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045 - Something Strange · Whats Mines Mine

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  Speaker 1: Volume three, chapter eleven 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: Something strange, Alister did not feel inclined to go home.
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  Speaker 1: The night was more like Mercy, and he lingered with
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  Speaker 1: the night, inhabiting the dream that it was Mercy's house
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  Speaker 1: and she in the next room. He turned into the castle,
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  Speaker 1: climbed the broken steps, and sat on the corner of
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  Speaker 1: the wall, the blank hill before him a sleep standing
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  Speaker 1: with a new house on its shoulder, and the moonlight
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  Speaker 1: reflected from Mercy's window under which he had so lately stood.
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  Speaker 1: He sat for an hour, and when he came down
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  Speaker 1: was as much disinclined to go home as before. He
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  Speaker 1: could not rest in his chamber with no e'en on
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  Speaker 1: the other side of its wall. He went straying down
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  Speaker 1: the road into the valley, along the burnside, up the
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  Speaker 1: steep beyond it, and away to the hill farm and
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  Speaker 1: the tomb. The moon was with him all the way,
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  Speaker 1: but she seemed thinking to herself rather than talking to him.
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  Speaker 1: Why should this strange, burnt out old cinder of a
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  Speaker 1: satellite be the star of lovers? The answer lies hid
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  Speaker 1: I suspect and the mysteries of light reflected. He wandered along,
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  Speaker 1: careless of time of moonset, star shine or sunrise, brooding
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  Speaker 1: on many things in the rayless radiance of his love,
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  Speaker 1: and by the time he reached the tomb was weary
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  Speaker 1: with excitement and lack of sleep. Taking the key from
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  Speaker 1: where it was cunningly hidden, he unlocked the door and entered.
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  Speaker 1: He started back at sight of a gray haired old
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  Speaker 1: man seated on one of the stone chairs and leaning
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  Speaker 1: sadly over the fireless hearth. It must be his uncle.
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  Speaker 1: The same moment he saw it was a ray from
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  Speaker 1: the sinking moon, entering by the small, deep window and
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  Speaker 1: shining feebly on the chair. He struck a light kindled
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  Speaker 1: the peats on the hearth, and went for water. Returning
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  Speaker 1: from the well, he found the house as dark as before,
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  Speaker 1: and there was the old man again, cowering over the
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  Speaker 1: extinguished fire. The idea lasted but a moment. Once more,
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  Speaker 1: the level light of the moon lay cold and gray
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  Speaker 1: upon the stone chair. He tried to laugh at his fancifulness,
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  Speaker 1: but did not quite succeed. Several times on the way
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  Speaker 1: up he had thought of his old uncle. This must
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  Speaker 1: have given the shape to the moonlight and the stone.
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  Speaker 1: He made many attempts to recall the illusion, but in vain.
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  Speaker 1: He relighted the fire and put on the kettle, Going
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  Speaker 1: then for a book to read till the water boiled.
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  Speaker 1: He remembered a letter which, in the excitement of the
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  Speaker 1: afternoon he had put in his pocket, unread and forgotten.
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  Speaker 1: It was from the family lawyer in Glasgow, informing him
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  Speaker 1: that the bank in which his uncle had deposited the
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  Speaker 1: proceeds of his sale of the land was in a
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  Speaker 1: state of absolute and irrecoverable collapse. There was not the
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  Speaker 1: slightest hope of retrieving any portion of the wreck. Alister
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  Speaker 1: did not jump up and pace the room in the
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  Speaker 1: rage of disappointment. Neither did he set as one stunned
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  Speaker 1: and forlorn of sense. He felt some bitterness in the
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  Speaker 1: loss of the hope of making up to his people
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  Speaker 1: for his uncle's wrong. But it was clear that if
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  Speaker 1: God had cared for his having the money, he would
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  Speaker 1: have cared that he should have it. Here was an
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  Speaker 1: opportunity for absolute faith and contentment in the will that
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  Speaker 1: looks after all our affairs, the small as well as
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  Speaker 1: the great. Those who think their affairs too insignificant for
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  Speaker 1: God's regard, will justify themselves in lying crushed under their
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  Speaker 1: seeming ruin. Either we live in the heart of an
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  Speaker 1: eternal thought, or we are the product and sport of
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  Speaker 1: that which is lower than we. It was evil money,
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  Speaker 1: said the chief to himself. It was the sale of
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  Speaker 1: a birthright for a mess of pottage. I would have
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  Speaker 1: turned it back into the right channel the good of
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  Speaker 1: my people, But after all, what can money do. It
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  Speaker 1: was discontent with poverty that began the ruin of the Highlands.
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  Speaker 1: If the heads of the people had but lived pure, active, sober,
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  Speaker 1: unostentatious lives, satisfied to be poor, poverty would never have
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  Speaker 1: overwhelmed them. The Highlands would have made Scotland great with
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  Speaker 1: the greatness of men dignified by high hearted contentment, and strong,
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  Speaker 1: with the strength of men who could do without therewith.
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  Speaker 1: It dawned upon Alister how when he longed to help
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  Speaker 1: his people, his thoughts had always turned not to God first,
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  Speaker 1: but to the money his uncle had left him. He
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  Speaker 1: had trusted in a fancy, no less a fancy when
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  Speaker 1: in his uncle's possession than when cast into the quicksand
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  Speaker 1: of the bank for trust in money that is is
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  Speaker 1: no less vain and is farther from redress than trust
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  Speaker 1: in money that is not in God alone can trust repose.
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  Speaker 1: His heart had been so faithless that he did not
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  Speaker 1: know it was. He thought he loved God as the
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  Speaker 1: first and last, the beginning, middle, an end of all things.
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  Speaker 1: And he had been trusting not in God but in
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  Speaker 1: uncertain riches, that is, in vile mammon. It was a
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  Speaker 1: painful and humiliating discovery. It was well, he said, that
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  Speaker 1: my false deity should be taken from me, for my idolatry.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps a good gift has failed to reach my people.
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  Speaker 1: I must be more to them than ever to make
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  Speaker 1: up to them for their loss with better than money.
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  Speaker 1: He fell on his knees and thanked God for the
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  Speaker 1: wind that had blown cold through his spirit, and slain
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  Speaker 1: at least one evil thing. And when he rose, all
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  Speaker 1: that was left of his trouble was a lump in
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  Speaker 1: his throat, which melted away as he walked home through
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  Speaker 1: the morning air on the hills. For he could not delay.
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  Speaker 1: He must let his mother know their trouble, and as
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  Speaker 1: one who had already received help from on high, help
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  Speaker 1: her to bear it. If the messenger of Satan had
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  Speaker 1: buffeted him, he had but broken away for strength. But
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  Speaker 1: at first he could not enjoy, as he was wont
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  Speaker 1: the glory of the morning. It troubled him. Would a
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  Speaker 1: single note in the songs of the Suns of the
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  Speaker 1: Morning fail because God did or would not do a thing?
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  Speaker 1: Could God deserve less than thanks perfect from any one
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  Speaker 1: of his creatures. That man could not know God, who
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  Speaker 1: thanked him but for what men call good things, nor
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  Speaker 1: took the evil as from the same love. He scorned
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  Speaker 1: himself and lifted up his heart. As he reached the
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  Speaker 1: brow of his last descent, the sun rose, and with
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  Speaker 1: it his soul arose and shone. For its light was come,
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  Speaker 1: and the glory of the Lord was risen upon it.
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  Speaker 1: Let God, he said, take from us what he will
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  Speaker 1: himself he can only give joyful he went down the
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  Speaker 1: hill God was and all was well. End of Volume three,
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  Speaker 1: chapter eleven. Recording by Hannah Mary