Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood - George MacDonald (latest novels to read .txt) 📗

a body can hardly believe, to look at it now, that the world will ever be like that again."

"But, for as cold and wretched as it looks, the sun has not forsaken it. He has only drawn away from it a little, for good reasons, one of which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him. If he were to go, not one breath more could one of us draw. Horses and men, we should drop down frozen lumps, as hard as stones. Who is the sun's father, Ranald?"

"He hasn't got a father," I replied, hoping for some answer as to a riddle.

"Yes, he has, Ranald: I can prove that. You remember whom the apostle James calls the Father of Lights?"

"Oh yes, of course, father. But doesn't that mean another kind of lights?"

"Yes. But they couldn't be called lights if they were not like the sun. All kinds of lights must come from the Father of Lights. Now the Father of the sun must be like the sun, and, indeed of all material things, the sun is likest to God. We pray to God to shine upon us and give us light. If God did not shine into our hearts, they would be dead lumps of cold. We shouldn't care for anything whatever."

"Then, father, God never stops shining upon us. He wouldn't be like the sun if he did. For even in winter the sun shines enough to keep us alive."

"True, my boy. I am very glad you understand me. In all my experience I have never yet known a man in whose heart I could not find proofs of the shining of the great Sun. It might be a very feeble wintry shine, but still he was there. For a human heart though, it is very dreadful to have a cold, white winter like this inside it, instead of a summer of colour and warmth and light. There's the poor old man we are going to see. They talk of the winter of age: that's all very well, but the heart is not made for winter. A man may have the snow on his roof, and merry children about his hearth; he may have grey hairs on his head, and the very gladness of summer in his bosom. But this old man, I am afraid, feels wintry cold within."

"Then why doesn't the Father of Lights shine more on him and make him warmer?"

"The sun is shining as much on the earth in the winter as in the summer: why is the earth no warmer?"

"Because," I answered, calling up what little astronomy I knew, "that part of it is turned away from the sun."

"Just so. Then if a man turns himself away from the Father of Lights-the great Sun-how can he be warmed?"

"But the earth can't help it, father."

"But the man can, Ranald. He feels the cold, and he knows he can turn to the light. Even this poor old man knows it now. God is shining on him-a wintry way-or he would not feel the cold at all; he would be only a lump of ice, a part of the very winter itself. The good of what warmth God gives him is, that he feels cold. If he were all cold, he couldn't feel cold."

"Does he want to turn to the Sun, then, father?"

"I do not know. I only know that he is miserable because he has not turned to the Sun."

"What will you say to him, father?"

"I cannot tell, my boy. It depends on what I find him thinking. Of all things, my boy, keep your face to the Sun. You can't shine of yourself, you can't be good of yourself, but God has made you able to turn to the Sun whence all goodness and all shining comes. God's children may be very naughty, but they must be able to turn towards him. The Father of Lights is the Father of every weakest little baby of a good thought in us, as well as of the highest devotion of martyrdom. If you turn your face to the Sun, my boy, your soul will, when you come to die, feel like an autumn, with the golden fruits of the earth hanging in rich clusters ready to be gathered-not like a winter. You may feel ever so worn, but you will not feel withered. You will die in peace, hoping for the spring-and such a spring!"

Thus talking, in the course of two hours or so we arrived at the dwelling of the old laird.


CHAPTER XXXII

The Peat-Stack


How dreary the old house looked as we approached it through the gathering darkness! All the light appeared to come from the snow which rested wherever it could lie-on roofs and window ledges and turrets. Even on the windward walls, every little roughness sustained its own frozen patch, so that their grey was spotted all over with whiteness. Not a glimmer shone from the windows.

"Nobody lives there , father," I said,-"surely?"

"It does not look very lively," he answered.

The house stood upon a bare knoll. There was not a tree within sight. Rugged hills arose on all sides of it. Not a sound was heard but the moan of an occasional gust of wind. There was a brook, but it lay frozen beneath yards of snow. For miles in any direction those gusts might wander without shaking door or window, or carrying with them a puff of smoke from any hearth. We were crossing the yard at the back of the house, towards the kitchen-door, for the front door had not been opened for months, when we recognized the first sign of life. That was only the low of a bullock. As we dismounted on a few feet of rough pavement which had been swept clear, an old woman came to the door, and led us into a dreary parlour without even a fire to welcome us.

I learned afterwards that the laird, from being a spendthrift in his youth, had become a miser in his age, and that every household arrangement was on the narrowest scale. From wasting righteous pounds, he had come to scraping unrighteous farthings.

After we had remained standing for some time, the housekeeper returned, and invited my father to go to the laird's room. As they went, he requested her to take me to the kitchen, which, after conducting him, she did. The sight of the fire, although it was of the smallest, was most welcome. She laid a few more peats upon it, and encouraged them to a blaze, remarking, with a sidelong look: "We daren't do this, you see, sir, if the laird was about. The honest man would call it waste."

"Is he dying?" I asked, for the sake of saying something; but she only shook her head for reply, and, going to a press at the other end of the large, vault-like kitchen, brought me some milk in a basin, and some oatcake upon a platter, saying,

"It's not my house, you see, or I would have something better to set before the minister's son."

I was glad of any food however, and it was well for me that I ate heartily. I had got quite warm also before my father stepped into the kitchen, very solemn, and stood up with his back to the fire. The old woman set him a chair, but he neither sat down nor accepted the refreshment which she humbly offered him.

"We must be going," he objected, "for it looks stormy, and the sooner we set out the better."

"I'm sorry I can't ask you to stop the night," she said, "for I couldn't make you comfortable. There's nothing fit to offer you in the house, and there's not a bed that's been slept in for I don't know how long."

"Never mind," said my father cheerfully. "The moon is up already, and we shall get home I trust before the snow begins to fall. Will you tell the man to get the horses out?"

When she returned from taking the message, she came up to my father and said, in a loud whisper,

"Is he in a bad way, sir?"

"He is dying," answered my father.

[Illustration]

"I know that," she returned. "He'll be gone before the morning. But that's not what I meant. Is he in a bad way for the other world? That's what I meant, sir."

"Well, my good woman, after a life like his, we are only too glad to remember what our Lord told us-not to judge. I do think he is ashamed and sorry for his past life. But it's not the wrong he has done in former time that stands half so much in his way as his present fondness for what he counts his own. It seems like to break his heart to leave all his little bits of property-particularly the money he has saved; and yet he has some hope that Jesus Christ will be kind enough to pardon him. I am afraid he will find himself very miserable though, when he has not one scrap left to call his own-not a pocket-knife even."

"It's dreadful to think of him flying through the air on a night like this," said she.

"My good woman," returned my father, "we know nothing about where or how the departed spirit exists after it has left the body. But it seems to me just as dreadful to be without God in the world, as to be without him anywhere else. Let us pray for him that God may be with him wherever he is."

So saying, my father knelt down, and we beside him, and he prayed earnestly to God for the old man. Then we rose, mounted our horses, and rode away.

We were only about halfway home, when the clouds began to cover the moon, and the snow began to fall. Hitherto we had got on pretty well, for there was light enough to see the track, feeble as it was. Now, however, we had to keep a careful lookout. We pressed our horses, and they went bravely, but it was slow work at the best. It got darker and darker, for the clouds went on gathering, and the snow was coming down in huge dull flakes. Faster and thicker they came, until at length we could see nothing of the road before us, and were compelled to leave all to the wisdom of our horses. My father, having great confidence in his own little mare, which had carried him through many a doubtful and difficult place, rode first. I followed close behind. He kept on talking to me very cheerfully-I have thought since-to prevent me from getting frightened. But I had not a thought of fear. To be with my father was to me perfect safety. He was in the act of telling me how, on more occasions than one, Missy had got him through places where the road was impassable, by walking on the tops of the walls, when all at once both our horses plunged into a gulf of snow. The more my mare struggled, the deeper we sank in it. For a moment I thought it was closing over my head.

"Father! father!" I shouted.

"Don't be frightened, my boy," cried my father, his voice seeming to come from far away. "We are in God's hands. I can't help you now, but as soon as Missy has got quieter, I shall come to you. I think I know whereabouts we are. We've dropped right