Wilfrid Cumbermede by George MacDonald (desktop ebook reader txt) 📕

shoulder,

'Very pretty, Willie! But why do you call them cows?'

'You told me last night,' I answered, 'that the road the angels go across the sky is called the milky way-didn't you, uncle?'

'I never told you the angels went that way, my boy.'

'Oh! didn't you? I thought you did.'

'No, I didn't.'

'Oh! I remember now: I thought if it was a way, and nobody but the angels could go in it, that must be the way the angels did go.'

'Yes, yes, I see! But what has that to do with the glow-worms?'

'Don't you see, uncle? If it be the milky way, the stars must be the cows. Look at my cows, uncle. Their milk is very pretty milk, isn't it?'

'Very pretty, indeed, my dear-rather green.'

'Then I suppose if you could put it in auntie's pan, you might make another moon of it?'

'That's being silly now,' said my uncle; and I ceased, abashed.

'Look, look, uncle!' I exclaimed, a moment after; 'they don't like being talked about, my cows.'

For as if a cold gust of wind had passed over them, they all dwindled and paled. I thought they were going out.

'Oh dear, oh dear!' I cried, and began dancing about with dismay. The next instant the glow returned, and the hollow was radiant.

'Oh, the dear light!' I cried again. 'Look at it, uncle! Isn't it lovely?'

He took me by the hand. His actions were always so much more tender than his words!

'Do you know who is the light of the world, Willie?'

'Yes, well enough. I saw him get out of bed this morning.'

My uncle led me home without a word more. But next night he began to teach me about the light of the world, and about walking in the light. I do not care to repeat much of what he taught me in this kind, for like my glow-worms it does not like to be talked about. Somehow it loses colour and shine when one talks.

I have now shown sufficiently how my uncle would seize opportunities for beginning things. He thought more of the beginning than of any other part of a process.

'All's well that begins well,' he would say. I did not know what his smile meant as he said so.

I sometimes wonder how I managed to get through the days without being weary. No one ever thought of giving me toys. I had a turn for using my hands; but I was too young to be trusted with a knife. I had never seen a kite, except far away in the sky: I took it for a bird. There were no rushes to make water-wheels of, and no brooks to set them turning in. I had neither top nor marbles. I had no dog to play with. And yet I do not remember once feeling weary. I knew all the creatures that went creeping about in the grass, and although I did not know the proper name for one of them, I had names of my own for them all, and was so familiar with their looks and their habits, that I am confident I could in some degree interpret some of the people I met afterwards by their resemblances to these insects. I have a man in my mind now who has exactly the head and face, if face it can be called, of an ant. It is not a head, but a helmet. I knew all the butterflies-they were mostly small ones, but of lovely varieties. A stray dragon-fly would now and then delight me; and there were hunting-spiders and wood-lice, and queerer creatures of which I do not yet know the names. Then there were grasshoppers, which for some time I took to be made of green leaves, and I thought they grew like fruit on the trees till they were ripe, when they jumped down, and jumped for ever after. Another child might have caught and caged them; for me, I followed them about, and watched their ways.

In the Winter, things had not hitherto gone quite so well with me. Then I had been a good deal dependent upon Nannie and her stories, which were neither very varied nor very well told. But now that I had begun to read, things went better. To be sure, there were not in my uncle's library many books such as children have now-a-days; but there were old histories, and some voyages and travels, and in them I revelled. I am perplexed sometimes when I look into one of these books-for I have them all about me now-to find how dry they are. The shine seems to have gone out of them. Or is it that the shine has gone out of the eyes that used to read them? If so, it will come again some day. I do not find that the shine has gone out of a beetle's back; and I can read
The Pilgrim's Progress still.


CHAPTER VI.


I COBBLE.

All this has led me, after a roundabout fashion, to what became for some time the chief delight of my Winters-an employment, moreover, which I have taken up afresh at odd times during my life. It came about thus. My uncle had made me a present of an old book with pictures in it. It was called The Preceptor -one of Dodsley's publications. There were wonderful folding plates of all sorts in it. Those which represented animals were of course my favourites. But these especially were in a very dilapidated condition, for there had been children before me somewhere; and I proceeded, at my uncle's suggestion, to try to mend them by pasting them on another piece of paper. I made bad work of it at first, and was so dissatisfied with the results, that I set myself in earnest to find out by what laws of paste and paper success might be secured. Before the Winter was over, my uncle found me grown so skilful in this manipulation of broken leaves-for as yet I had not ventured further in any of the branches of repair-that he gave me plenty of little jobs of the sort, for amongst his books there were many old ones. This was a source of great pleasure. Before the following Winter was over, I came to try my hand at repairing bindings, and my uncle was again so much pleased with my success that one day he brought me from the county town some sheets of parchment with which to attempt the fortification of certain vellum-bound volumes which were considerably the worse for age and use. I well remember how troublesome the parchment was for a long time; but at last I conquered it, and succeeded very fairly in my endeavours to restore to tidiness the garments of ancient thought.

But there was another consequence of this pursuit which may be considered of weight in my history. This was the discovery of a copy of the Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia -much in want of skilful patching, from the title-page, with its boar smelling at the rose-bush, to the graduated lines and the Finis . This book I read through from boar to finis-no small undertaking, and partly, no doubt, under its influences, I became about this time conscious of a desire after honour, as yet a notion of the vaguest. I hardly know how I escaped the taking for granted that there were yet knights riding about on war-horses, with couched lances and fierce spurs, everywhere as in days of old. They might have been roaming the world in all directions, without my seeing one of them. But somehow I did not fall into the mistake. Only with the thought of my future career, when I should be a man and go out into the world, came always the thought of the sword which hung on the wall. A longing to handle it began to possess me, and my old dream returned. I dared not, however, say a word to my uncle on the subject. I felt certain that he would slight the desire, and perhaps tell me I should hurt myself with the weapon; and one whose heart glowed at the story of the battle between him on the white horse with carnation mane and tail, in his armour of blue radiated with gold, and him on the black-spotted brown, in his dusky armour of despair, could not expose himself to such an indignity.


CHAPTER VII.


THE SWORD ON THE WALL.

Where possession was impossible, knowledge might yet be reached: could I not learn the story of the ancient weapon? How came that which had more fitly hung in the hall of a great castle, here upon the wall of a kitchen? My uncle, however, I felt, was not the source whence I might hope for help. No better was my aunt. Indeed I had the conviction that she neither knew nor cared anything about the useless thing. It was her tea-table that must be kept bright for honour's sake. But there was grannie!

My relations with her had continued much the same. The old fear of her lingered, and as yet I had had no inclination to visit her room by myself. I saw that my uncle and aunt always behaved to her with the greatest kindness and much deference, but could not help observing also that she cherished some secret offence, receiving their ministrations with a certain condescension which clearly enough manifested its origin as hidden cause of complaint and not pride. I wondered that my uncle and aunt took no notice of it, always addressing her as if they were on the best possible terms; and I knew that my uncle never went to his work without visiting her, and never went to bed without reading a prayer by her bedside first. I think Nannie told me this.

She could still read a little, for her sight had been short, and had held out better even than usual with such. But she cared nothing for the news of the hour. My uncle had a weekly newspaper, though not by any means regularly, from a friend in London, but I never saw it in my grandmother's hands. Her reading was mostly in the Spectator , or in one of De Foe's works. I have seen her reading Pope.

The sword was in my bones, and as I judged that only from grannie could I get any information respecting it, I found myself beginning to inquire why I was afraid to go to her. I was unable to account for it, still less to justify it. As I reflected, the kindness of her words and expressions dawned upon me, and I even got so far as to believe that I had been guilty of neglect in not visiting her oftener and doing something for her. True, I recalled likewise that my uncle had desired me not to visit her except with him or my aunt, but that was ages ago, when I was a very little boy and might have been troublesome. I could even read to her now if she wished it. In short, I felt myself perfectly capable of entering into social relations with her generally. But if there was any flow of affection towards her, it was the sword that had broken the seal of its fountain.

One morning at breakfast I had been sitting gazing at the sword on the wall opposite me. My aunt had observed the steadiness of my look.

'What are you staring at, Willie?' she said. 'Your eyes are fixed in your head. Are you