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

/> "But it keeps our minds at peace. Even the refuge in God does not always secure us from external suffering. The heart may be quite happy and strong when the hands are benumbed with cold. Yes, the heart even may grow cold with coming death, while the man himself retreats the farther into the secret place of the Most High, growing more calm and hopeful as the last cold invades the house of his body. I believe that all troubles come to drive us into that refuge-that secret place where alone we can be safe. You will, when you go out into the world, my boy, find that most men not only do not believe this, but do not believe that you believe it. They regard it at best as a fantastic weakness, fit only for sickly people. But watch how the strength of such people, their calmness and common sense, fares when the grasp of suffering lays hold upon them. It was a sad sight-that abject hopeless misery I saw this afternoon. If his mind had been an indication of the reality, one must have said that there was no God-no God at least that would have anything to do with him. The universe as reflected in the tarnished mirror of his soul, was a chill misty void, through which blew the moaning wind of an unknown fate. As near as ever I saw it, that man was without God and without hope in the world. All who have done the mightiest things-I do not mean the showiest things-all that are like William of Orange-the great William, I mean, not our King William-or John Milton, or William Penn, or any other of the cloud of witnesses spoken of in the Epistle to the Hebrews-all the men I say who have done the mightiest things, have not only believed that there was this refuge in God, but have themselves more or less entered into the secret place of the Most High. There only could they have found strength to do their mighty deeds. They were able to do them because they knew God wanted them to do them, that he was on their side, or rather they were on his side, and therefore safe, surrounded by God on every side. My boy, do the will of God-that is, what you know or believe to be right, and fear nothing."

I never forgot the lesson. But my readers must not think that my father often talked like this. He was not at all favourable to much talk about religion. He used to say that much talk prevented much thought, and talk without thought was bad. Therefore it was for the most part only upon extraordinary occasions, of which this is an example, that he spoke of the deep simplicities of that faith in God which was the very root of his conscious life.

He was silent after this utterance, which lasted longer than I have represented, although unbroken, I believe, by any remark of mine. Full of inward repose, I fell asleep in his arms.

When I awoke I found myself very cold. Then I became aware that my father was asleep, and for the first time began to be uneasy. It was not because of the cold: that was not at all unendurable; it was that while the night lay awful in white silence about me, while the wind was moaning outside, and blowing long thin currents through the peat walls around me, while our warm home lay far away, and I could not tell how many hours of cold darkness had yet to pass before we could set out to find it,-it was not all these things together, but that, in the midst of all these, I was awake and my father slept. I could easily have waked him, but I was not selfish enough for that: I sat still and shivered and felt very dreary. Then the last words of my father began to return upon me, and, with a throb of relief, the thought awoke in my mind that although my father was asleep, the great Father of us both, he in whose heart lay that secret place of refuge, neither slumbered nor slept. And now I was able to wait in patience, with an idea, if not a sense of the present care of God, such as I had never had before. When, after some years, my father was taken from us, the thought of this night came again and again, and I would say in my heart: "My father sleeps that I may know the better that The Father wakes."

At length he stirred. The first sign of his awaking was, that he closed again the arms about me which had dropped by his sides as he slept.

"I'm so glad you're awake, father," I said, speaking first.

"Have you been long awake then?"

"Not so very long, but I felt lonely without you."

"Are you very cold? I feel rather chilly."

So we chatted away for a while.

"I wonder if it is nearly day yet. I do not in the least know how long we have slept. I wonder if my watch is going. I forgot to wind it up last night. If it has stopped I shall know it is near daylight."

He held his watch to his ear: alas! it was ticking vigorously. He felt for the keyhole, and wound it up. After that we employed ourselves in repeating as many of the metrical psalms and paraphrases of Scripture as we could recollect, and this helped away a good part of the weary time.

But it went very slowly, and I was growing so cold that I could hardly bear it.

"I'm afraid you feel very cold, Ranald," said my father, folding me closer in his arms. "You must try not to go to sleep again, for that would be dangerous now. I feel more cramped than cold."

As he said this, he extended his legs and threw his head back, to get rid of the uneasiness by stretching himself. The same moment, down came a shower of peats upon our heads and bodies, and when I tried to move, I found myself fixed. I could not help laughing.

"Father," I cried, as soon as I could speak, "you're like Samson: you've brought down the house upon us."

"So I have, my boy. It was very thoughtless of me. I don't know what we are to do now."

"Can you move, father? I can't," I said.

"I can move my legs, but I'm afraid to move even a toe in my boot for fear of bringing down another avalanche of peats. But no-there's not much danger of that: they are all down already, for I feel the snow on my face."

With hands and feet my father struggled, but could not do much, for I lay against him under a great heap. His struggles made an opening sideways however.

"Father! father! shout," I cried. "I see a light somewhere; and I think it is moving."

We shouted as loud as we could, and then lay listening. My heart beat so that I was afraid I should not hear any reply that might come. But the next moment it rang through the frosty air.

"It's Turkey! That's Turkey, father!" I cried. "I know his shout. He makes it go farther than anybody else.-Turkey! Turkey!" I shrieked, almost weeping with delight.

Again Turkey's cry rang through the darkness, and the light drew wavering nearer.

"Mind how you step, Turkey," cried my father. "There's a hole you may tumble into."

"It wouldn't hurt him much in the snow," I said.

"Perhaps not, but he would probably lose his light, and that we can hardly afford."

"Shout again," cried Turkey. "I can't make out where you are."

My father shouted.

"Am I coming nearer to you now?"

"I can hardly say. I cannot see well. Are you going along the road?"

"Yes. Can't you come to me?"

"Not yet. We can't get out. We're upon your right hand, in a peat-stack."

"Oh! I know the peat-stack. I'll be with you in a moment."

He did not however find it so easily as he had expected, the peats being covered with snow. My father gave up trying to free himself and took to laughing instead at the ridiculous situation in which we were about to be discovered. He kept directing Turkey, however, who at length after some disappearances which made us very anxious about the lantern, caught sight of the stack, and walked straight towards it. Now first we saw that he was not alone, but accompanied by the silent Andrew.

"Where are you, sir?" asked Turkey, throwing the light of the lantern over the ruin.

"Buried in the peats," answered my father, laughing. "Come and get us out."

Turkey strode up to the heap, and turning the light down into it said,

"I didn't know it had been raining peats, sir."

"The peats didn't fall quite so far as the snow, Turkey, or they would have made a worse job of it," answered my father.

Meantime Andrew and Turkey were both busy; and in a few moments we stood upon our feet, stiff with cold and cramped with confinement, but merry enough at heart.

"What brought you out to look for us?" asked my father.

"I heard Missy whinnying at the stable-door," said Andrew. "When I saw she was alone, I knew something had happened, and waked Turkey. We only stopped to run to the manse for a drop of whisky to bring with us, and set out at once."

"What o'clock is it now?" asked my father.

"About one o'clock," answered Andrew.

"One o'clock!" thought I. "What a time we should have had to wait!"

"Have you been long in finding us?"

"Only about an hour."

"Then the little mare must have had great trouble in getting home. You say the other was not with her?"

"No, sir. She's not made her appearance."

"Then if we don't find her, she will be dead before morning. But what shall we do with you, Ranald? Turkey had better go home with you first."

"Please let me go too," I said.

"Are you able to walk?"

"Quite-or at least I shall be, after my legs come to themselves a bit."

Turkey produced a bottle of milk which he had brought for me, and Andrew produced the little flask of whisky which Kirsty had sent; and my father having taken a little of the latter, while I emptied my bottle, we set out to look for young Missy.

"Where are we?" asked my father.

Turkey told him.

"How comes it that nobody heard our shouting, then?"

"You know, sir," answered Turkey, "the old man is as deaf as a post, and I dare say his people were all fast asleep."

The snow was falling only in a few large flakes now, which sank through the air like the moultings of some lovely bird of heaven. The moon had come out again, and the white world lay around us in lovely light. A good deal of snow had fallen while we lay in the peats, but we could yet trace the track of the two horses. We followed it a long way through the little valley into which we had dropped from the side of the road. We came to more places than one where they had been floundering together in a snow-wreath, but at length reached the spot where one had