Warlock o' Glenwarlock by George MacDonald (reading women TXT) 📕

to represent any value, a stump of cedar-pencil, and an ancient family-seal his father had given him when he left home. This last he took out, glanced at it, felt that only the duty of saving his life could make him part with it, put it back, turned once more, said "Good morning," and left the shop.

He had not gone many steps when he heard the shop-bell ring; the woman came running after him. Her eyes were full of tears. What fountain had been opened, I cannot tell; perhaps only that of sympathy with the hungry youth.

"Tak th' loaf," she said again, but in a very different voice this time, and held it out to him. "Dunnot be vexed with a poor woman. Sometimes hoo dunnot knaw wheer to get the bread for her own."

"That's why I wouldn't take it," rejoined Cosmo. "If I had thought you were well off, I would not have hesitated."

"Oh! aw'm noan so pinched at present," she answered with a smile. "Tak th' loaf, an' welcome, an' pey mo when yo' can."

Cosmo put down her name and address in his pocket-book, and as he took the loaf, kissed the toil-worn hand that gave it him. She uttered a little cry of remonstrance, threw her apron over her head, and went back to the house, sobbing.

The tide rose in Cosmo's heart too, but he left the hamlet eating almost ravenously. Another might have asked himself where dinner was to come from, and spared a portion; but that was not Cosmo's way. He would have given half his loaf to any hungry man he met, but he would not save the half of it in view of a possible need that might never come. Every minute is a to-morrow to the minute that goes before it, and is bound to it by the same duty-roots that make every moment one with eternity; but there is no more occasion to bind minute to minute with the knot-grass of anxiety, than to ruin both to-day and the grand future with the cares of a poor imaginary tomorrow. To-day's duty is the only true provision for to-morrow; and those who are careful about the morrow are but the more likely to bring its troubles upon them by the neglect of duty which care brings. Some say that care for the morrow is what distinguishes the man from the beast; certainly it is one of the many things that distinguish the slave of Nature from the child of God.

Cosmo ate his loaf with as hearty a relish as ever Grizzle's porridge, and that is saying as much for his appetite, if not necessarily for the bread, as words can. He had swallowed it almost before he knew, and felt at first as if he could eat another, but after a drink of water from a well by the road-side, found that he had had enough, and strode on his way, as strong and able as if he had had coffee and eggs and a cutlet, and a dozen things besides.

He was passing the outskirts of the large manufacturing town he had seen in the distance, leaving it on one hand, when he became again aware of the approach of hunger. One of the distinguishing features of Cosmo's character, was a sort of childlike boldness towards his fellow-men; and coming presently to a villa with a smooth-shaven lawn, and seeing a man leaning over the gate that opened from the road, he went up to him and said,

"Do you happen to have anything you want done about the place, sir? I want my dinner and have no money."

The man, one with whom the world seemed to have gone to his wish, looked him all over.

"A fellow like you ought to be ashamed to beg," he said.

"That is precisely what I was not doing," returned Cosmo, "except as everybody more or less must be a beggar. It is one thing to beg for work, and another to beg for food. I didn't ask you to make a job for me; I asked if there was any work about the place you wanted done. Good morning, sir."

He turned, and the second time that day was stopped as he went.

"I say!if you can be as sharp with your work min' as you are with your tongue, I don't care if I give you a job. Look here: my coachman left me in a huff this morning, and it was time too, as I find now he is gone. The stable is in a shocking mess: if you clean it out, and set things to rightsbut I don't believe you canI will give you your dinner."

"Very well, sir," returned Cosmo. "I give you warning I'm very hungry; only on the other hand, I don't care what I have to eat."

"Look here," said the man: "your hands look a precious sight more like loafing than work! I don't believe your work will be worth your dinner."

"Then don't give me any," rejoined Cosmo, laughing. "If the proof of the pudding be in the eating, the proof of the stable must be in the cleaning. Let me see the place."

Much pondering what a fellow scouring the country with a decent coat and no money could be, the dweller in the villa led the way to his stable.

In a mess that stable certainly was.

"The new man is coming this evening," said the man, "and I would rather he didn't see things in such a state. He might think anything good enough after this! The rascal took to drinkand that, young man," he added in a monitory tone, "is the end of all things."

"I'll soon set the place to rights," said Cosmo. "Let's seewhere shall I find a graip?"

"A grape? what the deuce do you want with grapes in a stable?"

"I forgot where I was, sir," answered Cosmo, laughing. "I am a Scotchman, and so I call things by old-fashioned names. That is what we call a three or four-pronged fork in my country. The word comes from the same root as the German greifen, and our own grip, and gripe, and grope, and graband grub too!" he added, "which in the present case is significant."

"Oh, you are a scholarare you? Then you are either a Scotch gardener on the tramp after a situation, or a young gentleman who has made a bad use of his privileges!"

"Do you found that conclusion on my having no money, or on my readiness to do the first honest piece of work that comes to my hand?" asked Cosmo, who having lighted on a tool to serve his purpose, was already at work. "But never mind! here goes for a clean stable and a good dinner."

"How do you know your dinner will be good?"

"Because I am so ready for it."

"If you're so sharp set, I don't mind letting you have a snack before you go further," said his employer.

"No, thank you, sir," replied Cosmo; "I am too self-indulgent to enjoy my food before I have finished my work."

"Not a bad way of being self-indulgent, that!" said the man. "But what puzzles me is, that a young fellow with such good principles should be going about the country like"

"Like a tinkerwould you say, siror like Abraham of old when he had no abiding city?"

"You seem to know your Bible too!Come now, there must be some reason for your being adrift like this!"

"Of course there is, sir; and if I were sure you would believe me, I would tell you enough to make you understand it."

"A cautious Scotchman!"

"Yes. Whatever I told you, you would doubt; therefore I tell you nothing."

"You have been doing something wrong!" said the man.

"You are rude," returned Cosmo quietly, without stopping his work. "But," he resumed, "were YOU never in any difficulty? Have you always had your pockets full when you were doing right? It is not just to suspect a man because he is poor. The best men have rarely been rich."

Receiving no reply, Cosmo raised his head. The man was gone.

"Somebody has been telling him about me!" he said to himself, and went. For the stable Cosmo was then cleaning out, the horses that lived in it, and the house to which it belonged, were the proceeds of a late judicious failure.

He finished his job, set everything right as far as he could, and going to the kitchen door, requested the master might be invited to inspect his work. But the master only sent orders to the cook to give the young man his dinner, and let him go about his business.

Cosmo ate none the less heartily, for it was his own; and cook and maid were more polite than their master. He thanked them and went his way, and in the strength of that food walked many miles into the nightfor now he set no goal before him but the last.

It was a clear, moonless, starry night, cold after the rain, but the easier to walk in. The wind now and then breathed a single breath and ceased; but that breath was piercing. He buttoned his coat, and trudged on. The hours went and went. He could not be far from Cairncarque, and hoped by break of day to be, if not within sight of it, at least within accurate hearing of it.

Midnight was not long past when a pale old moon came up, and looked drearily at him. For some time he had been as if walking in a dream; and now the moon mingled with the dream right strangely. Scarce was she above the hill when an odd-shaped cloud came upon her; and Cosmo's sleep-bewildered eyes saw in the cloud the body and legs of James Gracie's cow, straddling across the poor, withered heel-rind of the moon. Then another cloud, high among the stars, began to drop large drops of rain upon his head. "That's the reid gowd rainin'," he said to himself. He was gradually sinking under the power of invading sleep. Every now and then he would come to himself for the briefest instant, and say he must seek some shelter. The next moment he was asleep again. He had often wondered that horses could get over the road and sleep: here he was doing it himself and not wondering at all! The wind rose, and blew sharp stings of rain in his face, which woke him up a little. He looked about him. Had he been going through a town, who would have taken him in at that time of the midnight-morning? and here he was in a long lane without sign of turning! To him it had neither beginning nor end, like a lane in a dream. It might be a lane in a dream! He could remember feeling overwhelmed with sleep in a dream! Still he did not think he was dreaming: for one thing, he had never been so uncomfortable in a dream!

The lane at last opened on a triangular piece of sward, looking like a village green. In the middle of it stood a great old tree, with a bench round it. He dropped on the bench and was asleep in a moment.

The wind blew, and the rain fell. Cold and discomfort ruled his dim consciousness, but he slept like one of the dead. When the sun rose, it found him at full length on the bare-worn earth at the foot of the tree. But, shining full upon him, it did