"I do not think any man will ever define them for you. But you may go
through a course of experiences, more severe, probably, than pleasant,
which may enable you at last to define them for yourself."
"Have you defined them?" asked Tom, bluntly, glancing round at his
companion.
"Faith?--Yes, I trust. Humility?--No, I fear."
"I should like to hear your definition of the former, at least."
"Did I not say that you must discover it for yourself?"
"Yes. Well. When the lesson comes, if it does come, I suppose it will
come in some learnable shape; and till then, I must shift for myself--
and if self-dependence he a punishable sin, I shall, at all events, have
plenty of company whithersoever I go. There is Lord Scoutbush and
Trebooze!"
Why did not Campbell speak his mind more clearly to Thurnall?
Because he knew that with such men words are of little avail. The
disease was entrenched too strongly in the very centre of the man's
being. It seemed at moments as if all his strange adventures and
hairbreadth escapes had been sent to do him harm, and not good; to
pamper and harden his self-confidence, not to crush it. Therefore
Campbell seldom argued with him: but he prayed for him often; for he had
begun, as all did who saw much of Tom Thurnall, to admire and respect
him, in spite of all his faults.
And now, turning through a woodland path, they descend toward the river,
till they can hear voices below them; Scoutbush laughing quietly,
Trebooze laying down the law at the top of his voice.
"How noisy the fellow is, and how he is hopping about!" says Campbell.
"No wonder: he has been soaking, I hear, for the last fortnight, with
some worthy compeers, by way of keeping off cholera. I must have my eye
on him to-day."
Scrambling down through the brushwood, they found themselves in such a
scene as Creswick alone knows how to paint: though one element of
beauty, which Creswick uses full well, was wanting; and the whole place
was seen, not by slant sun-rays, gleaming through the boughs, and
dappling all the pebbles with a lacework of leaf shadows, but in the
uniform and sober grey of dawn.
A broad bed of shingle, looking just now more like an ill-made turnpike
road than the bed of Alva stream; above it, a long shallow pool, which
showed every stone through the transparent water; on the right, a craggy
bank, bedded with deep wood sedge and orange-tipped king ferns,
clustering beneath sallow and maple bushes already tinged with gold; on
the left, a long bar of gravel, covered with giant "butter-bur" leaves;
in and out of which the hounds are brushing--beautiful black-and-tan
dogs, of which poor Trebooze may be pardonably proud; while round the
burleaf-bed dances a rough white Irish terrier, seeming, by his frantic
self-importance, to consider himself the master of the hounds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account