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051 - The New Village · Whats Mines Mine

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  Speaker 1: Volume three, chapter seventeen of What's Mine's Mind by George
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  Speaker 1: mac donald. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: The new village, the winter came down upon them early,
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  Speaker 1: and the chief and his mother had a sore time
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  Speaker 1: of it. Well as they had known it before, the
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  Speaker 1: poverty of their people was far better understood by them. Now,
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  Speaker 1: unable to endure the sight of it, and spending more
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  Speaker 1: and more to meet it, they saw it impossible for
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  Speaker 1: them to hold out for a long time. Their succor
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  Speaker 1: had been draining, if not exhausting, the poor resources of
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  Speaker 1: the chief. He had borne up in the hope of
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  Speaker 1: the money he was so soon to receive, and now
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  Speaker 1: there was none, and the need greater than ever. He
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  Speaker 1: was not troubled, for his faith was simple and strong.
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  Speaker 1: But his faith made him the more desirous of doing
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  Speaker 1: his part for the coming deliverance. Faith in God compels
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  Speaker 1: and enables a man to be fellow worker with God.
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  Speaker 1: He was now waiting the judgment of Ian, concerned the
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  Speaker 1: prospects of the settlers in that part of Canada to
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  Speaker 1: which he had gone, hoping it might help him to
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  Speaker 1: some resolve in view of the worst difficulties at hand.
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  Speaker 1: In the meantime, the clan was more comfortable and passed
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  Speaker 1: the winter more happily than for many years. First of all,
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  Speaker 1: they had access to the Chief at any moment. Then
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  Speaker 1: he had prepared a room in his own house where
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  Speaker 1: were always fire and light for such as would read
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  Speaker 1: what books he was able to lend them or play
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  Speaker 1: at quiet games to them. Its humble arrangements were sumptuous,
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  Speaker 1: and best of all, he would, in the long dark
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  Speaker 1: fore nights, as the Lowland Scotch call them, read aloud
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  Speaker 1: at one time in Gaelic, at another in English, things
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  Speaker 1: that gave them great delight. Donald Shoemaker was filled with
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  Speaker 1: joy unutterable at the rhyme of the ancient mariner. If
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  Speaker 1: only this state of things could be kept up with
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  Speaker 1: ian back and mercy mary to the chief, thought the mother.
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  Speaker 1: But it was not to be. That grew plainer every day.
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  Speaker 1: Mister Palmer would gladly have spent his winter elsewhere, leaving
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  Speaker 1: his family behind him. But as things were, he could
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  Speaker 1: not leave them, and as certain other things were, he
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  Speaker 1: did not care to take them to London. Besides, for
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  Speaker 1: them all to leave now would be to confess defeat,
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  Speaker 1: and who could tell what hurt to his forest might
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  Speaker 1: not follow in his absence. From the cowardly hatred of
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  Speaker 1: the peasants. He was resolved to see the thing out.
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  Speaker 1: But above all he must keep that worthless girl Mercy
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  Speaker 1: under his own eye. That's what comes of not drinking,
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  Speaker 1: he would say to himself. A man grows as proud
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  Speaker 1: as satan, and makes himself a curse to his neighbors,
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  Speaker 1: then he would sigh like a man ill used and disconsolate.
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  Speaker 1: But Mercy and the Chief thought it better not to
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  Speaker 1: venture much. But they did occasionally contrive to meet for
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  Speaker 1: a few minutes by the help of Christina. Generally twice
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  Speaker 1: only was Mercy's handkerchief hung from the window, when her
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  Speaker 1: longing for his voice had grown almost too strong for
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  Speaker 1: her to bear. The signal brought him both times through
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  Speaker 1: the wild wintry storm, joyous as a bird through the
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  Speaker 1: summer air. Once or twice they met just outside the gate,
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  Speaker 1: Mercy flying like a snow bird to the tryst, and
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  Speaker 1: as swiftly back through the keen blue frost, when her
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  Speaker 1: breath as she ran seemed to linger in the air
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  Speaker 1: like smoke, and threaten to betray her. At length came
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  Speaker 1: the much desired letter from Ian full of matter for
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  Speaker 1: the enabling of the chief's decision. Two things had long
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  Speaker 1: been clear to Allister that even if the ground he
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  Speaker 1: had could keep his people alive, it certainly could not
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  Speaker 1: keep them all employed, And that if they went elsewhere,
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  Speaker 1: especially to any town, it might induce for many and
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  Speaker 1: insure for their children a lamentable descent in the moral scale.
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  Speaker 1: He was their shepherd and must lose none of them. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: first of all, he must not lose sight of them.
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  Speaker 1: It was now clear also that the best and most
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  Speaker 1: desirable thing was that the poor remnant of the clan
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  Speaker 1: should leave their native country and betake themselves where not
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  Speaker 1: a few of their own people among them Lachlan and
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  Speaker 1: Annie would welcome them to probable ease and comfort. There
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  Speaker 1: he would buy land, settle with them, and build a village.
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  Speaker 1: Some would cultivate the soil under their chief. Others would
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  Speaker 1: pursue their trades for the good of the community and themselves.
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  Speaker 1: And now came once more the love of land face
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  Speaker 1: to face with the love of men, and in the
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  Speaker 1: Chief's heart paled before it. There was but one way
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  Speaker 1: to get the needful money. The last of the macrud
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  Speaker 1: property must go. Not for one moment did it rouse
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  Speaker 1: a grudging thought. In the chief it was for the
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  Speaker 1: sake of the men and women and children whose lives
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  Speaker 1: would be required of him. The land itself must yield
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  Speaker 1: them wings to forsake it withal, and fly beyond the sea.
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  Speaker 1: End of Volume three, chapter seventeen. Recording by Hannah Mary