He then joined strong lines
together
until he thought he had
length enough, secured the last end to a bar of the grate, and
knocked out both sashes of the window with an axe.
length enough, secured the last end to a bar of the grate, and
knocked out both sashes of the window with an axe.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 to v20 - Phi to Qui
The distinction is common to
the majority of statesmen: so much the worse for statesmanship.
But the gravest errors of this kind which Palmerston had com-
mitted were committed for an earlier generation.
His greatest praise with Englishmen must be that he loved
England with a sincere love that never abated. He had no pre-
dilection, no prejudice, that did not give way where the welfare
of England was concerned. He ought to have gone one step
higher in the path of public duty: he ought to have loved justice
and right even more than he loved England. He ought to have
felt more tranquilly convinced that the cause of justice and of
right must be the best thing which an English minister could
advance even for England's sake in the end. Lord Palmerston
was not a statesman who took any lofty view of a minister's
duties. His statesmanship never stood on any high moral eleva-
tion. He sometimes did things in the cause of England which
we may well believe he would not have done for any considera-
tion in any cause of his own. His policy was necessarily shift-
ing, uncertain, and inconsistent; for he molded it always on the
supposed interests of England as they showed themselves to his
eyes at the time. His sympathies with liberty were capricious
guides. Sympathies with liberty must be so always where there
is no clear principle defining objects and guiding conduct. Lord
Palmerston was not prevented by his liberal sympathies from
sustaining the policy of the Coup d'État; nor did his hatred of
slavery, one of his few strong and genuine emotions apart from
English interests, inspire him with any repugnance for the cause
of the Southern slaveholders. But it cannot be doubted that his
very defects were a main cause of his popularity and his success.
He was able always with a good conscience to assure the English
people that they were the greatest and the best-the only good
and great-people in the world, because he had long taught him-
self to believe this, and had come to believe it. He was always
popular, because his speeches invariably conveyed this impression
## p. 9453 (#477) ###########################################
JUSTIN MCCARTHY
9453
It
to the English crowd whom he addressed in or out of Parliament.
Other public men spoke for the most part to tell English peo-
ple of something they ought to do which they were not doing,
something which they had done and ought not to have done.
is not in the nature of things that such men should be as popular
as those who told England that whatever she did must be right.
Nor did Palmerston lay on his praise with coarse and palpable
artifice. He had no artifice in the matter. He believed what he
said; and his very sincerity made it the more captivating and the
more dangerous.
A phrase sprang up in Palmerston's days which was employed
to stigmatize certain political conduct beyond all ordinary re-
proach. It was meant to stamp such conduct as outside the
pale of reasonable argument or patriotic consideration. That was
the word "un-English. " It was enough with certain classes to
say that anything was "un-English" in order to put it utterly
out of court. No matter to what principles, higher, more uni-
versal, and more abiding than those that are merely English, it
might happen to appeal, the one word of condemnation was held
to be enough for it. Some of the noblest and the wisest men
of our day were denounced as "un-English. " A stranger might
have asked in wonder, at one time, whether it was un-English
to be just, to be merciful, to have consideration for the claims
and the rights of others, to admit that there was any higher
object in a nation's life than a diplomatic success. All that
would have made a man odious and insufferable in private life
was apparently held up as belonging to the virtues of the Eng-
lish nation. Rude self-assertion, blunt disregard for the feelings
and the claims of others, a self-sufficiency which would regard
all earth's interests as made for England's special use alone,-
the yet more outrageous form of egotism which would fancy that
the moral code as it applies to others does not apply to us,- all
this seemed to be considered the becoming national character-
istic of the English people. It would be almost superfluous to
say that this did not show its worst in Lord Palmerston himself.
As in art, so in politics, we never see how bad some peculiar
defect is until we see it in the imitators of a great man's style.
A school of Palmerstons, had it been powerful and lasting, would
have made England a nuisance to other nations.
have no hesitation in saying that Lord Palmerston's statesman-
ship on the whole lowered the moral tone of English politics for
We
## p. 9454 (#478) ###########################################
9454
JUSTIN MCCARTHY
a time. This consideration alone, if there were nothing else, for-
bids us to regard him as a statesman whose deeds were equal to
his opportunities and to his genius. To serve the purpose of the
hour was his policy. To succeed in serving it was his triumph.
It is not thus that a great fame is built up, unless indeed where
the genius of the man is like that of some Cæsar or Napoleon,
which can convert its very ruins into monumental records. Lord
Palmerston is hardly to be called a great man. Perhaps he may
be called a great "man of the time. "
## p. 9455 (#479) ###########################################
9455
GEORGE MACDONALD
(1824-)
EORGE MACDONALD has been characterized as a "cross between
a poet and a spiritual teacher. " His powers as a novelist,
however, are not taken into account by this description.
Added to his genuine poetical feeling, and to his refined moral sense,
are the qualities of a good story-teller. He knows how to handle an
elaborate plot; he understands the dramatic values of situations; he
can put life into his characters. Yet the dominant impression left
by his novels is their essential moral nobility. The ideal which Mr.
Macdonald sets before himself as a writer
of fiction is summed up in this passage
from Sir Gibbie': -
"But whatever the demand of the age, I
insist that that which ought to be presented to
its beholding is the common good, uncommonly
developed: and that not because of its rarity, but
because it is truer to humanity. It is the noble,
not the failure from the noble, that is the true
human: and if I must show the failure, let it
ever be with an eye to the final possible, yea,
imperative success. But in our day a man who
will accept any oddity of idiosyncratic develop-
ment in manners, tastes, and habits, will refuse
not only as improbable, but as inconsistent with
human nature, the representation of a man trying to be merely as noble as is
absolutely essential to his being. »
GEORGE MACDONALD
This quaint realism of Mr. Macdonald's in a literary age, when
many believe that only the evil in man's nature is real, dominates
his novels, from 'David Elginbrod' to 'The Elect Lady. ' They are
wholesome stories of pure men and women. The author is at his
strongest when drawing a character like that of Sir Gibbie, com-
pelled forever to follow the highest law of his nature. With villains
and with mean folk, Mr. Macdonald can do nothing. He cannot un-
derstand them, neither can he understand complexity of character.
He is too dogmatic ever to see the "shadowy third" between the
one and one. He is too much of a preacher to be altogether a
novelist.
## p. 9456 (#480) ###########################################
9456
GEORGE MACDONALD
His training has increased his dogmatic faculty. Born at Huntly,
Aberdeenshire, in 1824, he was graduated at King's College, Aber-
deen, and then entered upon the study of theology at the Independ
ent College, Highbury, London. He was for a time a preacher in
the Scottish Congregational Church, but afterwards became a layman
in the Church of England. He then assumed the principalship of a
seminary in London. His novels witness to his Scotch origin and
training. The scenes of many of them are laid in Scotland, and not
a few of the characters speak the North-Scottish dialect. But the
spirit which informs them is even more Scotch than their setting.
The strong moral convictions of George Macdonald infuse them with
the sermonizing element. The novelist is of the spiritual kindred of
the Covenanters. Yet they are full of a kindly humanity, and where
the moralist is merged in the writer of fiction they attain a high
degree of charm.
The pure and tender spirit of Mr. Macdonald makes him peculiarly
fitted to understand children and child life. "Gibbie had never been
kissed," he writes; "and how is any child to thrive without kisses? »
His stories for children, 'At the Back of the North Wind' and 'The
Princess and Curdie,' are full of beauty in their fine sympathy for
the moods of a child.
Mr. Macdonald has written a great number of novels. They in-
clude 'David Elginbrod,' 'Alec Forbes of How Glen,' 'Annals of a
Quiet Neighborhood,' 'The Seaboard Parish' (sequel to the foregoing),
'Robert Falconer,' 'Wilfrid Cumbermede,' 'Malcolm,' The Marquis
of Lossie,' 'St. George and St. Michael,' 'Sir Gibbie,' 'What's Mine's
Mine, The Elect Lady,' and such fanciful stories as his well-known
'Phantastes. ' He has also published 'Miracles of Our Lord' and 'Un-
spoken Sermons. ' Mr. Macdonald's sermons, as might be expected, are
vigorous, and exhibit his peculiar sensitiveness to the moral and spir-
itual elements in man's existence. This same sensitiveness pervades
his verse; which, while not of the first order, gives evidence - espe-
cially in the lyrics — of the true poetic instinct.
THE FLOOD
From Sir Gibbie'
TILL the rain fell and the wind blew; the torrents came tear-
ing down from the hills, and shot madly into the rivers; the
rivers ran into the valleys, and deepened the lakes that filled
them. On every side of the Mains, from the foot of Glashgar to
Gormdhu, all was one yellow and red sea, with roaring currents
## p. 9457 (#481) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9457
and vortices numberless. It burrowed holes, it opened long-
deserted channels and water-courses; here it deposited inches of
rich mold, there yards of sand and gravel; here it was carrying
away fertile ground, leaving behind only bare rock or shingle
where the corn had been waving; there it was scooping out the
bed of a new lake. Many a thick soft lawn of loveliest grass,
dotted with fragrant shrubs and rare trees, vanished, and nothing
was there when the waters subsided but a stony waste, or a grav-
elly precipice. Woods and copses were undermined, and trees and
soil together swept into the vast; sometimes the very place was
hardly there to say it knew its children no more. Houses were
torn to pieces; and their contents, as from broken boxes, sent
wandering on the brown waste through the gray air to the dis-
colored sea, whose saltness for a long way out had vanished with
its hue. Hay-mows were buried to the very top in sand; others
went sailing bodily down the mighty stream some of them fol-
lowed or surrounded, like big ducks, by a great brood of ricks for
their ducklings. Huge trees went past as if shot down an Alpine
slide - cottages and bridges of stone giving way before them.
Wooden mills, thatched roofs, great mill-wheels, went dipping
and swaying and hobbling down. From the upper windows of
the Mains, looking towards the chief current, they saw a drift of
everything belonging to farms and dwelling-houses that would
float. Chairs and tables, chests, carts, saddles, chests of drawers,
tubs of linen, beds and blankets, work-benches, harrows, girnels,
planes, cheeses, churns, spinning-wheels, cradles, iron pots, wheel-
barrows all these and many other things hurried past as th
gazed. Everybody was looking, and for a time all had been
silent.
――――
·
-
Just as Mr. Duff entered the stable from the nearer end, the
opposite gable fell out with a great splash, letting in the wide
level vision of turbidly raging waters, fading into the obscurity
of the wind-driven rain. While he stared aghast, a great tree
struck the wall like a battering-ram, so that the stable shook.
The horses, which had been for some time moving uneasily, were
now quite scared. There was not a moment to be lost. Duff
shouted for his men; one or two came running; and in less
than a minute more, those in the house heard the iron-shod feet
splashing and stamping through the water, as one after another
the horses were brought across the yard to the door of the house.
Mr. Duff led by the halter his favorite Snowball, who was a good
XVI-592
## p. 9458 (#482) ###########################################
9458
GEORGE MACDONALD
deal excited, plunging and rearing so that it was all he could do
to hold him. He had ordered the men to take the others first,
thinking he would follow more quietly. But the moment Snow-
ball heard the first thundering of hoofs on the stair, he went out
of his senses with terror, broke from his master, and went plun-
ging back to the stable. Duff started after him, but was only in
time to see him rush from the further end into the swift cur-
rent, where he was at once out of his depth, and was instantly
caught and hurried, rolling over and over, from his master's
sight. He ran back into the house, and up to the highest win-
dow. From that he caught sight of him a long way down,
swimming. Once or twice he saw him turned heels over head—
only to get his neck up again presently, and swim as well as
before. But alas! it was in the direction of the Daur, which
would soon, his master did not doubt, sweep his carcass into the
North Sea. With troubled heart he strained his sight after him
as long as he could distinguish his lessening head, but it got
amongst some wreck; and, unable to tell any more whether he
saw it or not, he returned to his men with his eyes full of tears.
Gibbie woke with the first of the dawn. The rain still fell-
descending in spoonfuls rather than drops; the wind kept shaping
itself into long hopeless howls, rising to shrill yells that went
drifting away over the land; and then the howling rose again.
Nature seemed in despair. There must be more for Gibbie to
do! He must go again to the foot of the mountain, and see if
there was anybody to help. They might even be in trouble at
the Mains: who could tell!
Gibbie sped down the hill through a worse rain than ever.
The morning was close, and the vapors that filled it were like
smoke burned to the hue of the flames whence it issued. Many
a man that morning believed another great deluge begun, and all
measures relating to things of this world lost labor. Going down.
his own side of the Glashburn, the nearest path to the valley,
the gamekeeper's cottage was the first dwelling on his way. It
stood a little distance from the bank of the burn, opposite the
bridge and gate, while such things were.
It had been with great difficulty- for even Angus did not
know the mountain so well as Gibbie-that the gamekeeper
reached it with the housekeeper the night before. It was within
two gun-shots of the house of Glashruach, yet to get to it they
## p. 9459 (#483) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9459
had to walk miles up and down Glashgar. A mountain in storm
is as hard to cross as a sea. Arrived, they did not therefore
feel safe. The tendency of the Glashburn was indeed away from
the cottage, as the grounds of Glashruach sadly witnessed; but
a torrent is double-edged, and who could tell? The yielding of
one stone in its channel might send it to them. All night Angus
watched, peering out ever again into the darkness, but seeing
nothing save three lights that burned above the water-one of
them, he thought, at the Mains. The other two went out in the
darkness, but that only in the dawn. When the morning came,
there was the Glashburn meeting the Lorrie in his garden. But
the cottage was well built, and fit to stand a good siege, while
any moment the waters might have reached their height. By
breakfast-time, however, they were round it from behind. There
is nothing like a flood for revealing the variations of surface, the
dips and swells of a country. In a few minutes they were iso-
lated, with the current of the Glashburn on one side and that
of the Lorrie in front. When he saw the water come in at front
and back doors at once, Angus ordered his family up the stair:
the cottage had a large attic, with dormer windows, where they
slept. He himself remained below for some time longer, in that
end of the house where he kept his guns and fishing-tackle; there
he sat on a table, preparing nets for the fish that would be left
in the pools; and not until he found himself afloat did he take
his work to the attic.
There the room was hot, and they had the window open.
Mistress MacPholp stood at it, looking out on the awful prospect,
with her youngest child, a sickly boy, in her arms. He had in
his a little terrier pup, greatly valued of the gamekeeper.
In a
sudden outbreak of peevish willfulness, he threw the creature out
of the window. It fell on the sloping roof, and before it could
recover itself, being too young to have the full command of four
legs, rolled off.
"Eh! the doggie's i' the watter! " cried Mistress MacPholp in
dismay.
Angus threw down everything with an ugly oath,- for he had
given strict orders not one of the children should handle the
whelp,-jumped up, and got out on the roof. From there he
might have managed to reach it, so high now was the water, had
the little thing remained where it fell; but already it had swum
a yard or two from the house. Angus, who was a fair swimmer
## p. 9460 (#484) ###########################################
9460
GEORGE MACDONALD
and an angry man, threw off his coat, and plunging after it,
greatly to the delight of the little one, caught the pup with his
teeth by the back of the neck, and turned to make for the house.
Just then a shrub swept from the hill caught him in the face,
and so bewildered him that before he got rid of it he had blun-
dered into the edge of the current, which seized and bore him
rapidly away.
He dropped the pup and struck out for home
with all his strength. But he soon found the most he could do
was to keep his head above water, and gave himself up for lost.
His wife screamed in agony. Gibbie heard her as he came down
the hill, and ran at full speed towards the cottage.
About a hundred yards from the house, the current bore
Angus straight into a large elder-tree. He got into the middle
of it, and there remained trembling, the weak branches break-
ing with every motion he made, while the stream worked at the
roots, and the wind laid hold of him with fierce leverage. In
terror, seeming still to sink as he sat, he watched the trees dart
by like battering-rams in the swiftest of the current; the least of
them diverging would tear the elder-tree with it. Brave enough
in dealing with poachers, Angus was not the man to gaze with
composure in the face of a sure slow death, against which no
assault could be made. Many a man is courageous because he
has not conscience enough to make a coward of him, but Angus
had not quite reached that condition; and from the branches of
the elder-tree showed a pale, terror-stricken visage. Amidst the
many objects in the face of the water, Gibbie, however, did not
distinguish it; and plunging in, swam round to the front of the
cottage to learn what was the matter. There the wife's gesticu-
lations directed his eyes to her drowning husband.
But what was he to do? He could swim to the tree well
enough, and, he thought, back again; but how was that to be
made of service to Angus? He could not save him by main
force: there was not enough of that between them. If he had
a line- and there must be plenty of lines in the cottage — he
could carry him the end of it to haul upon: that would do. If
he could send it to him, that would be better still; for then he
could help at the other end, and would be in the right position
up-stream to help further if necessary, for down the current
alone was the path of communication open. He caught hold of
the eaves and scrambled on to the roof. But in the folly and
faithlessness of her despair, the woman would not let him enter.
## p. 9461 (#485) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9461
With a curse caught from her husband, she struck him from the
window, crying —
"Ye s' no come in here, an' my man droonin' yon'er! Gang
till 'im, ye cooard! "
Never had poor Gibbie so much missed the use of speech.
On the slope of the roof he could do little to force an entrance,
therefore threw himself off it to seek another, and betook him-
self to the windows below. Through that of Angus's room, he
caught sight of a floating anker cask. It was the very thing! -
and there on the walls hung a quantity of nets and cordage!
But how to get in? It was a sash window, and of course swol-
len with the wet, and therefore not to be opened; and there was
not a square in it large enough to let him through. He swam
to the other side, and crept softly on to the roof and over the
ridge. But a broken slate betrayed him. The woman saw him,
rushed to the fireplace, caught up the poker, and darted back to
defend the window.
"Ye s' no come in here, I tell ye," she screeched, "an' my
man stickin' i' yon boortree buss! "
Gibbie advanced. She made a blow at him with the poker.
He caught it, wrenched it from her grasp, and threw himself
from the roof. The next moment they heard the poker at work
smashing the window.
"He'll be in an' murder 's a'! " cried the mother, and ran to
the stair, while the children screamed and danced with terror.
But the water was far too deep for her. She returned to the
attic, barricaded the door, and went again to the window to
watch her drowning husband.
Gibbie was inside in a moment; and seizing the cask, pro-
ceeded to attach to it a strong line. He broke a bit from a
fishing-rod, secured the line round the middle of it with a notch,
put the stick through the bunghole in the bilge, and corked up
the whole with a net-float. Happily he had a knife in his pocket.
He then joined strong lines together until he thought he had
length enough, secured the last end to a bar of the grate, and
knocked out both sashes of the window with an axe. A passage
thus cleared, he floated out first a chair, then a creepie, and one
thing after another, to learn from what part to start the bar-
rel. Seeing and recognizing them from above, Mistress MacPholp
raised a terrible outcry. In the very presence of her drowning
husband, such a wanton dissipation of her property roused her to
## p. 9462 (#486) ###########################################
9462
GEORGE MACDONALD
fiercest wrath; for she imagined Gibbie was emptying her house
with leisurely revenge. Satisfied at length, he floated out his
barrel, and followed with the line in his hand, to aid its direction
if necessary.
It struck the tree. With a yell of joy Angus laid
hold of it, and hauling the line taut, and feeling it secure, com-
mitted himself at once to the water, holding by the barrel and
swimming with his legs, while Gibbie, away to the side with a
hold of the rope, was swimming his hardest to draw him out of
the current. But a weary man was Angus when at length he
reached the house. It was all he could do to get himself in
at the window and crawl up the stair. At the top of it he fell
benumbed on the floor.
By the time that, repentant and grateful, Mistress Mac Pholp
bethought herself of Gibbie, not a trace of him was to be seen.
While they looked for him in the water and on the land, Gib-
bie was again in the room below, carrying out a fresh thought.
With the help of the table he emptied the cask, into which a
good deal of water had got. Then he took out the stick, corked
the bunghole tight, laced the cask up in a piece of net, attached
the line to the net and wound it about the cask by rolling the
latter round and round, took the cask between his hands, and
pushed from the window straight into the current of the Glash-
burn. In a moment it had swept him to the Lorrie. By the
greater rapidity of the former he got easily across the heavier
current of the latter, and was presently in water comparatively
still, swimming quietly towards the Mains, and enjoying his trip
none the less that he had to keep a sharp lookout: if he should
have to dive to avoid any drifting object, he might lose his
barrel. Quickly now, had he been so minded, he could have
returned to the city,-changing vessel for vessel, as one after
another went to pieces. Many a house roof offered itself for the
voyage; now and then a great water-wheel, horizontal and help-
less, devoured of its element. Once he saw a cradle come gyrat-
ing along, and urging all his might, intercepted it; but hardly
knew whether he was more sorry or relieved to find it empty.
When he was about half-way to the Mains, a whole fleet of ricks
bore down upon him. He boarded one, and scrambled to the top
of it, keeping fast hold of the end of his line, which unrolled
from the barrel as he ascended. From its peak he surveyed the
wild scene. All was running water. Not a human being was
visible, and but a few house roofs; of which for a moment it was
## p. 9463 (#487) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9463
hard to say whether or not they were of those that were afloat.
Here and there were the tops of trees, showing like low bushes.
Nothing was uplifted except the mountains. He drew near the
Mains. All the ricks in the yard were bobbing about, as if
amusing themselves with a slow contra-dance; but they were as
yet kept in by the barn and a huge old hedge of hawthorn.
What was that cry from far away? Surely it was that of a horse
in danger! It brought a lusty equine response from the farm.
Where could horses be, with such a depth of water about the
place? Then began a great lowing of cattle. But again came
the cry of the horse from afar, and Gibbie, this time recognizing
the voice as Snowball's, forgot the rest. He stood up on the
very top of the rick, and sent his keen glance round on all sides.
The cry came again and again, so that he was soon satisfied in
what direction he must look. The rain had abated a little; but
the air was so thick with vapor that he could not tell whether it
was really an object he seemed to see white against the brown
water, far away to the left, or a fancy of his excited hope; it
might be Snowball on the turnpike road, which thereabout ran
along the top of a high embankment. He tumbled from the rick,
rolled the line about the barrel, and pushed vigorously for what
might be the horse.
It took him a weary hour-in so many currents was he
caught, one after the other, all straining to carry him far below
the object he wanted to reach: an object it plainly was, before
he had got half-way across; and by-and-by as plainly it was
Snowball,
11, testified to ears and eyes together. When at length
he scrambled on the embankment beside him, the poor shivering,
perishing creature gave a low neigh of delight: he did not know
Gibbie, but he was a human being. He was quite cowed and
submissive, and Gibbie at once set about his rescue. He had
reasoned as he came along, that if there were beasts at the
Mains there must be room for Snowball, and thither he would
endeavor to take him. He tied the end of the line to the rem-
nant of the halter on his head, the other end being still fast to
the barrel, and took to the water again. Encouraged by the power
upon his head, the pressure, namely, of the halter,-the horse
followed, and they made for the Mains. It was a long journey,
and Gibbie had not breath enough to sing to Snowball, but he
made what noises he could, and they got slowly along. He found
the difficulties far greater now that he had to look out for the
—
## p. 9464 (#488) ###########################################
9464
GEORGE MACDONALD
horse as well as for himself. None but one much used to the
water could have succeeded in the attempt, or could indeed have
stood out against its weakening influence and the strain of the
continued exertion together so long. At length his barrel got
waterlogged, and he sent it adrift.
When they arrived at the door, they found a difficulty await-
ing them: the water was now so high that Snowball's head rose
above the lintel; and though all animals can swim, they do not
all know how to dive. A tumult of suggestions immediately broke
out. But Donal had already thrown himself from a window with
a rope, and swum to Gibbie's assistance; the two understood each
other, and heeding nothing the rest were saying, held their own
communications. In a minute the rope was fastened round Snow-
ball's body, and the end of it drawn between his forelegs and
through the ring of his head-stall, when Donal swam with it to
his mother who stood on the stair, with the request that as soon
as she saw Snowball's head under the water, she would pull with
all her might, and draw him in at the door. Donal then swam
back, and threw his arms around Snowball's neck from below,
while the same moment Gibbie cast his whole weight on it from
above: the horse was over head and ears in an instant, and
through the door in another. With snorting nostrils and blazing
eyes his head rose in the passage, and in terror he struck out
for the stair. As he scrambled heavily up from the water, his
master and Robert seized him, and with much petting and patting
and gentling, though there was little enough difficulty in man-
aging him now, conducted him into the bedroom to the rest of the
horses. There he was welcomed by his companions, and immedi-
ately began devouring the hay upon his master's bedstead. Gib-
bie came close behind him, was seized by Janet at the top of the
stair, embraced like one come alive from the grave, and led, all
dripping as he was, into the room where the women were.
THE HAY-LOFT
From At the Back of the North Wind'
HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the North
Wind. An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived
there, and were so comfortable that they could not bear it
any longer, and drowned themselves. My story is not the same
## p. 9465 (#489) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9465
I do not think Herodotus had got the right account of
I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who
as his.
the place.
went there.
He lived in a low room over a coach-house; and that was not
by any means at the back of the North Wind, as his mother very
well knew. For one side of the room was built only of boards,
and the boards were so old that you might run a penknife
through into the North Wind. And then let them settle between
them which was the sharper! I know that when you pulled it
out again, the wind would be after it like a cat after a mouse,
and you would know soon enough you were not at the back of
the North Wind. Still, this room was not very cold, except when
the north wind blew stronger than usual: the room I have to do
with now was always cold, except in summer, when the sun took
the matter into his own hands. Indeed, I am not sure whether
I ought to call it a room at all; for it was just a loft where they
kept hay and straw and oats for the horses. And when little
Diamond - but stop: I must tell you that his father, who was a
coachman, had named him after a favorite horse, and his mother
had had no objection-when little Diamond, then, lay there in bed,
he could hear the horses under him munching away in the dark,
or moving sleepily in their dreams. For Diamond's father had
built him a bed in the loft with boards all round it, because they
had so little room in their own end over the coach-house; and
Diamond's father put old Diamond in the stall under the bed,
because he was a quiet horse, and did not go to sleep standing,
but lay down like a reasonable creature. But although he was a
surprisingly reasonable creature, yet when young Diamond woke
in the middle of the night and felt the bed shaking in the blasts
of the North Wind, he could not help wondering whether, if the
wind should blow the house down, and he were to fall through
into the manger, old Diamond mightn't eat him up before he
knew him in his night-gown. And although old Diamond was
very quiet all night long, yet when he woke he got up like an
earthquake; and then young Diamond knew what o'clock it was,
or at least what was to be done next, which was-to go to sleep
again as fast as he could.
There was hay at his feet and hay at his head, piled up in
great trusses to the very roof. Indeed, it was sometimes only
through a little lane with several turnings, which looked as if it
had been sawn out for him, that he could reach his bed at all.
## p. 9466 (#490) ###########################################
9466
GEORGE MACDONALD
For the stock of hay was of course always in a state either of
slow ebb or of sudden flow. Sometimes the whole space of the
loft, with the little panes in the roof for the stars to look in,
would lie open before his open eyes as he lay in bed; sometimes
a yellow wall of sweet-smelling fibres closed up his view at
the distance of half a yard. Sometimes when his mother had
undressed him in her room, and told him to trot away to bed by
himself, he would creep into the heart of the hay, and lie there
thinking how cold it was outside in the wind, and how warm it
was inside there in his bed, and how he could go to it when he
pleased, only he wouldn't just yet: he would get a little colder
first. And ever as he grew colder, his bed would grow warmer,
till at last he would scramble out of the hay, shoot like an arrow
into his bed, cover himself up, and snuggle down, thinking what
a happy boy he was. He had not the least idea that the wind
got in at a chink in the wall, and blew about him all night. For
the back of his bed was only of boards an inch thick, and on the
other side of them was the North Wind.
Now, as I have already said, these boards were soft and
crumbly. To be sure, they were tarred on the outside, yet in
many places they were more like tinder than timber. Hence it
happened that the soft part having worn away from about it,
little Diamond found one night after he lay down, that a knot
had come out of one of them, and that the wind was blowing in
upon him in a cold and rather imperious fashion. Now he had
no fancy for leaving things wrong that might be set right; so he
jumped out of bed again, got a little strike of hay, twisted it up,
folded it in the middle, and having thus made it into a cork,
stuck it into the hole in the wall. But the wind began to blow
loud and angrily; and as Diamond was falling asleep, out blew
his cork and hit him on the nose, just hard enough to wake him
up quite, and let him hear the wind whistling shrill in the hole.
He searched for his hay-cork, found it, stuck it in harder, and
was just dropping off once more, when, pop! with an angry
whistle behind it, the cork struck him again, this time on the
cheek. Up he rose once more, made a fresh stopple of hay, and
corked the hole severely. But he was hardly down again before
-pop! it came on his forehead. He gave it up, drew the clothes
above his head, and was soon fast asleep.
Although the next day was very stormy, Diamond forgot all
about the hole; for he was busy making a cave by the side of
## p. 9467 (#491) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9467
his mother's fire,- with a broken chair, a three-legged stool, and
a blanket, and sitting in it. His mother, however, discovered it
and pasted a bit of brown paper over it; so that when Diamond
had snuggled down for the next night, he had no occasion to
think of it.
-
Presently, however, he lifted his head and listened. Who could.
that be talking to him? The wind was rising again, and getting
very loud, and full of rushes and whistles. He was sure some
one was talking-and very near him too it was. But he was
not frightened, for he had not yet learned how to be; so he sat
up and hearkened. At last the voice, which though quite gentle
sounded a little angry, appeared to come from the back of the
bed. He crept nearer to it, and laid his ear against the wall.
Then he heard nothing but the wind, which sounded very loud
indeed. The moment, however, that he moved his head from the
wall he heard the voice again, close to his ear. He felt about
with his hand, and came upon the piece of paper his mother had
pasted over the hole. Against this he laid his ear, and then he
heard the voice quite distinctly. There was in fact a little cor-
ner of the paper loose; and through that, as from a mouth in
the wall, the voice came.
"What do you mean, little boy-closing up my window? "
"What window? " asked Diamond.
"You stuffed hay into it three times last night. I had to
blow it out again three times. "
"You can't mean this little hole! It isn't a window; it's a
hole in my bed. "
"I did not say it was a window: I said it was my window. "
"But it can't be a window, because windows are holes to see
out of. "
"Well, that's just what I made this window for. "
"But you are outside: you can't want a window. "
"You are quite mistaken. Windows are to see out of, you
say. Well, I'm in my house, and I want windows to see out
of it. "
"But you've made a window into my bed. "
"Well, your mother has got three windows into my dancing-
room, and you have three into my garret. ”
"But I heard father say, when my mother wanted him to
make a window through the wall, that it was against the law,
for it would look into Mr. Dyves's garden. ”
## p. 9468 (#492) ###########################################
9468
GEORGE MACDONALD
The voice laughed.
>>
"The law would have some trouble to catch me! it said.
"But if it's not right, you know," said Diamond, "that's no
matter. You shouldn't do it. "
"I am so tall I am above that law," said the voice.
"You must have a tall house, then," said Diamond.
"Yes, a tall house: the clouds are inside it. "
"Dear me! " said Diamond, and thought a minute. "I think,
then, you can hardly expect me to keep a window in my bed for
you. Why don't you make a window into Mr. Dyves's bed? "
"Nobody makes a window into an ash-pit," said the voice
rather sadly: "I like to see nice things out of my windows. "
"But he must have a nicer bed than I have; though mine is
very nice so nice that I couldn't wish a better. "
--
"It's not the bed I care about: it's what is in it. But you
just open that window. "
"Well, mother says I shouldn't be disobliging; but it's rather
hard. You see the north wind will blow right in my face if I
do. »
-
"I am the North Wind. "
"O-o-oh! " said Diamond thoughtfully. "Then will you prom-
ise not to blow on my face if I open your window? »
"I can't promise that. "
"But you'll give me the toothache. Mother's got it already. "
"But what's to become of me without a window? "
"I'm sure I don't know. All I say is, it will be worse for
me than for you. "
-I prom-
Just you
"No, it will not. You shall not be the worse for it
ise you that. You will be much the better for it.
believe what I say, and do as I tell you. "
"Well, I can pull the clothes over my head," said Diamond;
and feeling with his little sharp nails, he got hold of the open
edge of the paper and tore it off at once.
In came a long whistling spear of cold, and struck his little.
naked chest. He scrambled and tumbled in under the bed-clothes,
and covered himself up: there was no paper now between him
and the voice, and he felt a little-not frightened exactly, I told
you he had not learned that yet-but rather queer; for what a
strange person this North Wind must be that lived in the great
house" called Out-of-Doors, I suppose," thought Diamond -— and
made windows into people's beds! But the voice began again;
-
## p. 9469 (#493) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9469
and he could hear it quite plainly, even with his head under the
bedclothes. It was a still more gentle voice now, although six
times as large and loud as it had been, and he thought it sounded
a little like his mother's.
"What is your name, little boy? " it asked.
"Diamond," answered Diamond under the bedclothes.
"What a funny name! "
"It's a very nice name," returned its owner.
"I don't know that," said the voice.
"Well, I do," retorted Diamond, a little rudely.
"Do you know to whom you are speaking? "
"No," said Diamond.
And indeed he did not. For to know a person's name is not
always to know the person's self.
"Then I must not be angry with you. You had better look
and see, though. "
-
"Diamond is a very pretty name," persisted the boy, vexed
that it should not give satisfaction.
"Diamond is a useless thing, rather," said the voice.
"That's not true. Diamond is very nice- as big as two- and
so quiet all night! And doesn't he make a jolly row in the morn-
ing, getting up on his four great legs! It's like thunder. "
"You don't seem to know what a diamond is. "
"Oh, don't I just!
―――――
Diamond is a great and good horse; and
he sleeps right under me. He is Old Diamond, and I am Young
Diamond; or if you like it better,-for you're very particular,
Mr. North Wind,- he's Big Diamond, and I'm Little Diamond:
and I don't know which of us my father likes best. "
A beautiful laugh, large but very soft and musical, sounded
somewhere beside him; but Diamond kept his head under the
clothes.
"I'm not Mr. North Wind," said the voice.
"You told me that you were the North Wind," insisted Dia-
mond.
"I did not say Mister North Wind," said the voice.
"Well then, I do; for mother tells me I ought to be polite.
the majority of statesmen: so much the worse for statesmanship.
But the gravest errors of this kind which Palmerston had com-
mitted were committed for an earlier generation.
His greatest praise with Englishmen must be that he loved
England with a sincere love that never abated. He had no pre-
dilection, no prejudice, that did not give way where the welfare
of England was concerned. He ought to have gone one step
higher in the path of public duty: he ought to have loved justice
and right even more than he loved England. He ought to have
felt more tranquilly convinced that the cause of justice and of
right must be the best thing which an English minister could
advance even for England's sake in the end. Lord Palmerston
was not a statesman who took any lofty view of a minister's
duties. His statesmanship never stood on any high moral eleva-
tion. He sometimes did things in the cause of England which
we may well believe he would not have done for any considera-
tion in any cause of his own. His policy was necessarily shift-
ing, uncertain, and inconsistent; for he molded it always on the
supposed interests of England as they showed themselves to his
eyes at the time. His sympathies with liberty were capricious
guides. Sympathies with liberty must be so always where there
is no clear principle defining objects and guiding conduct. Lord
Palmerston was not prevented by his liberal sympathies from
sustaining the policy of the Coup d'État; nor did his hatred of
slavery, one of his few strong and genuine emotions apart from
English interests, inspire him with any repugnance for the cause
of the Southern slaveholders. But it cannot be doubted that his
very defects were a main cause of his popularity and his success.
He was able always with a good conscience to assure the English
people that they were the greatest and the best-the only good
and great-people in the world, because he had long taught him-
self to believe this, and had come to believe it. He was always
popular, because his speeches invariably conveyed this impression
## p. 9453 (#477) ###########################################
JUSTIN MCCARTHY
9453
It
to the English crowd whom he addressed in or out of Parliament.
Other public men spoke for the most part to tell English peo-
ple of something they ought to do which they were not doing,
something which they had done and ought not to have done.
is not in the nature of things that such men should be as popular
as those who told England that whatever she did must be right.
Nor did Palmerston lay on his praise with coarse and palpable
artifice. He had no artifice in the matter. He believed what he
said; and his very sincerity made it the more captivating and the
more dangerous.
A phrase sprang up in Palmerston's days which was employed
to stigmatize certain political conduct beyond all ordinary re-
proach. It was meant to stamp such conduct as outside the
pale of reasonable argument or patriotic consideration. That was
the word "un-English. " It was enough with certain classes to
say that anything was "un-English" in order to put it utterly
out of court. No matter to what principles, higher, more uni-
versal, and more abiding than those that are merely English, it
might happen to appeal, the one word of condemnation was held
to be enough for it. Some of the noblest and the wisest men
of our day were denounced as "un-English. " A stranger might
have asked in wonder, at one time, whether it was un-English
to be just, to be merciful, to have consideration for the claims
and the rights of others, to admit that there was any higher
object in a nation's life than a diplomatic success. All that
would have made a man odious and insufferable in private life
was apparently held up as belonging to the virtues of the Eng-
lish nation. Rude self-assertion, blunt disregard for the feelings
and the claims of others, a self-sufficiency which would regard
all earth's interests as made for England's special use alone,-
the yet more outrageous form of egotism which would fancy that
the moral code as it applies to others does not apply to us,- all
this seemed to be considered the becoming national character-
istic of the English people. It would be almost superfluous to
say that this did not show its worst in Lord Palmerston himself.
As in art, so in politics, we never see how bad some peculiar
defect is until we see it in the imitators of a great man's style.
A school of Palmerstons, had it been powerful and lasting, would
have made England a nuisance to other nations.
have no hesitation in saying that Lord Palmerston's statesman-
ship on the whole lowered the moral tone of English politics for
We
## p. 9454 (#478) ###########################################
9454
JUSTIN MCCARTHY
a time. This consideration alone, if there were nothing else, for-
bids us to regard him as a statesman whose deeds were equal to
his opportunities and to his genius. To serve the purpose of the
hour was his policy. To succeed in serving it was his triumph.
It is not thus that a great fame is built up, unless indeed where
the genius of the man is like that of some Cæsar or Napoleon,
which can convert its very ruins into monumental records. Lord
Palmerston is hardly to be called a great man. Perhaps he may
be called a great "man of the time. "
## p. 9455 (#479) ###########################################
9455
GEORGE MACDONALD
(1824-)
EORGE MACDONALD has been characterized as a "cross between
a poet and a spiritual teacher. " His powers as a novelist,
however, are not taken into account by this description.
Added to his genuine poetical feeling, and to his refined moral sense,
are the qualities of a good story-teller. He knows how to handle an
elaborate plot; he understands the dramatic values of situations; he
can put life into his characters. Yet the dominant impression left
by his novels is their essential moral nobility. The ideal which Mr.
Macdonald sets before himself as a writer
of fiction is summed up in this passage
from Sir Gibbie': -
"But whatever the demand of the age, I
insist that that which ought to be presented to
its beholding is the common good, uncommonly
developed: and that not because of its rarity, but
because it is truer to humanity. It is the noble,
not the failure from the noble, that is the true
human: and if I must show the failure, let it
ever be with an eye to the final possible, yea,
imperative success. But in our day a man who
will accept any oddity of idiosyncratic develop-
ment in manners, tastes, and habits, will refuse
not only as improbable, but as inconsistent with
human nature, the representation of a man trying to be merely as noble as is
absolutely essential to his being. »
GEORGE MACDONALD
This quaint realism of Mr. Macdonald's in a literary age, when
many believe that only the evil in man's nature is real, dominates
his novels, from 'David Elginbrod' to 'The Elect Lady. ' They are
wholesome stories of pure men and women. The author is at his
strongest when drawing a character like that of Sir Gibbie, com-
pelled forever to follow the highest law of his nature. With villains
and with mean folk, Mr. Macdonald can do nothing. He cannot un-
derstand them, neither can he understand complexity of character.
He is too dogmatic ever to see the "shadowy third" between the
one and one. He is too much of a preacher to be altogether a
novelist.
## p. 9456 (#480) ###########################################
9456
GEORGE MACDONALD
His training has increased his dogmatic faculty. Born at Huntly,
Aberdeenshire, in 1824, he was graduated at King's College, Aber-
deen, and then entered upon the study of theology at the Independ
ent College, Highbury, London. He was for a time a preacher in
the Scottish Congregational Church, but afterwards became a layman
in the Church of England. He then assumed the principalship of a
seminary in London. His novels witness to his Scotch origin and
training. The scenes of many of them are laid in Scotland, and not
a few of the characters speak the North-Scottish dialect. But the
spirit which informs them is even more Scotch than their setting.
The strong moral convictions of George Macdonald infuse them with
the sermonizing element. The novelist is of the spiritual kindred of
the Covenanters. Yet they are full of a kindly humanity, and where
the moralist is merged in the writer of fiction they attain a high
degree of charm.
The pure and tender spirit of Mr. Macdonald makes him peculiarly
fitted to understand children and child life. "Gibbie had never been
kissed," he writes; "and how is any child to thrive without kisses? »
His stories for children, 'At the Back of the North Wind' and 'The
Princess and Curdie,' are full of beauty in their fine sympathy for
the moods of a child.
Mr. Macdonald has written a great number of novels. They in-
clude 'David Elginbrod,' 'Alec Forbes of How Glen,' 'Annals of a
Quiet Neighborhood,' 'The Seaboard Parish' (sequel to the foregoing),
'Robert Falconer,' 'Wilfrid Cumbermede,' 'Malcolm,' The Marquis
of Lossie,' 'St. George and St. Michael,' 'Sir Gibbie,' 'What's Mine's
Mine, The Elect Lady,' and such fanciful stories as his well-known
'Phantastes. ' He has also published 'Miracles of Our Lord' and 'Un-
spoken Sermons. ' Mr. Macdonald's sermons, as might be expected, are
vigorous, and exhibit his peculiar sensitiveness to the moral and spir-
itual elements in man's existence. This same sensitiveness pervades
his verse; which, while not of the first order, gives evidence - espe-
cially in the lyrics — of the true poetic instinct.
THE FLOOD
From Sir Gibbie'
TILL the rain fell and the wind blew; the torrents came tear-
ing down from the hills, and shot madly into the rivers; the
rivers ran into the valleys, and deepened the lakes that filled
them. On every side of the Mains, from the foot of Glashgar to
Gormdhu, all was one yellow and red sea, with roaring currents
## p. 9457 (#481) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9457
and vortices numberless. It burrowed holes, it opened long-
deserted channels and water-courses; here it deposited inches of
rich mold, there yards of sand and gravel; here it was carrying
away fertile ground, leaving behind only bare rock or shingle
where the corn had been waving; there it was scooping out the
bed of a new lake. Many a thick soft lawn of loveliest grass,
dotted with fragrant shrubs and rare trees, vanished, and nothing
was there when the waters subsided but a stony waste, or a grav-
elly precipice. Woods and copses were undermined, and trees and
soil together swept into the vast; sometimes the very place was
hardly there to say it knew its children no more. Houses were
torn to pieces; and their contents, as from broken boxes, sent
wandering on the brown waste through the gray air to the dis-
colored sea, whose saltness for a long way out had vanished with
its hue. Hay-mows were buried to the very top in sand; others
went sailing bodily down the mighty stream some of them fol-
lowed or surrounded, like big ducks, by a great brood of ricks for
their ducklings. Huge trees went past as if shot down an Alpine
slide - cottages and bridges of stone giving way before them.
Wooden mills, thatched roofs, great mill-wheels, went dipping
and swaying and hobbling down. From the upper windows of
the Mains, looking towards the chief current, they saw a drift of
everything belonging to farms and dwelling-houses that would
float. Chairs and tables, chests, carts, saddles, chests of drawers,
tubs of linen, beds and blankets, work-benches, harrows, girnels,
planes, cheeses, churns, spinning-wheels, cradles, iron pots, wheel-
barrows all these and many other things hurried past as th
gazed. Everybody was looking, and for a time all had been
silent.
――――
·
-
Just as Mr. Duff entered the stable from the nearer end, the
opposite gable fell out with a great splash, letting in the wide
level vision of turbidly raging waters, fading into the obscurity
of the wind-driven rain. While he stared aghast, a great tree
struck the wall like a battering-ram, so that the stable shook.
The horses, which had been for some time moving uneasily, were
now quite scared. There was not a moment to be lost. Duff
shouted for his men; one or two came running; and in less
than a minute more, those in the house heard the iron-shod feet
splashing and stamping through the water, as one after another
the horses were brought across the yard to the door of the house.
Mr. Duff led by the halter his favorite Snowball, who was a good
XVI-592
## p. 9458 (#482) ###########################################
9458
GEORGE MACDONALD
deal excited, plunging and rearing so that it was all he could do
to hold him. He had ordered the men to take the others first,
thinking he would follow more quietly. But the moment Snow-
ball heard the first thundering of hoofs on the stair, he went out
of his senses with terror, broke from his master, and went plun-
ging back to the stable. Duff started after him, but was only in
time to see him rush from the further end into the swift cur-
rent, where he was at once out of his depth, and was instantly
caught and hurried, rolling over and over, from his master's
sight. He ran back into the house, and up to the highest win-
dow. From that he caught sight of him a long way down,
swimming. Once or twice he saw him turned heels over head—
only to get his neck up again presently, and swim as well as
before. But alas! it was in the direction of the Daur, which
would soon, his master did not doubt, sweep his carcass into the
North Sea. With troubled heart he strained his sight after him
as long as he could distinguish his lessening head, but it got
amongst some wreck; and, unable to tell any more whether he
saw it or not, he returned to his men with his eyes full of tears.
Gibbie woke with the first of the dawn. The rain still fell-
descending in spoonfuls rather than drops; the wind kept shaping
itself into long hopeless howls, rising to shrill yells that went
drifting away over the land; and then the howling rose again.
Nature seemed in despair. There must be more for Gibbie to
do! He must go again to the foot of the mountain, and see if
there was anybody to help. They might even be in trouble at
the Mains: who could tell!
Gibbie sped down the hill through a worse rain than ever.
The morning was close, and the vapors that filled it were like
smoke burned to the hue of the flames whence it issued. Many
a man that morning believed another great deluge begun, and all
measures relating to things of this world lost labor. Going down.
his own side of the Glashburn, the nearest path to the valley,
the gamekeeper's cottage was the first dwelling on his way. It
stood a little distance from the bank of the burn, opposite the
bridge and gate, while such things were.
It had been with great difficulty- for even Angus did not
know the mountain so well as Gibbie-that the gamekeeper
reached it with the housekeeper the night before. It was within
two gun-shots of the house of Glashruach, yet to get to it they
## p. 9459 (#483) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9459
had to walk miles up and down Glashgar. A mountain in storm
is as hard to cross as a sea. Arrived, they did not therefore
feel safe. The tendency of the Glashburn was indeed away from
the cottage, as the grounds of Glashruach sadly witnessed; but
a torrent is double-edged, and who could tell? The yielding of
one stone in its channel might send it to them. All night Angus
watched, peering out ever again into the darkness, but seeing
nothing save three lights that burned above the water-one of
them, he thought, at the Mains. The other two went out in the
darkness, but that only in the dawn. When the morning came,
there was the Glashburn meeting the Lorrie in his garden. But
the cottage was well built, and fit to stand a good siege, while
any moment the waters might have reached their height. By
breakfast-time, however, they were round it from behind. There
is nothing like a flood for revealing the variations of surface, the
dips and swells of a country. In a few minutes they were iso-
lated, with the current of the Glashburn on one side and that
of the Lorrie in front. When he saw the water come in at front
and back doors at once, Angus ordered his family up the stair:
the cottage had a large attic, with dormer windows, where they
slept. He himself remained below for some time longer, in that
end of the house where he kept his guns and fishing-tackle; there
he sat on a table, preparing nets for the fish that would be left
in the pools; and not until he found himself afloat did he take
his work to the attic.
There the room was hot, and they had the window open.
Mistress MacPholp stood at it, looking out on the awful prospect,
with her youngest child, a sickly boy, in her arms. He had in
his a little terrier pup, greatly valued of the gamekeeper.
In a
sudden outbreak of peevish willfulness, he threw the creature out
of the window. It fell on the sloping roof, and before it could
recover itself, being too young to have the full command of four
legs, rolled off.
"Eh! the doggie's i' the watter! " cried Mistress MacPholp in
dismay.
Angus threw down everything with an ugly oath,- for he had
given strict orders not one of the children should handle the
whelp,-jumped up, and got out on the roof. From there he
might have managed to reach it, so high now was the water, had
the little thing remained where it fell; but already it had swum
a yard or two from the house. Angus, who was a fair swimmer
## p. 9460 (#484) ###########################################
9460
GEORGE MACDONALD
and an angry man, threw off his coat, and plunging after it,
greatly to the delight of the little one, caught the pup with his
teeth by the back of the neck, and turned to make for the house.
Just then a shrub swept from the hill caught him in the face,
and so bewildered him that before he got rid of it he had blun-
dered into the edge of the current, which seized and bore him
rapidly away.
He dropped the pup and struck out for home
with all his strength. But he soon found the most he could do
was to keep his head above water, and gave himself up for lost.
His wife screamed in agony. Gibbie heard her as he came down
the hill, and ran at full speed towards the cottage.
About a hundred yards from the house, the current bore
Angus straight into a large elder-tree. He got into the middle
of it, and there remained trembling, the weak branches break-
ing with every motion he made, while the stream worked at the
roots, and the wind laid hold of him with fierce leverage. In
terror, seeming still to sink as he sat, he watched the trees dart
by like battering-rams in the swiftest of the current; the least of
them diverging would tear the elder-tree with it. Brave enough
in dealing with poachers, Angus was not the man to gaze with
composure in the face of a sure slow death, against which no
assault could be made. Many a man is courageous because he
has not conscience enough to make a coward of him, but Angus
had not quite reached that condition; and from the branches of
the elder-tree showed a pale, terror-stricken visage. Amidst the
many objects in the face of the water, Gibbie, however, did not
distinguish it; and plunging in, swam round to the front of the
cottage to learn what was the matter. There the wife's gesticu-
lations directed his eyes to her drowning husband.
But what was he to do? He could swim to the tree well
enough, and, he thought, back again; but how was that to be
made of service to Angus? He could not save him by main
force: there was not enough of that between them. If he had
a line- and there must be plenty of lines in the cottage — he
could carry him the end of it to haul upon: that would do. If
he could send it to him, that would be better still; for then he
could help at the other end, and would be in the right position
up-stream to help further if necessary, for down the current
alone was the path of communication open. He caught hold of
the eaves and scrambled on to the roof. But in the folly and
faithlessness of her despair, the woman would not let him enter.
## p. 9461 (#485) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9461
With a curse caught from her husband, she struck him from the
window, crying —
"Ye s' no come in here, an' my man droonin' yon'er! Gang
till 'im, ye cooard! "
Never had poor Gibbie so much missed the use of speech.
On the slope of the roof he could do little to force an entrance,
therefore threw himself off it to seek another, and betook him-
self to the windows below. Through that of Angus's room, he
caught sight of a floating anker cask. It was the very thing! -
and there on the walls hung a quantity of nets and cordage!
But how to get in? It was a sash window, and of course swol-
len with the wet, and therefore not to be opened; and there was
not a square in it large enough to let him through. He swam
to the other side, and crept softly on to the roof and over the
ridge. But a broken slate betrayed him. The woman saw him,
rushed to the fireplace, caught up the poker, and darted back to
defend the window.
"Ye s' no come in here, I tell ye," she screeched, "an' my
man stickin' i' yon boortree buss! "
Gibbie advanced. She made a blow at him with the poker.
He caught it, wrenched it from her grasp, and threw himself
from the roof. The next moment they heard the poker at work
smashing the window.
"He'll be in an' murder 's a'! " cried the mother, and ran to
the stair, while the children screamed and danced with terror.
But the water was far too deep for her. She returned to the
attic, barricaded the door, and went again to the window to
watch her drowning husband.
Gibbie was inside in a moment; and seizing the cask, pro-
ceeded to attach to it a strong line. He broke a bit from a
fishing-rod, secured the line round the middle of it with a notch,
put the stick through the bunghole in the bilge, and corked up
the whole with a net-float. Happily he had a knife in his pocket.
He then joined strong lines together until he thought he had
length enough, secured the last end to a bar of the grate, and
knocked out both sashes of the window with an axe. A passage
thus cleared, he floated out first a chair, then a creepie, and one
thing after another, to learn from what part to start the bar-
rel. Seeing and recognizing them from above, Mistress MacPholp
raised a terrible outcry. In the very presence of her drowning
husband, such a wanton dissipation of her property roused her to
## p. 9462 (#486) ###########################################
9462
GEORGE MACDONALD
fiercest wrath; for she imagined Gibbie was emptying her house
with leisurely revenge. Satisfied at length, he floated out his
barrel, and followed with the line in his hand, to aid its direction
if necessary.
It struck the tree. With a yell of joy Angus laid
hold of it, and hauling the line taut, and feeling it secure, com-
mitted himself at once to the water, holding by the barrel and
swimming with his legs, while Gibbie, away to the side with a
hold of the rope, was swimming his hardest to draw him out of
the current. But a weary man was Angus when at length he
reached the house. It was all he could do to get himself in
at the window and crawl up the stair. At the top of it he fell
benumbed on the floor.
By the time that, repentant and grateful, Mistress Mac Pholp
bethought herself of Gibbie, not a trace of him was to be seen.
While they looked for him in the water and on the land, Gib-
bie was again in the room below, carrying out a fresh thought.
With the help of the table he emptied the cask, into which a
good deal of water had got. Then he took out the stick, corked
the bunghole tight, laced the cask up in a piece of net, attached
the line to the net and wound it about the cask by rolling the
latter round and round, took the cask between his hands, and
pushed from the window straight into the current of the Glash-
burn. In a moment it had swept him to the Lorrie. By the
greater rapidity of the former he got easily across the heavier
current of the latter, and was presently in water comparatively
still, swimming quietly towards the Mains, and enjoying his trip
none the less that he had to keep a sharp lookout: if he should
have to dive to avoid any drifting object, he might lose his
barrel. Quickly now, had he been so minded, he could have
returned to the city,-changing vessel for vessel, as one after
another went to pieces. Many a house roof offered itself for the
voyage; now and then a great water-wheel, horizontal and help-
less, devoured of its element. Once he saw a cradle come gyrat-
ing along, and urging all his might, intercepted it; but hardly
knew whether he was more sorry or relieved to find it empty.
When he was about half-way to the Mains, a whole fleet of ricks
bore down upon him. He boarded one, and scrambled to the top
of it, keeping fast hold of the end of his line, which unrolled
from the barrel as he ascended. From its peak he surveyed the
wild scene. All was running water. Not a human being was
visible, and but a few house roofs; of which for a moment it was
## p. 9463 (#487) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9463
hard to say whether or not they were of those that were afloat.
Here and there were the tops of trees, showing like low bushes.
Nothing was uplifted except the mountains. He drew near the
Mains. All the ricks in the yard were bobbing about, as if
amusing themselves with a slow contra-dance; but they were as
yet kept in by the barn and a huge old hedge of hawthorn.
What was that cry from far away? Surely it was that of a horse
in danger! It brought a lusty equine response from the farm.
Where could horses be, with such a depth of water about the
place? Then began a great lowing of cattle. But again came
the cry of the horse from afar, and Gibbie, this time recognizing
the voice as Snowball's, forgot the rest. He stood up on the
very top of the rick, and sent his keen glance round on all sides.
The cry came again and again, so that he was soon satisfied in
what direction he must look. The rain had abated a little; but
the air was so thick with vapor that he could not tell whether it
was really an object he seemed to see white against the brown
water, far away to the left, or a fancy of his excited hope; it
might be Snowball on the turnpike road, which thereabout ran
along the top of a high embankment. He tumbled from the rick,
rolled the line about the barrel, and pushed vigorously for what
might be the horse.
It took him a weary hour-in so many currents was he
caught, one after the other, all straining to carry him far below
the object he wanted to reach: an object it plainly was, before
he had got half-way across; and by-and-by as plainly it was
Snowball,
11, testified to ears and eyes together. When at length
he scrambled on the embankment beside him, the poor shivering,
perishing creature gave a low neigh of delight: he did not know
Gibbie, but he was a human being. He was quite cowed and
submissive, and Gibbie at once set about his rescue. He had
reasoned as he came along, that if there were beasts at the
Mains there must be room for Snowball, and thither he would
endeavor to take him. He tied the end of the line to the rem-
nant of the halter on his head, the other end being still fast to
the barrel, and took to the water again. Encouraged by the power
upon his head, the pressure, namely, of the halter,-the horse
followed, and they made for the Mains. It was a long journey,
and Gibbie had not breath enough to sing to Snowball, but he
made what noises he could, and they got slowly along. He found
the difficulties far greater now that he had to look out for the
—
## p. 9464 (#488) ###########################################
9464
GEORGE MACDONALD
horse as well as for himself. None but one much used to the
water could have succeeded in the attempt, or could indeed have
stood out against its weakening influence and the strain of the
continued exertion together so long. At length his barrel got
waterlogged, and he sent it adrift.
When they arrived at the door, they found a difficulty await-
ing them: the water was now so high that Snowball's head rose
above the lintel; and though all animals can swim, they do not
all know how to dive. A tumult of suggestions immediately broke
out. But Donal had already thrown himself from a window with
a rope, and swum to Gibbie's assistance; the two understood each
other, and heeding nothing the rest were saying, held their own
communications. In a minute the rope was fastened round Snow-
ball's body, and the end of it drawn between his forelegs and
through the ring of his head-stall, when Donal swam with it to
his mother who stood on the stair, with the request that as soon
as she saw Snowball's head under the water, she would pull with
all her might, and draw him in at the door. Donal then swam
back, and threw his arms around Snowball's neck from below,
while the same moment Gibbie cast his whole weight on it from
above: the horse was over head and ears in an instant, and
through the door in another. With snorting nostrils and blazing
eyes his head rose in the passage, and in terror he struck out
for the stair. As he scrambled heavily up from the water, his
master and Robert seized him, and with much petting and patting
and gentling, though there was little enough difficulty in man-
aging him now, conducted him into the bedroom to the rest of the
horses. There he was welcomed by his companions, and immedi-
ately began devouring the hay upon his master's bedstead. Gib-
bie came close behind him, was seized by Janet at the top of the
stair, embraced like one come alive from the grave, and led, all
dripping as he was, into the room where the women were.
THE HAY-LOFT
From At the Back of the North Wind'
HAVE been asked to tell you about the back of the North
Wind. An old Greek writer mentions a people who lived
there, and were so comfortable that they could not bear it
any longer, and drowned themselves. My story is not the same
## p. 9465 (#489) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9465
I do not think Herodotus had got the right account of
I am going to tell you how it fared with a boy who
as his.
the place.
went there.
He lived in a low room over a coach-house; and that was not
by any means at the back of the North Wind, as his mother very
well knew. For one side of the room was built only of boards,
and the boards were so old that you might run a penknife
through into the North Wind. And then let them settle between
them which was the sharper! I know that when you pulled it
out again, the wind would be after it like a cat after a mouse,
and you would know soon enough you were not at the back of
the North Wind. Still, this room was not very cold, except when
the north wind blew stronger than usual: the room I have to do
with now was always cold, except in summer, when the sun took
the matter into his own hands. Indeed, I am not sure whether
I ought to call it a room at all; for it was just a loft where they
kept hay and straw and oats for the horses. And when little
Diamond - but stop: I must tell you that his father, who was a
coachman, had named him after a favorite horse, and his mother
had had no objection-when little Diamond, then, lay there in bed,
he could hear the horses under him munching away in the dark,
or moving sleepily in their dreams. For Diamond's father had
built him a bed in the loft with boards all round it, because they
had so little room in their own end over the coach-house; and
Diamond's father put old Diamond in the stall under the bed,
because he was a quiet horse, and did not go to sleep standing,
but lay down like a reasonable creature. But although he was a
surprisingly reasonable creature, yet when young Diamond woke
in the middle of the night and felt the bed shaking in the blasts
of the North Wind, he could not help wondering whether, if the
wind should blow the house down, and he were to fall through
into the manger, old Diamond mightn't eat him up before he
knew him in his night-gown. And although old Diamond was
very quiet all night long, yet when he woke he got up like an
earthquake; and then young Diamond knew what o'clock it was,
or at least what was to be done next, which was-to go to sleep
again as fast as he could.
There was hay at his feet and hay at his head, piled up in
great trusses to the very roof. Indeed, it was sometimes only
through a little lane with several turnings, which looked as if it
had been sawn out for him, that he could reach his bed at all.
## p. 9466 (#490) ###########################################
9466
GEORGE MACDONALD
For the stock of hay was of course always in a state either of
slow ebb or of sudden flow. Sometimes the whole space of the
loft, with the little panes in the roof for the stars to look in,
would lie open before his open eyes as he lay in bed; sometimes
a yellow wall of sweet-smelling fibres closed up his view at
the distance of half a yard. Sometimes when his mother had
undressed him in her room, and told him to trot away to bed by
himself, he would creep into the heart of the hay, and lie there
thinking how cold it was outside in the wind, and how warm it
was inside there in his bed, and how he could go to it when he
pleased, only he wouldn't just yet: he would get a little colder
first. And ever as he grew colder, his bed would grow warmer,
till at last he would scramble out of the hay, shoot like an arrow
into his bed, cover himself up, and snuggle down, thinking what
a happy boy he was. He had not the least idea that the wind
got in at a chink in the wall, and blew about him all night. For
the back of his bed was only of boards an inch thick, and on the
other side of them was the North Wind.
Now, as I have already said, these boards were soft and
crumbly. To be sure, they were tarred on the outside, yet in
many places they were more like tinder than timber. Hence it
happened that the soft part having worn away from about it,
little Diamond found one night after he lay down, that a knot
had come out of one of them, and that the wind was blowing in
upon him in a cold and rather imperious fashion. Now he had
no fancy for leaving things wrong that might be set right; so he
jumped out of bed again, got a little strike of hay, twisted it up,
folded it in the middle, and having thus made it into a cork,
stuck it into the hole in the wall. But the wind began to blow
loud and angrily; and as Diamond was falling asleep, out blew
his cork and hit him on the nose, just hard enough to wake him
up quite, and let him hear the wind whistling shrill in the hole.
He searched for his hay-cork, found it, stuck it in harder, and
was just dropping off once more, when, pop! with an angry
whistle behind it, the cork struck him again, this time on the
cheek. Up he rose once more, made a fresh stopple of hay, and
corked the hole severely. But he was hardly down again before
-pop! it came on his forehead. He gave it up, drew the clothes
above his head, and was soon fast asleep.
Although the next day was very stormy, Diamond forgot all
about the hole; for he was busy making a cave by the side of
## p. 9467 (#491) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9467
his mother's fire,- with a broken chair, a three-legged stool, and
a blanket, and sitting in it. His mother, however, discovered it
and pasted a bit of brown paper over it; so that when Diamond
had snuggled down for the next night, he had no occasion to
think of it.
-
Presently, however, he lifted his head and listened. Who could.
that be talking to him? The wind was rising again, and getting
very loud, and full of rushes and whistles. He was sure some
one was talking-and very near him too it was. But he was
not frightened, for he had not yet learned how to be; so he sat
up and hearkened. At last the voice, which though quite gentle
sounded a little angry, appeared to come from the back of the
bed. He crept nearer to it, and laid his ear against the wall.
Then he heard nothing but the wind, which sounded very loud
indeed. The moment, however, that he moved his head from the
wall he heard the voice again, close to his ear. He felt about
with his hand, and came upon the piece of paper his mother had
pasted over the hole. Against this he laid his ear, and then he
heard the voice quite distinctly. There was in fact a little cor-
ner of the paper loose; and through that, as from a mouth in
the wall, the voice came.
"What do you mean, little boy-closing up my window? "
"What window? " asked Diamond.
"You stuffed hay into it three times last night. I had to
blow it out again three times. "
"You can't mean this little hole! It isn't a window; it's a
hole in my bed. "
"I did not say it was a window: I said it was my window. "
"But it can't be a window, because windows are holes to see
out of. "
"Well, that's just what I made this window for. "
"But you are outside: you can't want a window. "
"You are quite mistaken. Windows are to see out of, you
say. Well, I'm in my house, and I want windows to see out
of it. "
"But you've made a window into my bed. "
"Well, your mother has got three windows into my dancing-
room, and you have three into my garret. ”
"But I heard father say, when my mother wanted him to
make a window through the wall, that it was against the law,
for it would look into Mr. Dyves's garden. ”
## p. 9468 (#492) ###########################################
9468
GEORGE MACDONALD
The voice laughed.
>>
"The law would have some trouble to catch me! it said.
"But if it's not right, you know," said Diamond, "that's no
matter. You shouldn't do it. "
"I am so tall I am above that law," said the voice.
"You must have a tall house, then," said Diamond.
"Yes, a tall house: the clouds are inside it. "
"Dear me! " said Diamond, and thought a minute. "I think,
then, you can hardly expect me to keep a window in my bed for
you. Why don't you make a window into Mr. Dyves's bed? "
"Nobody makes a window into an ash-pit," said the voice
rather sadly: "I like to see nice things out of my windows. "
"But he must have a nicer bed than I have; though mine is
very nice so nice that I couldn't wish a better. "
--
"It's not the bed I care about: it's what is in it. But you
just open that window. "
"Well, mother says I shouldn't be disobliging; but it's rather
hard. You see the north wind will blow right in my face if I
do. »
-
"I am the North Wind. "
"O-o-oh! " said Diamond thoughtfully. "Then will you prom-
ise not to blow on my face if I open your window? »
"I can't promise that. "
"But you'll give me the toothache. Mother's got it already. "
"But what's to become of me without a window? "
"I'm sure I don't know. All I say is, it will be worse for
me than for you. "
-I prom-
Just you
"No, it will not. You shall not be the worse for it
ise you that. You will be much the better for it.
believe what I say, and do as I tell you. "
"Well, I can pull the clothes over my head," said Diamond;
and feeling with his little sharp nails, he got hold of the open
edge of the paper and tore it off at once.
In came a long whistling spear of cold, and struck his little.
naked chest. He scrambled and tumbled in under the bed-clothes,
and covered himself up: there was no paper now between him
and the voice, and he felt a little-not frightened exactly, I told
you he had not learned that yet-but rather queer; for what a
strange person this North Wind must be that lived in the great
house" called Out-of-Doors, I suppose," thought Diamond -— and
made windows into people's beds! But the voice began again;
-
## p. 9469 (#493) ###########################################
GEORGE MACDONALD
9469
and he could hear it quite plainly, even with his head under the
bedclothes. It was a still more gentle voice now, although six
times as large and loud as it had been, and he thought it sounded
a little like his mother's.
"What is your name, little boy? " it asked.
"Diamond," answered Diamond under the bedclothes.
"What a funny name! "
"It's a very nice name," returned its owner.
"I don't know that," said the voice.
"Well, I do," retorted Diamond, a little rudely.
"Do you know to whom you are speaking? "
"No," said Diamond.
And indeed he did not. For to know a person's name is not
always to know the person's self.
"Then I must not be angry with you. You had better look
and see, though. "
-
"Diamond is a very pretty name," persisted the boy, vexed
that it should not give satisfaction.
"Diamond is a useless thing, rather," said the voice.
"That's not true. Diamond is very nice- as big as two- and
so quiet all night! And doesn't he make a jolly row in the morn-
ing, getting up on his four great legs! It's like thunder. "
"You don't seem to know what a diamond is. "
"Oh, don't I just!
―――――
Diamond is a great and good horse; and
he sleeps right under me. He is Old Diamond, and I am Young
Diamond; or if you like it better,-for you're very particular,
Mr. North Wind,- he's Big Diamond, and I'm Little Diamond:
and I don't know which of us my father likes best. "
A beautiful laugh, large but very soft and musical, sounded
somewhere beside him; but Diamond kept his head under the
clothes.
"I'm not Mr. North Wind," said the voice.
"You told me that you were the North Wind," insisted Dia-
mond.
"I did not say Mister North Wind," said the voice.
"Well then, I do; for mother tells me I ought to be polite.
