a troop of migrating Rats, who gave descriptions of [3] their travels, while Magpies and Ravens told legends and tales of marvel that made one shudder. In this manner the little Rootmen received constantly news of the whole wide world. Such stories of course filled them with curiosity to make acquaintance with Men, but an innate feeling of dread prevented the little beings from quitting their peaceful Valley.
Now one time there reigned over this people a dear good old King, who had one daughter, a very beautiful Princess ”

“ CONTENTS.
3 PREFACE. A vast majority of the noblest intellects of the race have ever held to the idea that,—
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them how we will.” By its influence they have been both consoled and strengthened under the pressures and in the exigencies of life. This principle, to a singular degree, assumes both form and development in the story of James Renfew, the Redemptioner.
He comes to us as an orphan and the inmate of a workhouse, flung upon the world, like a dry leaf on the crest of a breaker ”

“ There are sordid souls that eat and drink and breed and die, and imagine they have lived. But Rena's life since her great awakening had been that of the emotions, and her temperament made of it a continuous life. Her successive states of consciousness were not detachable, but united to form a single if not an entirely harmonious whole. ”

“ Renfro had mounted, Herne the Hunter swept an arm around. The scene was savage and sombre, despite the sunlight. The intensity of the solitude about them dragged upon the mind like a weight.
“Behold,” he said sadly, “this is my world. I can tolerate no other.” ”

“ He fell into an unquiet slumber, and dreamed
again of Rena. He must learn to control his
waking thoughts; his dreams could not be curbed.
In that realm Rena's image was for many a day
to remain supreme. ”

“ For the ground was more open here, the trees bigger, and the undergrowth—the great hindrance—scarce.
“Better going here, Master Nic, if it waren’t for the great roots sticking out. Now, if the day would only break we should be able to zee better what we were doing. My word! if we could only come across a good wild-apple orchard it wouldn’t be amiss.”
“And that we shall not find.”
“Never mind, zir; we’ll find zum’at else—toadstools on the trees, or wild berries, or zomething; and if them dogs don’t run down anything good for a roast, why, they don’t come up to one of our old Devon lurchers. ”

“ Renfrew and the New Generation
By Booth Tarkington
Illustrated by Arthur William Brown
MURIEL ELIOT had taken upon her young and comely shoulders the principal burdens of our ancient world. That it is to say, the world still wabbled along, unconscious of the relief, and Muriel's mother warned her to be more careful of her health. “You'll lose your fine color,” Mrs. Eliot said, “if you sit all the time in the house, reading and writing. You'll bleach out into one of those pale women with spectacles, and you don't want to be like that, do you? ”

“ I saw Nell immediately. They had given her a kennel apart from the others. Her great starved, hairless, wretched body was lying against the grating.
I called out, “Donovan, Donovan!” She did not budge.
The eyes of the dogs gleamed in the depths of their somber huts, and some of them growled.
“Donovan! Nell!” I had an intuition of the truth. There also the scythe of Death had done its work. Yes, Nell also was cold and stiff. A chain twisted round her neck seemed to have strangled her. I was going to make sure of this, when Lerne and Johann showed themselves at the entrance of the courtyard. ”

“ Certain motions of Hena, and the light flush that by degrees returned to her cheeks, announced the girl's gradual recovery. Her eyes remained half shut. She turned her haggard face towards her father. Presently, fixing upon him her still partly veiled eyes, she seemed to interrogate her confused recollections.
"No, my dear child," said the artisan; "it is not a dream. You are not the sport of an illusion. Ernest Rennepont renounces the monastic life; he embraces the Evangelical creed, of which he will be a pastor. He has long loved you with the purest and noblest love. ”

“ Reinhold had heard these words spoken a few hours since, and then such a glowing description followed of endless spring, which blossoms forth as by magic in the gardens of the south, those sunny days, with ever blue sky, and the thousandfold glorious colours of the earth; the moonlight nights full of orange perfume and notes of song. The young man must indeed have head and heart still full of this picture; he looked more contemptuously than usual on the poor bare surroundings, and impatiently pushed aside a branch of elderberry whose newly opening brown buds touched his forehead. ”

“ Thus far had his existence, emerging from profoundest gloom, run a straight and uneventful course—but before?
Into what deadly corner of a great city’s most secret burrows his young life had been first hemmed and then crushed out of shape who may say? When I had got him down again, unnerved but quiet now and wistful with apology over his outburst, he told me all that he knew.
“Thunder always seems to turn my brain a little, Renny, perhaps because it is associated in the depths of my mind with that strange young experience. ”

“ Then after a silence: “Is it not better to be dead than mad? After all it is the best thing for him. Come, [250] Nicolas, you are not going to put on a face like that! Come!”
And she seized my hand, and dragged me to the château.
Lerne went away in the other direction.
I was prostrated. “Let me alone,” I said, “let me alone. Donovan, the poor wretch. Let me alone. You cannot know! Let me alone, I say.”
A maddening fear came over me. Leaving Emma I ran after my uncle and joined him at the laboratory. He was talking to Johann, and showing him the telegram. ”

“ The Cranes alighted with the nest. In an instant the repentant daughter fell on the neck of her overjoyed father, and all the People compassionated her, and forgave her from the bottom [33] of their hearts. In their delight at seeing her again, all were ready to give themselves up to unrestrained rejoicing, but the Princess checked their merriment. She told her People the danger which threatened them of being discovered by Men. Anxiety and terror seized the Rootmen at this news: it was no longer possible to remain in the forest. ”

“ Renny scarcely seemed to hear him, seemed hardly aware of his presence. Finch moved closer, with a dim idea of absorbing some of his strength by mere proximity. In the shadow of that unique magnificence he did not feel quite so frightened. ”

“ Reason, common-sense, the instinctive
ready-made judgments of his training and environment,--
the deep-seated prejudices of race and
caste,--commanded him to dismiss Rena from
his thoughts. His stubborn heart simply would
not let go. ”

“ I said.
“Just look at those flowers,” insisted Lerne.
“One would think there was a drop of lead in its head. That happens sometimes when one is out shooting. It will tower and tower, and then fall from as high as possible.”
“If you don’t watch your feet, you will fall head over heels into the thorn-bushes. It’s a breakneck place, this, nephew.” ”

“ He now acquires supernatural faculties; he becomes so swift of foot that he can leap from one mountain peak to another, he can catch reindeer without weapons, and whatever he aims at he hits. He grows to a great size, clothes himself in reindeer-skins, and, according to some, his face turns black and his hair white. ”

“ Renwick had chosen for his text these words, in the fourth verse of the eighteenth chapter of the book of Revelation—"Come out of her, my people." The kindly phrase, "my people," was beautifully insisted upon.
"There ye are," said Renwick, stretching out his hand to the darkening sleet; "there ye are, a poor, shivering, fainting, despised, persecuted remnant, whom the great ones despise, and the men of might, and of war, and of blood, cut down with their swords, and rack with their tortures. Ye are, like ye'r great Master, despised and rejected of men ”