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Wilfrid Cumbermede

G >> George MacDonald >> Wilfrid Cumbermede




'Hot water, I grant you,' again interrupted the enemy, to my horror;
'but it wouldn't be for long. Only give me your sanction, and I promise
you to have the case as tight as a drum before I ask you to move a step
in it.'

'But why should you take so much interest in what is purely our
affair?' asked my uncle.

'Why, of course you would have to pay the piper,' said the man.

This was too much! _Pay_ the man that played upon me after I was made
into bagpipes! The idea was too frightful.

'I must look out for business, you know; and, by Jove! I shall never
have such a chance, if I live to the age of Methuselah.'

'Well, you shall not have it from me.'

'Then,' said the man, rising, 'you are more of a fool than I took you
for.'

'Sir!' said my uncle.

'No offence; no offence, I assure you. But it is provoking to find
people so blind--so wilfully blind--to their own interest. You may say
I have nothing to lose. Give me the boy, and I'll bring him up like my
own son; send him to school and college, too--all on the chance of
being repaid twice over by--'

I knew this was all a trick to get hold of my skin. The man said it on
his way to the door, his ape-face shining dim as he turned it a little
back in the direction of my uncle, who followed with the candle. I lost
the last part of the sentence in the terror which sent me bounding up
the stair in my usual four-footed fashion. I leaped into my bed,
shaking with cold and agony combined. But I had the satisfaction
presently of hearing the _thud_ of the horse's hoofs upon the sward,
dying away in the direction whence they had come. After that I soon
fell asleep.

I need hardly say that I never set the pendulum swinging again. Many
years after, I came upon it when searching for a key, and the thrill
which vibrated through my whole frame announced a strange and unwelcome
presence long before my memory could recall its origin.

It must not be supposed that I pretend to remember all the conversation
I have just set down. The words are but the forms in which, enlightened
by facts which have since come to my knowledge, I clothe certain vague
memories and impressions of such an interview as certainly took place.

In the morning, at breakfast, my aunt asked my uncle who it was that
paid such an untimely visit the preceding night.

'A fellow from Minstercombe' (the county town), 'an attorney--what did
he say his name was? Yes, I remember. It was the same as the steward's
over the way. Coningham, it was.'

'Mr Coningham has a son there--an attorney too, I think,' said my aunt.

My uncle seemed struck by the reminder, and became meditative.

'That explains his choosing such a night to come in. His father is
getting an old man now. Yes, it must be the same.'

'He's a sharp one, folk say,' said my aunt, with a pointedness in the
remark which showed some anxiety.

'That he cannot conceal, sharp as he is,' said my uncle, and there the
conversation stopped.

The very next evening my uncle began to teach me. I had a vague notion
that this had something to do with my protection against the
machinations of the man Coningham, the idea of whom was inextricably
associated in my mind with that of the Prince of the Power of the Air,
darting from the midst of the churning trees, on a horse whose
streaming mane and flashing eyes indicated no true equine origin. I
gave myself with diligence to the work my uncle set me.




CHAPTER V.


I HAVE LESSONS.

It is a simple fact that up to this time I did not know my letters. It
was, I believe, part of my uncle's theory of education that as little
pain as possible should be associated with merely intellectual effort:
he would not allow me, therefore, to commence my studies until the task
of learning should be an easy one. Henceforth, every evening, after
tea, he took me to his own room, the walls of which were nearly covered
with books, and there taught me.

One peculiar instance of his mode I will give, and let it stand rather
as a pledge for the rest of his system than an index to it. It was only
the other day it came back to me. Like Jean Paul, he would utter the
name of God to a child only at grand moments; but there was a great
difference in the moments the two men would have chosen. Jean Paul
would choose a thunder-storm, for instance; the following will show the
kind of my uncle's choice. One Sunday evening he took me for a longer
walk than usual. We had climbed a little hill: I believe it was the
first time I ever had a wide view of the earth. The horses were all
loose in the fields; the cattle were gathering their supper as the sun
went down; there was an indescribable hush in the air, as if Nature
herself knew the seventh day; there was no sound even of water, for
here the water crept slowly to the far-off sea, and the slant sunlight
shone back from just one bend of a canal-like river; the hay-stacks and
ricks of the last year gleamed golden in the farmyards; great fields of
wheat stood up stately around us, the glow in their yellow brought out
by the red poppies that sheltered in the forest of their stems; the
odour of the grass and clover came in pulses; and the soft blue sky was
flecked with white clouds tinged with pink, which deepened until it
gathered into a flaming rose in the west, where the sun was welling out
oceans of liquid red.

I looked up in my uncle's face. It shone in a calm glow, like an
answering rosy moon. The eyes of my mind were opened: I saw that he
felt something, and then I felt it too, His soul, with the glory for an
interpreter, kindled mine.

He, in turn, caught the sight of my face, and his soul broke forth in
one word:--

God! Willie; God!' was all he said; and surely it was enough.

It was only then in moments of strong repose that my uncle spoke to me
of God.

Although he never petted me, that is, never showed me any animal
affection, my uncle was like a father to me in this, that he was about
and above me, a pure benevolence. It is no wonder that I should learn
rapidly under his teaching, for I was quick enough, and possessed the
more energy that it had not been wasted on unpleasant tasks.

Whether from indifference or intent I cannot tell, but he never forbade
me to touch any of his books. Upon more occasions than one he found me
on the floor with a folio between my knees; but he only smiled and
said--

'Ah, Willie! mind you don't crumple the leaves.'

About this time also I had a new experience of another kind, which
impressed me almost with the force of a revelation.

I had not yet explored the boundaries of the prairie-like level on
which I found myself. As soon as I got about a certain distance from
home, I always turned and ran back. Fear is sometimes the first
recognition of freedom. Delighting in liberty, I yet shrunk from the
unknown spaces around me, and rushed back to the shelter of the
home-walls. But as I grew older I became more adventurous; and one
evening, although the shadows were beginning to lengthen, I went on and
on until I made a discovery. I found a half-spherical hollow in the
grassy surface. I rushed into its depth as if it had been a mine of
marvels, threw myself on the ground, and gazed into the sky as if I had
now for the first time discovered its true relation to the earth. The
earth was a cup, and the sky its cover.

There were lovely daisies in this hollow--not too many to spoil the
grass--and they were red-tipped daisies. There was besides, in the very
heart of it, one plant of the finest pimpernels I have ever seen, and
this was my introduction to the flower. Nor were these all the
treasures of the spot. A late primrose, a tiny child, born out of due
time, opened its timid petals in the same hollow. Here then we
regathered red-tipped daisies, large pimpernels, and one tiny primrose.
I lay and looked at them in delight--not at all inclined to pull them,
for they were where I loved to see them. I never had much inclination
to gather flowers. I see them as a part of a whole, and rejoice in them
in their own place without any desire to appropriate them. I lay and
looked at these for a long time. Perhaps I fell asleep. I do not know.
I have often waked in the open air. All at once I looked up and saw a
vision.

My reader will please to remember that up to this hour I had never seen
a lady. I cannot by any stretch call my worthy aunt a lady; and my
grandmother was too old, and too much an object of mysterious anxiety,
to produce the impression, of a lady upon me. Suddenly I became aware
that a lady was looking down on me. Over the edge of my horizon, the
circle of the hollow that touched the sky, her face shone like a rising
moon. Sweet eyes looked on me, and a sweet mouth was tremulous with a
smile. I will not attempt to describe her. To my childish eyes she was
much what a descended angel must have been to eyes of old, in the days
when angels did descend, and there were Arabs or Jews on the earth who
could see them. A new knowledge dawned in me. I lay motionless, looking
up with worship in my heart. As suddenly she vanished. I lay far into
the twilight, and then rose and went home, half bewildered, with a
sense of heaven about me which settled into the fancy that my mother
had come to see me. I wondered afterwards that I had not followed her;
but I never forgot her, and, morning, midday, or evening, whenever the
fit seized me, I would wander away and lie down in the hollow, gazing
at the spot where the lovely face had arisen, in the fancy, hardly in
the hope, that my moon might once more arise and bless me with her
vision.

Hence I suppose came another habit of mine, that of watching in the
same hollow, and in the same posture, now for the sun, now for the
moon, but generally for the sun. You might have taken me for a
fire-worshipper, so eagerly would I rise when the desire came upon me,
so hastily in the clear grey of the morning would I dress myself, lest
the sun should be up before me, and I fail to catch his first
lance-like rays dazzling through the forest of grass on the edge of my
hollow world. Bare-footed I would scud like a hare through the dew,
heedless of the sweet air of the morning, heedless of the few
bird-songs about me, heedless even of the east, whose saffron might
just be burning into gold, as I ran to gain the green hollow whence
alone I would greet the morning. Arrived there, I shot into its
shelter, and threw myself panting on the grass, to gaze on the spot at
which I expected the rising glory to appear. Ever when I recall the
custom, that one lark is wildly praising over my head, for he sees the
sun for which I am waiting. He has his nest in the hollow beside me. I
would sooner have turned my back on the sun than disturbed the home of
his high-priest, the lark. And now the edge of my horizon begins to
burn; the green blades glow in their tops; they are melted through with
light; the flashes invade my eyes; they gather; they grow, until I hide
my face in my hands. The sun is up. But on my hands and my knees I rush
after the retreating shadow, and, like a child at play with its nurse,
hide in its curtain. Up and up comes the peering sun; he will find me;
I cannot hide from him; there is in the wide field no shelter from his
gaze. No matter then. Let him shine into the deepest corners of my
heart, and shake the cowardice and the meanness out of it.

I thus made friends with Nature. I had no great variety even in her,
but the better did I understand what I had. The next Summer I began to
hunt for glow-worms, and carry them carefully to my hollow, that in the
warm, soft, moonless nights they might illumine it with a strange
light. When I had been very successful, I would call my uncle and aunt
to see. My aunt tried me by always having something to do first. My
uncle, on the other hand, would lay down his book at once, and follow
me submissively. He could not generate amusement for me, but he
sympathized with what I could find for myself.

'Come and see my cows,' I would say to him.

I well remember the first time I took him to see them. When we reached
the hollow, he stood for a moment silent. Then he said, laying his hand
on my 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 choking?'

The words offended me. I got up and walked out of the room. As I went
round the table I saw that my uncle and aunt were staring at each other
very much as I had been staring at the sword. I soon felt ashamed of
myself, and returned, hoping that my behaviour might be attributed to
some passing indisposition. Mechanically I raised my eyes to the wall.
Could I believe them? The sword was gone--absolutely gone! My heart
seemed to swell up into my throat; I felt my cheeks burning. The
passion grew within me, and might have broken out in some form or
other, had I not felt that would at once betray my secret. I sat still
with a fierce effort, consoling and strengthening myself with the
resolution that I would hesitate no longer, but take the first chance
of a private interview with grannie. I tried hard to look as if nothing
had happened, and when breakfast was over, went to my own room. It was
there I carried on my pasting operations. There also at this time I
drank deep in the 'Pilgrim's Progress;' there were swords, and armour,
and giants, and demons there: but I had no inclination for either
employment now.

My uncle left for the farm as usual, and to my delight I soon
discovered that my aunt had gone with him. The ways of the house were
as regular as those of a bee-hive. Sitting in my own room I knew
precisely where any one must be at any given moment; for although the
only clock we had was oftener standing than going, a perfect instinct
of time was common to the household, Nannie included. At that moment
she was sweeping up the hearth and putting on the kettle. In half an
hour she would have tidied up the kitchen, and would have gone to
prepare the vegetables for cooking: I must wait. But the sudden fear
struck me that my aunt might have taken the sword with her--might be
going to make away with it altogether. I started up, and rushed about
the room in an agony. What could I do? At length I heard Nannie's
pattens clatter out of the kitchen to a small outhouse where she pared
the potatoes. I instantly descended, crossed the kitchen, and went up
the winding stone stair. I opened grannie's door, and went in.

She was seated in her usual place. Never till now had I felt how old
she was. She looked up when I entered, for although she had grown very
deaf, she could feel the floor shake. I saw by her eyes, which looked
higher than my head, that she had expected a taller figure to follow
me. When I turned from shutting the door, I saw her arms extended with
an eager look, and could see her hands trembling ere she folded them
about me, and pressed my head to her bosom.

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