Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood Part 23

"If the sun were to cease shining altogether, what do you think would happen?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

I thought a bit, but was not prepared to answer, when my father spoke again.

"What makes the seeds grow, Ra.n.a.ld--the oats, and the wheat, and the barley?"

"The rain, father," I said, with half-knowledge.

"Well, if there were no sun, the vapours would not rise to make clouds. What rain there was already in the sky would come down in snow or lumps of ice. The earth would grow colder and colder, and harder and harder, until at last it went sweeping through the air, one frozen ma.s.s, as hard as stone, without a green leaf or a living creature upon it."

"How dreadful to think of, father!" I said. "That would be frightful."

"Yes, my boy. It is the sun that is the life of the world. Not only does he make the rain rise to fall on the seeds in the earth, but even that would be useless, if he did not make them warm as well--and do something else to them besides which we cannot understand. Farther down into the earth than any of the rays of light can reach, he sends other rays we cannot see, which go searching about in it, like long fingers; and wherever they find and touch a seed, the life that is in that seed begins to talk to itself, as it were, and straightway begins to grow. Out of the dark earth he thus brings all the lovely green things of the spring, and clothes the world with beauty, and sets the waters running, and the birds singing, and the lambs bleating, and the children gathering daisies and b.u.t.ter-cups, and the gladness overflowing in all hearts--very different from what we see now--isn't it, Ra.n.a.ld?"

"Yes, father; a body can hardly believe, to look at it now, that the world will ever be like that again."

"But, for as cold and wretched as it looks, the sun has not forsaken it. He has only drawn away from it a little, for good reasons, one of which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him. If he were to go, not one breath more could one of us draw. Horses and men, we should drop down frozen lumps, as hard as stones. Who is the sun's father, Ra.n.a.ld?"

"He hasn't got a father," I replied, hoping for some answer as to a riddle.

"Yes, he has, Ra.n.a.ld: I can prove that. You remember whom the apostle James calls the Father of Lights?"

"Oh yes, of course, father. But doesn't that mean another kind of lights?"

"Yes. But they couldn't be called lights if they were not like the sun. All kinds of lights must come from the Father of Lights. Now the Father of the sun must be like the sun, and, indeed of all material things, the sun is likest to G.o.d. We pray to G.o.d to shine upon us and give us light. If G.o.d did not shine into our hearts, they would be dead lumps of cold. We shouldn't care for anything whatever."

"Then, father, G.o.d never stops shining upon us. He wouldn't be like the sun if he did. For even in winter the sun shines enough to keep us alive."

"True, my boy. I am very glad you understand me. In all my experience I have never yet known a man in whose heart I could not find proofs of the shining of the great Sun. It might be a very feeble wintry shine, but still he was there. For a human heart though, it is very dreadful to have a cold, white winter like this inside it, instead of a summer of colour and warmth and light. There's the poor old man we are going to see. They talk of the winter of age: that's all very well, but the heart is not made for winter. A man may have the snow on his roof, and merry children about his hearth; he may have grey hairs on his head, and the very gladness of summer in his bosom. But this old man, I am afraid, feels wintry cold within."

"Then why doesn't the Father of Lights shine more on him and make him warmer?"

"The sun is shining as much on the earth in the winter as in the summer: why is the earth no warmer?"

"Because," I answered, calling up what little astronomy I knew, "that part of it is turned away from the sun."

"Just so. Then if a man turns himself away from the Father of Lights--the great Sun--how can he be warmed?"

"But the earth can't help it, father."

"But the man can, Ra.n.a.ld. He feels the cold, and he knows he can turn to the light. Even this poor old man knows it now. G.o.d is shining on him--a wintry way--or he would not feel the cold at all; he would be only a lump of ice, a part of the very winter itself. The good of what warmth G.o.d gives him is, that he feels cold. If he were all cold, he couldn't feel cold."

"Does he want to turn to the Sun, then, father?"

"I do not know. I only know that he is miserable because he has not turned to the Sun."

"What will you say to him, father?"

"I cannot tell, my boy. It depends on what I find him thinking. Of all things, my boy, keep your face to the Sun. You can't shine of yourself, you can't be good of yourself, but G.o.d has made you able to turn to the Sun whence all goodness and all shining comes. G.o.d's children may be very naughty, but they must be able to turn towards him. The Father of Lights is the Father of every weakest little baby of a good thought in us, as well as of the highest devotion of martyrdom. If you turn your face to the Sun, my boy, your soul will, when you come to die, feel like an autumn, with the golden fruits of the earth hanging in rich cl.u.s.ters ready to be gathered--not like a winter. You may feel ever so worn, but you will not feel withered. You will die in peace, hoping for the spring--and such a spring!"

Thus talking, in the course of two hours or so we arrived at the dwelling of the old laird.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

The Peat-Stack

How dreary the old house looked as we approached it through the gathering darkness! All the light appeared to come from the snow which rested wherever it could lie--on roofs and window ledges and turrets.

Even on the windward walls, every little roughness sustained its own frozen patch, so that their grey was spotted all over with whiteness.

Not a glimmer shone from the windows.

"n.o.body lives _there_, father," I said,--"surely?"

"It does not look very lively," he answered.

The house stood upon a bare knoll. There was not a tree within sight.

Rugged hills arose on all sides of it. Not a sound was heard but the moan of an occasional gust of wind. There was a brook, but it lay frozen beneath yards of snow. For miles in any direction those gusts might wander without shaking door or window, or carrying with them a puff of smoke from any hearth. We were crossing the yard at the back of the house, towards the kitchen-door, for the front door had not been opened for months, when we recognized the first sign of life.

That was only the low of a bullock. As we dismounted on a few feet of rough pavement which had been swept clear, an old woman came to the door, and led us into a dreary parlour without even a fire to welcome us.

I learned afterwards that the laird, from being a spendthrift in his youth, had become a miser in his age, and that every household arrangement was on the narrowest scale. From wasting righteous pounds, he had come to sc.r.a.ping unrighteous farthings.

After we had remained standing for some time, the housekeeper returned, and invited my father to go to the laird's room. As they went, he requested her to take me to the kitchen, which, after conducting him, she did. The sight of the fire, although it was of the smallest, was most welcome. She laid a few more peats upon it, and encouraged them to a blaze, remarking, with a sidelong look: "We daren't do this, you see, sir, if the laird was about. The honest man would call it waste."

"Is he dying?" I asked, for the sake of saying something; but she only shook her head for reply, and, going to a press at the other end of the large, vault-like kitchen, brought me some milk in a basin, and some oatcake upon a platter, saying,

"It's not my house, you see, or I would have something better to set before the minister's son."

I was glad of any food however, and it was well for me that I ate heartily. I had got quite warm also before my father stepped into the kitchen, very solemn, and stood up with his back to the fire. The old woman set him a chair, but he neither sat down nor accepted the refreshment which she humbly offered him.

"We must be going," he objected, "for it looks stormy, and the sooner we set out the better."

"I'm sorry I can't ask you to stop the night," she said, "for I couldn't make you comfortable. There's nothing fit to offer you in the house, and there's not a bed that's been slept in for I don't know how long."

"Never mind," said my father cheerfully. "The moon is up already, and we shall get home I trust before the snow begins to fall. Will you tell the man to get the horses out?"

When she returned from taking the message, she came up to my father and said, in a loud whisper,

"Is he in a bad way, sir?"

"He is dying," answered my father.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"I know that," she returned. "He'll be gone before the morning. But that's not what I meant. Is he in a bad way for the other world?

That's what I meant, sir."