Warlock o' Glenwarlock: A Homely RomanceMacDonald, George
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Warlock o' Glenwarlock: A Homely Romance
MacDonald, George
Christian fiction; Highlands (Scotland) -- Fiction
It was still the gray sunless morning. The dream, with its
dream-ages of duration, had not crossed the shallows of the dawn.
Quickly he gathered his few things into his knapsack--fortunately
their number had nowise increased--took his great-uncle’s bamboo,
saw that his money was safe, stole quietly down the stair, and
softly and safely out of the house, and, ere any of its inhabitants
were astir, had left the village by the southward road.
When he had walked about a mile, he turned into a road leading
eastward, with the design of going a few miles in that direction,
and then turning to the north. When he had travelled what to his
weakness was a long distance, all at once, with the dismay of a
perverse dream, rose above the trees the towers of Cairncarque. Was
he never to escape them, in the body any more than in the spirit?
He turned back, and again southwards.
But now he had often to sit down; as often, however, he was able to
get up and walk. Coming to a village he learned that a coach for
the north would pass within an hour, and going to the inn had some
breakfast, and waited for it. Finding it would pass through the
village he had left, he took an inside place; and when it stopped
for a moment in the one street of it, saw Charles Jermyn cross it,
evidently without a suspicion that his guest was not where he had
left him.
When he had travelled some fifty miles, partly to save his money,
partly because he felt the need of exercise, not to stifle thought,
but to clear it, he left the coach, and betook himself to his feet.
Alternately walking and riding, he found his strength increase as
he went on; and his sorrow continued to be that of a cloudy summer
day, nor was ever, so long as the journey lasted, again that of the
fierce wintry tempest.
At length he drew nigh the city where he had spent his student
years. On foot, weary, and dusty, and worn, he entered it like a
returning prodigal. Few Scotchmen would think he had made good use
of his learning! But he had made the use of it God required, and
some Scotchmen, with and without other learning, have learned to
think that a good use, and in itself a sufficient success--for that
man came into the world not to make money, but to seek the kingdom
and righteousness of God.
He walked straight into Mr. Burns’s shop.
The jeweller did not know him at first; but the moment he spoke,
recognized him. Cosmo had been dubious what his reception might
be--after the way in which their intimacy had closed; but Mr. Burns
held out his hand as if they had parted only the day before, and
said,
“I thought of the two you would be here before Death! Man, you
ought to give a body time.”
“Mr. Burns,” replied Cosmo, “I am very sorry I behaved to you as I
did. I am not sorry I said what I did, for I am no less sure about
that than I was then; but I am sorry I never came again to see you.
Perhaps we did not quite understand on either side.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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