Warlock o' Glenwarlock, George MacDonald [ebook reader browser txt] 📗

see him sit
In the charnel house alone,
Counting what seems to him shining gold,
Heap upon heap, a sum ne'er told:
Alas, the dead, how they lack of wit!
They are not even bits of bone!

Another miser has got his chest,
And his painfully hoarded store;
Like ferrets his hands go in and out,
Burrowing, tossing the gold about;
And his heart too is out of his breast,
Hid in the yellow ore.

Which is the betterthe ghost that sits
Counting shadowy coin all day,
Or the man that puts his hope and trust
In a thing whose value is only his lust?
Nothing he has when out he flits
But a heart all eaten away.

That night, as he lay thinking, Cosmo resolved to set out on the morrow for the city, on foot, and begging his way if necessary. There he would acquaint Mr. Burns with the straits they were in, and require of him his best advice how to make a living for himself and his father and Grizzie. As for James and Agnes, they might stay at the castle, where he would do his best to help them. As soon as his father had had his breakfast, he would let him know his resolve, and with his assent, would depart at once. His spirits rose as he brooded. What a happy thing it was that Lord Lick-my-loof had not accepted their offer! all the time they saw themselves in a poor lodging in a noisy street, they would know they had their own strong silent castle waiting to receive them, as soon as they should be able to return to it! Then the words came to him: "Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come."

The special discipline for some people would seem to be that they shall never settle down, or feel as if they were at home, until they are at home in very fact.

"Anyhow," said Cosmo to himself, "such a castle we have!"

To be lord of space, a man must be free of all bonds to place. To be heir of all things, his heart must have no THINGS in it. He must be like him who makes things, not like one who would put everything in his pocket. He must stand on the upper, not the lower side of them. He must be as the man who makes poems, not the man who gathers books of verse. God, having made a sunset, lets it pass, and makes such a sunset no more. He has no picture-gallery, no library. What if in heaven men shall be so busy growing, that they have not time to write or to read!

How blessed Cosmo would live, with his father and Grizzle and his books, in the great cityin some such place as he had occupied when at the university! The one sad thing was that he could not be with his father all day; but so much the happier would be the home-coming at night! Thus imagining, he fell fast asleep.

He dreamed that he had a barrow of oranges, with which he had been going about the streets all day, trying in vain to sell them. He was now returning home, the barrow piled, as when he set out in the morning, with the golden fruit. He consoled himself however with the thought, that his father was fond of oranges, and now might have as many as he pleased. But as he wheeled the barrow along, it seemed to grow heavier and heavier, and he feared his strength was failing him, and he would never get back to his father. Heavier and heavier it grew, until at last, although he had it on the pavementfor it was now the dead of the nighthe could but just push it along. At last he reached the door, and having laboriously wheeled it into a shed, proceeded to pick from it a few of the best oranges to take up to his father. But when he came to lift one from the heap, lo, it was a lump of gold! He tried another and another: every one of them was a lump of solid gold. It was a dream-version of the golden horse. Then all at once he said to himself, nor knew why, "My father is dead!" and woke in misery. It was many moments before he quite persuaded himself that he had but dreamed. He rose, went to his father's bed-side, found him sleeping peacefully, and lay down comforted, nor that night dreamed any more.

"What," he said to himself, "would money be to me without my father!"

Some of us shrink from making plans because experience has shown us how seldom they are realized. Not the less are the plans we do make just as subject to overthrow as the plans of the most prolific and minute of projectors. It was long since Cosmo had made any, and the resolve with which he now fell asleep was as modest as wise man could well cherish; the morning nevertheless went differently from his intent and expectation.


CHAPTER LII.

AN OLD STORY.


He was roused before sunrise by his father's cough. After a bad fit, he was very weary and restless. Now, in such a condition, Cosmo could almost always put him to sleep by reading to him, and he therefore got a short story, and began to read. At first it had the desired effect, but in a little while he woke, and asked him to go on. The story was of a king's ship so disguising herself that a pirate took her for a merchant-man; and Cosmo, to whom it naturally recalled the Old Captain, made some remark about him.

"You mustn't believe," said his father, "all they told you when a boy about that uncle of ours. No doubt he was a rough sailor fellow, but I do not believe there was any ground for calling him a pirate. I don't suppose he was anything worse than a privateer, which, God knows, is bad enough. I fancy, however, for the most of his sea-life he was captain of an East Indiaman, probably trading on his own account at the same time. That he made money I do not doubt, but very likely he lost it all before he came home, and was too cunning, in view of his probable reception, to confess it."

"I remember your once telling me an amusing story of an adventurelet me seeyes, that was in an East Indiaman: was he the captain of that one?"

"Noa very different mana cousin of your mother's that was. I was thinking of it a minute ago; it has certain points, if not of resemblance, then of contrast with the story you have just been reading."

"I should like much to hear it again, when you are able to tell it."

"I have got it all in writing. It was amongst my Marion's papers. You will find, in the bureau in the book-closet, in the pigeon-hole farthest to the left, a packet tied with red tape: bring that, and I will find it for you."

Cosmo brought the bundle of papers, and his father handed him one of them, saying, "This narrative was written by a brother of your mother's. The Captain Macintosh who is the hero of the story, was a cousin of her mother, and at the time of the event related must have been somewhat advanced in years, for he had now returned to his former profession after having lost largely in an attempt to establish a brewery on the island of St. Helena!"

Cosmo unfolded the manuscript, and read as follows:

"'An incident occurring on the voyage to India when my brother went out, exhibits Captain Macintosh's character very practically, and not a little to his professional credit.

"'On a fine evening some days after rounding the cape of Good Hope, sailing with a light breeze and smooth water, a strange sail of large size hove in sight, and apparently bearing down direct upon the "Union," Captain Macintosh's ship; evidently a ship of war, but showing NO COLOURSa very suspicious fact. All English ships at that time trading to and from India, by admiralty rules, were obliged to carry armaments proportioned to their tonnage, and crew sufficient to man and work the guns carried. The strange sail was NEARING them, or "the big stranger," as the seamen immediately named her. My brother, many years afterwards, more than once told me, that the change, or rather the TRANSFORMATION, which Captain Macintosh UNDERwent, was one of the most remarkable facts he had ever witnessed; more bordering on the MARVELLOUS, than anything else. When he had carefully and deliberately viewed the "big stranger," and deliberately laying down his glass, his eyes seemed to have catched FIRE! and his whole countenance lighted up; a new spirit seemed to possess him, while he preserved the utmost coolness: advancing deliberately to what is called the poop railing, and steadily looking forward"Boatswain! Pipe to quarters." Muster roll called."Now, my men, we shall FIGHT! I know you will do it well!Clear ship for action!" I have certainly but my brother's word and judgment upon the fact, who had never been UNDER FIRE; but his opinion was, that no British ship of war could have been more speedily, or more completely cleared for action, both in rigging, decks, and guns,guns DOUBLE SHOTTED and run out into position. "The big stranger" was now NEARING,no ports opened, and no colours shewnALL, increased cause of suspicion that there was some ill intent in the windand it was very evident, from the SIZE of "the big stranger "nearly THRICE the size of the little "Union,"that, one broad side from the former, might send the latter at once to the bottom:the whole crew, my brother related, were in the highest spirits, more as if preparing for a DANCE, than for work of life and death. Suddenly, the captain gives the command,"Boarders,Prepare to board! Lower away, boarding Boats "and no sooner said than done. The stranger was now at musket-shot. It was worthy the courage of a Nelson or a Cochrane, to think of boarding at such odds;a mere handful of men, to a full complement of a heavy Frigate's crew! The idea was altogether in keeping with the best naval tactics and skill. Foreseeing that one broadside from such an enemy would sink him, he must ANTICIPATE such a crisis. Boarding would at least divert the enemy from their GUNS; and he knew what British seamen could do, in clearing an enemy's decks! THERE WAS British spirit in those days. Let us hope it shall again appear, should the occasion arise. The captain himself was the first in the foremost Boarding Boatand the first in the enemy's main chains, and to set his foot on the enemy's main deck! when a most magic-like scene saluted the Boarders; but did not