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005 - The Wow O'Riven · Six Stories

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  Speaker 1: Section five of six stories by George mc donald. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Alison Waldas Six stories by
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  Speaker 1: George mc donald, Section five The Wow o'riven. Elsie Scott
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  Speaker 1: had let her work fall on her knees and her
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  Speaker 1: hands on her work, and was looking out of the
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  Speaker 1: wide low window of her room, which was on one
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  Speaker 1: of the ground floors of the village street. Through a
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  Speaker 1: gap in the household shrubbery of fuchures and myrtles filling
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  Speaker 1: the window sill, one passing on the foot pavement might
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  Speaker 1: get a momentary glimpse of her pale face, lighted up
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  Speaker 1: with two blue eyes, over which some inward trouble had
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  Speaker 1: spread a faint gauze like haziness. But almost before her
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  Speaker 1: thoughts had had time to wander back to this trouble,
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  Speaker 1: a shout of children's voices at the other end of
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  Speaker 1: the street reached her ear. She listened a moment a
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  Speaker 1: shadow of displeasure and pain crossed her countenance, and rising hastily,
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  Speaker 1: she betook herself to an inner apartment and closed the
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  Speaker 1: door behind her. Meantime, the sounds drew nearer, and by
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  Speaker 1: and by, an old man, whose strange appearance and dress
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  Speaker 1: showed that he had little capacity either for good or evil,
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  Speaker 1: passed the window. His clothes were comfortable enough in quality
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  Speaker 1: and condition, for they were the annual gift of a
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  Speaker 1: benevolent lady in the neighborhood, but being made to accommodate
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  Speaker 1: his taste, both known and traditional, they were somewhat peculiar
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  Speaker 1: in cut and adornment. Both coat and trousers were of
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  Speaker 1: a darker gray cloth, but the former, which in its
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  Speaker 1: shape partook of the military, had a straight collar of
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  Speaker 1: yellow and narrow cuffs of the same, while upon both
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  Speaker 1: sleeves about the place where the corporal were his stripes
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  Speaker 1: was expressed in the same yellow cloth. A somewhat singular device.
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  Speaker 1: It was as close as imitation to a bell with
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  Speaker 1: its tongue hanging out of its mouth as the tailor's
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  Speaker 1: skill could produce from a single piece of cloth. The
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  Speaker 1: origin of the military cut of his coat was well known.
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  Speaker 1: His preference for it arose in the time of the
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  Speaker 1: wars with the First Napoleon, when the threatened invasion of
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  Speaker 1: the country, caused the organization of many volunteer regiments. The
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  Speaker 1: Marshall Show and exercises captivated the poor man's fancy, and
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  Speaker 1: from that time forward nothing pleased his vanity and consequently
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  Speaker 1: conciliated his good will more than to style him by
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  Speaker 1: his favorite title, the Colonel. But the badge on his
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  Speaker 1: arm had a deeper origin, which will be partially manifest
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  Speaker 1: in the course of the story, if story it can
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  Speaker 1: be called. It was, indeed the baptism of the fall,
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  Speaker 1: the outward invisible sign of his relation to the infinite
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  Speaker 1: and unseen his countenance. However, although the features were not
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  Speaker 1: of any peculiarly lower animal type, showed no corresponding sign
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  Speaker 1: of the consciousness of such a relation, being as vacant
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  Speaker 1: as human countenance could well be. Cause of Elsie's annoyance
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  Speaker 1: was that the fool was annoyed. He was followed by
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  Speaker 1: a troop of boys who turned his rank into scorn
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  Speaker 1: and assailed him with epithets hateful to him. Although the
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  Speaker 1: most harmless of creatures when let alone, he was dangerous
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  Speaker 1: when roused. And now he took repeatedly to pick up
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  Speaker 1: stones and hurl them at his tormentors, who took care
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  Speaker 1: while abusing him, to keep it a considerable distance lest
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  Speaker 1: he should get hold of them. Amidst the sounds of
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  Speaker 1: derision that followed him, might be heard the words frequently repeated,
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  Speaker 1: come home, Come home. But in a few minutes the
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  Speaker 1: noise ceased, either from the interference of some friendly inhabitant,
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  Speaker 1: or that the boys grew weary and departed in search
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  Speaker 1: of other amusement. By and by, Elsie might be seen
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  Speaker 1: again at her work as the window, but the cloud
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  Speaker 1: over her eyes was deeper, and her whole face more sad. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: so much did the persecution of this poor man affect
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  Speaker 1: her that an onlooker would have been compelled to seek
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  Speaker 1: the cause in some yet deeper sympathy than that commonly
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  Speaker 1: felt for the oppressed, even by women. And such a
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  Speaker 1: sympathy existed, strange as it may seem, between this beautiful girl,
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  Speaker 1: for many called her a bonnie Lassie, and this tatter
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  Speaker 1: of humanity. Nothing would have been further from the thoughts
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  Speaker 1: of those that knew them than the supposition of any
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  Speaker 1: correspondence or connection between them. Yet the sympathy sprang in
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  Speaker 1: part from a real similarity in their history and present condition.
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  Speaker 1: All the facts that were known about Fieldjock's origin with
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  Speaker 1: ease that seventy years ago, a man who had gone
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  Speaker 1: with his horse and carts some MOUs from the village
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  Speaker 1: to fetch home a load of peat from a desolate moss,
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  Speaker 1: had heard, while toiling along as rough a road on
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  Speaker 1: as lonely a hillside as any in Scotland, the cry
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  Speaker 1: of a child, and searching about, had found the infant hardly,
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  Speaker 1: wrapped in rags and untended, as if the earth herself
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  Speaker 1: had just given him birth. That desert more wild and dismal,
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  Speaker 1: broken in watery the only bosom for him to lie on,
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  Speaker 1: and the cold, clear night heaven his only covering. The
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  Speaker 1: man had brought him home, and the parish had taken
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  Speaker 1: perish care of him. He had grown up and proved
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  Speaker 1: what he now was almost an idiot. Many of the
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  Speaker 1: townspeople were kind to him and employed him in fetching
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  Speaker 1: water for them from the river or wells in the neighborhood,
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  Speaker 1: paying him for his troubles in victuals or whiskey, of
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  Speaker 1: which he was very fond. He seldom spoke, and the
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  Speaker 1: sentences he could utter were few. Yet the tone and
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  Speaker 1: even the words of his limited vocabulary were sufficient to
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  Speaker 1: express gratitude in some measure of love towards those who
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  Speaker 1: were kind to him, and hatred of those who teased
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  Speaker 1: and insulted him. He lived a life without aim, and
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  Speaker 1: apparently to no purpose in this, resembling most of his
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  Speaker 1: more gifted fellow men, who, with all the tools and
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  Speaker 1: materials necessary for building a noble mansion, are yet content
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  Speaker 1: with a clay hut Elsie, on the contrary, had been
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  Speaker 1: born into a comfortable farmhouse amidst homeliness and abundance, But
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  Speaker 1: at a very early age she had lost both father
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  Speaker 1: and mother. Not so early, however, that she had faint
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  Speaker 1: memories of warm, soft times on her mother's bosom, and
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  Speaker 1: of refuge in her mother's arms from the attacks of
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  Speaker 1: geese and the pursuit of pigs. Therefore, and after times,
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  Speaker 1: when she looked forward to heaven, it was as much
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  Speaker 1: a referring to the old, heavenly times of childhood and
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  Speaker 1: of mother's love as an anticipation of something yet to
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  Speaker 1: be revealed. Indeed, without some such memory, how should we
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  Speaker 1: ever picture to ourselves a perfect rest. But sometimes it
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  Speaker 1: would seem as if the more a heart was made
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  Speaker 1: capable of loving the less it had to love, and
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  Speaker 1: poor Elsie, in passing from her mother's to her brother's guardianship,
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  Speaker 1: felt a change of spiritual temperature too keen. He was
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  Speaker 1: not a bad man or incapable of benevolence when touched
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  Speaker 1: by the sight of want in anything of which he
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  Speaker 1: would himself have felt the privation. But he was so
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  Speaker 1: coarsely made that only the purest animal necessities affected him,
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  Speaker 1: and a hard word or unfeeling speech could never have
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  Speaker 1: reached the quicker of his nature through the hide that
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  Speaker 1: enclosed it. Elsie, on the contrary, was successively and painfully sensitive,
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  Speaker 1: as if her nature constantly portended an invisible multitude of
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  Speaker 1: half spiritual, half nervous antennae, which shrank and trembled in
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  Speaker 1: every current of air at all below their own temperature.
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  Speaker 1: The effect of this upon her behavior was such that
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  Speaker 1: she was called odd, and the poor girl felt she
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  Speaker 1: was not like other people. It could not help it.
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  Speaker 1: Her brother, too, laughed at her without the slightest idea
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  Speaker 1: of the pain he occasioned, or the remotest feeling of
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  Speaker 1: curiosity as to what the inward and consistent causes of
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  Speaker 1: the outward abnormal condition might be tenderness was the divine
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  Speaker 1: comforting she needed, and it was altogether absent from her
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  Speaker 1: brother's character and behavior. Her neighbors looked on her with
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  Speaker 1: some interest, but they rather shunned than court at her acquaintance,
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  Speaker 1: especially after the return of certain nervous attacks to which
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  Speaker 1: she had been subject in childhood, and which were again
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  Speaker 1: brought on by the events I must relate. It is
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  Speaker 1: curious how certain diseases repel, by a kind of awe,
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  Speaker 1: the sympathies of the neighbors, as if by the fact
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  Speaker 1: of being subject to them, the patient were removed into
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  Speaker 1: another realm of existence, from which, like the dead with
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  Speaker 1: the living, she can hold communion with those around her,
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  Speaker 1: only partially, and with a mixture of dread pervading the intercourse. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: some of the deepest, purest wells of spiritual life are
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  Speaker 1: like those in old castles, choked up by the decay
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  Speaker 1: of the outer walls. But what tended more than anything,
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  Speaker 1: perhaps to keep up the painful unrest of her soul,
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  Speaker 1: For the beauty of her character was evident in the
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  Speaker 1: fact that the irritation seldom reached her mind. Was a
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  Speaker 1: circumstance at which, in its present connection some of my
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  Speaker 1: readers will smile, and others feel a shudder corresponding in
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  Speaker 1: kind to that of Elsie. Her brother was very fond
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  Speaker 1: of a rather small, but ferocious looking bull dog, which
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  Speaker 1: followed close at his heels wherever he went, with hanging
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  Speaker 1: head and slouching gait, never leaping or racing about like
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  Speaker 1: other dogs. When in the house, he always lay under
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  Speaker 1: his master's chair. He seemed to dislike Elsie, and she
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  Speaker 1: felt an unspeakable repugnance to him. Though she never mentioned
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  Speaker 1: her aversion, her brother easily saw it by the way
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  Speaker 1: in which she avoided the animal, and attributing it entirely
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  Speaker 1: to fear, which indeed had a great share in the matter,
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  Speaker 1: he would cruelly aggravate it by telling her stories of
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  Speaker 1: the fierce, hardihood and relentless persistency of this kind of animal.
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  Speaker 1: He dared not yet further increase her terror by offering
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  Speaker 1: to set the creature upon her, because it was doubtful
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  Speaker 1: whether he might be able to restrain him. But the
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  Speaker 1: mental suffering which he occasioned by this heartless conduct, and
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  Speaker 1: for which he had no sympathy, was as severe as
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  Speaker 1: many bodily sufferings to which he would have been sorry
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  Speaker 1: to subject her. Whenever the poor girl happened inadvertently to
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  Speaker 1: pass near the dog, which was seldom a low growl
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  Speaker 1: made her aware of his proximity and drove her to
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  Speaker 1: a quick retreat. He was, in fact the animal impersonation
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  Speaker 1: of the animal opposition which she had continually to endure,
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  Speaker 1: like chooses like, and the bull dog in her brother
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  Speaker 1: made choice of the bull dog out of him for
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  Speaker 1: his companion. So her day was one of shrinking fear
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  Speaker 1: and multiform discomfort. But a nature capable of so much
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  Speaker 1: distress must of necessity be capable of a corresponding amount
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  Speaker 1: of pleasure, and in her case this was manifest in
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  Speaker 1: the fact that sleep and the quiet of her own
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  Speaker 1: room restored her wonderfully. If she was only let alone,
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  Speaker 1: a calm mood, filled with images of pleasure, soon took
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  Speaker 1: possession of her mind. Her acquaintance with the fool had
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  Speaker 1: commenced some ten years previous to the time I write of,
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  Speaker 1: when she was quite a little girl and had come
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  Speaker 1: from the country with her brother, who, having taken a
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  Speaker 1: small farm close to the town, preferred residing in the
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  Speaker 1: town to occupying the farmhouse, which was not comfortable. She
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  Speaker 1: looked at first with some terror on his uncouth appearance,
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  Speaker 1: and with much wonderment on his strange dress. This wonder
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  Speaker 1: was heightened by a conversation she overheard one day in
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  Speaker 1: the street between the fool and a little pale faced boy, who,
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  Speaker 1: approaching him respectfully, said, will Colonel wall Laddie was the reply?
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  Speaker 1: That is the wow? Say colonel, come hame, Come hame,
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  Speaker 1: answered the colonel, with both accent and quantity heaped on
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  Speaker 1: the word ham. What the wow could be? She had
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  Speaker 1: no idea. Only, as the years passed on, the strange
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  Speaker 1: word became in her mind indescribably associated with the strange
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  Speaker 1: shape and yellow cloth on his sleeves. Had she been
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  Speaker 1: a native of the town, she could not have failed
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  Speaker 1: to know its import, so familiar was every one with it,
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  Speaker 1: although it did not belong to the local vocabulary. But
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  Speaker 1: as it was, years passed away before she discovered its meaning.
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  Speaker 1: And when again and again the fool, attempting to convey
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  Speaker 1: his gratitude for some kindness she had shown him, mumbled
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  Speaker 1: over the words the wau riven, the waw or riven,
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  Speaker 1: the wonder would return as to what could be the
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  Speaker 1: idea associated with them in his mind, but she made
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  Speaker 1: no advance towards their explanation. That, however, which most attracted
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  Speaker 1: her to the old man, was his persecution by the children.
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  Speaker 1: They were to him what the bull dog was to her,
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  Speaker 1: the constant source of irritation and annoyance. They could hardly
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  Speaker 1: hurt him, nor did he appear to dread other injury
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  Speaker 1: from them than insult, to which fool though he was,
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  Speaker 1: he was keenly alive. Human gadflies that they were, they
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  Speaker 1: sometimes stung him beyond endurance, and he would curse them
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  Speaker 1: in the impotence of his anger. Once or twice. Elsie
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  Speaker 1: had been so far carried beyond her constitutional timidity by
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  Speaker 1: sympathy for the distress of her friend, that she had
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  Speaker 1: gone out and talked to the boys, even scolded them,
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  Speaker 1: so that they slunk away ashamed, and began to stand
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  Speaker 1: as much in dread of her as of the clutches
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  Speaker 1: of their prey. So she, gentle and timid to excess
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  Speaker 1: acquired among them. The reputation of a termagant popular opinion
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  Speaker 1: among children, as among men, is often just, but as
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  Speaker 1: often very unjust, for the same manifestations may proceed from
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  Speaker 1: opposite principles, and therefore as the indeceased to character may
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  Speaker 1: mislead as often as enlightened. Next Door to the house
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  Speaker 1: in which Elsie resided daughter tradesman and his wife, who
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  Speaker 1: kept an indefinite sort of shop in which various kinds
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  Speaker 1: of goods were exposed for sale. Their youngest son was
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  Speaker 1: about the same age as Elsie, and while they were
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  Speaker 1: rather more than children and less than young people, he
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  Speaker 1: spent many of his evening with her, somewhat to the
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  Speaker 1: loss of position in his classes at the parish school.
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  Speaker 1: They were indeed much attached to each other, and peculiarly
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  Speaker 1: constituted as Elsie was, one may imagine what kind of
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  Speaker 1: heavenly messenger a companion stronger than herself must have been
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  Speaker 1: to her. In fact, if she could have framed an
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  Speaker 1: undefinable need of her childlike nature into an articulate prayer,
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  Speaker 1: it would have been, give me some one to love
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  Speaker 1: me stronger than I. Any love was helpful, yes, in
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  Speaker 1: its degree, saving to her poor troubled soul. But the hope,
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  Speaker 1: as they grew older together that the powerful yet tender
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  Speaker 1: hearted youth really loved her and would one day make
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  Speaker 1: her his wife was like the opening of heavenly eyes
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  Speaker 1: of life and love in the hitherto blank and deathlike
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  Speaker 1: face her existence. But nothing had been said of love,
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  Speaker 1: although they met and parted like lovers. Doubtless, if the
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  Speaker 1: circles of their thought and feeling had continued as now
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  Speaker 1: to intersect each other, there would have been no interruption
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  Speaker 1: in their affection. But the time at length arrived when
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  Speaker 1: the old couple, seeing the rest of their family comfortably
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  Speaker 1: settled in life, resolved to make a gentleman of the youngest,
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  Speaker 1: and so sent him from school to college. The facilities
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  Speaker 1: existing in Scotland for providing a professional training enabled them
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  Speaker 1: to educate him as a surgeon. He parted from Elsie
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  Speaker 1: with some regret, but far less dependent on her than
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  Speaker 1: she was on him, and full of the prospects of
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  Speaker 1: the future, he felt none of that sinking at the
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  Speaker 1: heart which seemed to lay her whole nature open to
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  Speaker 1: a fresh inroad of all the terrors and sorrows of
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  Speaker 1: her peculiar existence. No correspondence took place between them. New
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  Speaker 1: pursuits and relations, and the development of his tastes and
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  Speaker 1: judgments entirely altered the position of poor Elsie in his memory.
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  Speaker 1: Having been during their intercourse far less of a man
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  Speaker 1: than she of a woman. He had no definite idea
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  Speaker 1: of the place he had occupied in her regard, and
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  Speaker 1: in his mind she receded into the background of the past,
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  Speaker 1: without his having any idea that she would suffer there by,
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  Speaker 1: or that he was unjust towards her, While in her
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  Speaker 1: thoughts his image stood in the highest and clearest relief.
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  Speaker 1: It was the center point from which and towards which
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  Speaker 1: all lines radiated and converged. And although she could not
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  Speaker 1: but be doubtful about the future, yet there was much
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  Speaker 1: hope mingle with her doubts. But when at the close
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  Speaker 1: of two years, he visited his native village, and she
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  Speaker 1: saw before her, instead of the homely youth who had
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  Speaker 1: left her that winter evening, one who, in her inexperienced eyes,
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  Speaker 1: appeared to finish gentlemen. Her heart sank within her, as
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  Speaker 1: if she had found nature herself false in her rightening processes,
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  Speaker 1: destroying the beautiful promise of a former year by changing
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  Speaker 1: instead of developing her creations. He spoke kindly to her,
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  Speaker 1: but not cordially to her ear. The voice seemed to
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  Speaker 1: come from a great distance, out of the past, and
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  Speaker 1: while she looked upon him, that optical change passed over
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  Speaker 1: her vision, which all have experienced after gazing abstractedly on
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  Speaker 1: her any object. For a time, his form grew very
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  Speaker 1: small and receded to an immeasurable distance, till her imagination,
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  Speaker 1: mingling with the twilight haze of her senses, she seemed
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  Speaker 1: to see him standing far off on a hill, with
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  Speaker 1: the bright horizon of sunset for a background to his
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  Speaker 1: clearly defined figure. She knew no more till she found
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  Speaker 1: herself in bed in the dark, and the first message
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  Speaker 1: that reached her from the outer world was the infernal
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  Speaker 1: growl of the bulldog from the room below. Next day
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  Speaker 1: she saw her lover walking with two ladies who would
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  Speaker 1: have thought it some degree of condescension to speak to her,
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  Speaker 1: and he passed the house without once looking towards it.
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  Speaker 1: One who is sufficiently possessed by the demon of nervousness
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  Speaker 1: to be glad of the magnetic influences of a friend's
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  Speaker 1: company in a public promenade, or of a horse beneath
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  Speaker 1: him in passing through a churchyard, will have some faint
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  Speaker 1: idea of how unutterably exposed and defenseless poor Elsie now
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  Speaker 1: felt on the crowded thoroughfare of life. And so the
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  Speaker 1: insensibility which had overtaken her was not the ordinary swoon
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  Speaker 1: with which nature relieved the overstrained nerves, but the return
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  Speaker 1: of the epileptic fits of her early childhood. And if
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  Speaker 1: the condition of the poor girl had been pitiable before,
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  Speaker 1: it was tenfold more so now. Yet she did not complain,
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  Speaker 1: but bore all in silence, though it was evident that
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  Speaker 1: her health was giving way. But now help came to
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  Speaker 1: her from a strange quarter, though many might not be
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  Speaker 1: willing to accord the name of help to that which
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  Speaker 1: rather hastened than retarded the progress of her decline. She
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  Speaker 1: had gone to spend a few of the summer days
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  Speaker 1: with the relative in the country, some miles from her home,
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  Speaker 1: if home it could be called. One evening, towards sunset,
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  Speaker 1: she went out for a solitary walk. Passing from the
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  Speaker 1: little garden gate, she went along a bare country road
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: for some distance, and then turning aside by a footpath
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: through a thicket of low trees, she came out in
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: a lonely little churchyard on the hill side, hardly knowing
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: whether or not she had intended to go there. She
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: seated herself on a mound covered with long grass, one
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: of many before her stood the ruins of an old
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: church which was taking centuries to crumble. Little remained but
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: the gable wall, immensely thick and covered with ancient ivy.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: The rays of the setting sun fell on a mound
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: at its foot, not green like the rest, but of
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a rich red brown in the rosy sunset, and evidently
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: but newly heaped up, her eyes too, rested upon it.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Slowly the sun sank below the near horizon. As the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: last brilliant point disappeared, the ivy darkened, and a wind
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: arose and shook all its leaves, making them look cold
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and troubled. And to Elsie's ear came a low, faint sound,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: as of a far off bell, but close beside her,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: and she started and shivered. At the sound rose a deep, monotonous,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: almost sepulchral voice. Come Hame, Come hame, the wow, the wow.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: At once she understood the whole. She sat in the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: churchyard of the ancient parish church of Ruthven, and when
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: she lifted up her eyes there she saw in the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: half ruined belfry the old bell, all but hidden with ivy,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: which the passing wind had roused to utter one sleepy tone.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: And there beside her stood the Fool with the bell
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: on his arm. And to him and to her the
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: wow ribbon said, come, hame, Come hame, Ah. What did
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: she want in the whole universe of God but her home?
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: And though the ground beneath was hard, and the sky
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: overhead far and boundless, and the hillside lonely and companionless,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: yet somewhere within the visible and beyond these the outer
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: surfaces of creation, there might be a home for her.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: As round the wintry house, the snows lie heaped up,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: cold and white and dreary all the long fore night,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: while within, beyond the close shutters and giving no glimmer
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: through the thick stone walls, the fires of blame joyously,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and the voices and laughter of young, unfrozen children are heard.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And nothing belongs to winter but the gray hairs on
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the heads of the parents, within whose warm hearts, childlike
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: voices are heard, and childlike thoughts moved to and fro.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: The kernel of winter itself is spring or a sleeping summer.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: It was no wonder that the fool cast out of
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: the earth on a far more desolate spot than this,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: should seek to return within her bosom at this place
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: of open doors, and should call it home, For surely
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: the service of the earth had no home for him.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: The mound at the foot of the gable contained the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: body of one who had shown him kindness. He had
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: followed the funeral that afternoon from the town and had
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: remained behind with the bell. Indeed, it was his custom,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: though Elsie had not known it, to follow every funeral
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: going to this his favorite churchyard of Ruthven, and possibly
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: in imitation of its booming, for it was still told
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: at the funerals he had given the old bell then
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: name of the Wow, and had translated its monotonous clangor
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: into the articulate sounds come home, come Home. What precise
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: meaning he attached to the words, it is impossible to say,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: but it was evident that the place possessed a strange
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: attraction for him, drawing him towards it by the cords
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: of some spiritual magnetism. It is possible that in the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: mind of the idiot there may have been some feeling
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: about this churchyard and bell, which in the mind of
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: another would have become a grand poetic thought a feeling
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: as if the ghostly old bell hung at the church
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: door of the invisible world, and ever and anon rang
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: out joyous notes, though they sounded sad in the ears
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: of the living, calling to the children of the unseen
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: to come home, Come home. She sat for some time
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: in silence, for the bell did not ring again, and
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: the fool spoke no more till the jews began to fall,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: and she rose and went home, followed by her compass,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: who passed the night in the barn. From that hour,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Elsie was furnished with the visual image of the rest.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: She sought, an image which, mingling with deeper and holier thoughts,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: became like the bow set in the cloud, the earthly
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: pledge and sign of the fulfillment of heavenly hopes. Often
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: when the wintry fog of cold, discomfort and homelessness filled
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: her soul, all at once the picture of the little churchyard,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: with the old gable and belfry, and the slanting sunlight
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: steeping down to the very roots of the long grass
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: in the graves, arose in the darkened chamber camera obscura
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: of her soul, And again she heard the faint Aeolian
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: sound of the bell and the voice of the prophet
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: fool who interpreted the oracle, and the inward weariness was
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: soothed by the promise of a long sleep. Who can
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: tell how many have been counted fools simply because they
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: were prophets, or how much of the madness in the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: world may be the utterance of thoughts true and just,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: but belong longing to a region differing from ours in
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: its nature and scenery. But to Elsie, looking out of
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: her window, came the mocking tones of the idle boys,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: who had chosen as the vehicle of their scorn, the
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: very words which showed the relation of the fool to
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the eternal, and revealed in him an element higher, far
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: than any yet developed in them. They turned his glory
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: into shame, like the enemies of David when they mocked
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the would be king. And the best in a man
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: is often that which is most condemned by those who
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: have not attained to his goodness. The words, however, even
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: as repeated by the boys, had not solely awakened indignation
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: at the persecution of the old man. They had likewise
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: comforted her with the thought of the refuge that awaited
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: both him and her but the same evening, a worse
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: trial was in store for her. Again, she sat near
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the window, oppressed by the consciousness that her brother had
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: come in. He had gone upstairs, and his dog had
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: remained at the door, exchange painting surly compliments with some
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: of his own kind. When the fool came strolling past,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: and I do not know from what cause, the dog
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: flew at him. Elsie heard his cry and looked up.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Her fear of the brute vanished in a moment before
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: her sympathy for her friend. She darted from the house
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and rushed towards the dog to drag him off. The
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: defenseless idiot, calling him by his name in a tone
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: of anger and dislike. He left. Fool and springing at Elsie,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: seized her by the arm above the elbow with such
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a grip that, in the midst of her agony, she
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: fancied she heard the bone crack, but she uttered no cry,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: for the most apprehensive are sometimes the most courageous. Just then, however,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: her former lover was coming along the street, and catching
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: a glimpse of what had happened, was on the spot
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: in an instant took the dog by the throat with
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: a grip not inferior to his own, and having thus
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: compelled him to relax his hold, dashed him on the
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: ground with a force that almost stunned him, and then
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: with a superrided kick, sent him away, limping and howling,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: whereupon the fool attacking him furiously with a stick, would
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: certainly have finished him, had not his master descried his
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: plight and come to his rescue. Meantime, the young surgeon
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: had carried Elsie into the house, for as soon as
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: she was rescued from the dog, she had fallen down
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: in one of her fits, which were becoming more and
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: more frequent of themselves, and little needed such a shock
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: as this to increase their violence. He was dressing her
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: arm when she began to recover, and when she opened
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: her eyes in a state of half consciousness, the first
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: object she beheld was his face bending over her. Recalling
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: nothing of what had occurred, it seemed to her, in
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the dreamy condition in which the fit had left her,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the same face unchanged, which had once shone in upon
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: her tardy springtime and promised to ripen it into summer,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: she forgot it had departed and left her in the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: wintry cold and so she uttered wild words of love
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and trust, and the youth, while stung with remorse at
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: his own neglect, was astonished to perceive the poetic forms
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of beauty in which the soul of the uneducated maiden
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: burst into flower. But as her senses recovered themselves, the
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: face gradually changed to her, as if the slow alteration
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: of two years had been phantasmagorically compressed into a few moments.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: And the glow departed from the maiden's thoughts and words,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and her soul found itself at the narrow window of
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the present from which she could behold. But a dreary
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: country from the street came the Iambic cry of the fool.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Come hame, Come hame. Tycho Brachi I think is said
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: to have kept a fool who frequently sat at his
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: feet in his study, and to whose mutterings he used
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: to listen in the pauses of his own thought. The
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: shining soul of the astronomer drew forth the rainbow of
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: harmony from the misty spray of words, ascending ever from
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the dark gulf into which the thoughts of the idiot
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: were ever falling, he beheld curious concurrences of words, therein,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and could read strange meanings from them, sometimes even received
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: wondrous hints for the direction of celestial inquiry. From what
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: to any other, And it may be to the fool
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: himself was but a ceaseless and aimless babble. Such power
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: lieth in words. It is not then to be wondered
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: at that the sounds I have mentioned should fall on
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: the ears of Elsie at such a moment as a
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: message from God himself. This, then, all this dreariness, was
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: but a passing show like the rest, And there lay
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: somewhere for her reality, a home. The tears burst up
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: from her oppressed heart. She received the message and prepared
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: to go home. From that time her strength gradually sank,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: but her spirits as steadily rose. The strength of the Fool, too,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: began to fail. For he was old. He bore all
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the signs of age, even to the gray hairs, which
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: betokened no wisdom. But one cannot say what wisdom might
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: be in him, or how far he had fought his
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: own battle had been victorious. Whether any notion of a
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: continuance of life and thought dwelt in his brain, it
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: is impossible to tell. But he seemed to have the
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: idea that this was not his home, and those who
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: saw him gradually approaching his end might well anticipate for
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: him a higher life than the world to come. He
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: had passed through this world without ever awaking to such
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: a consciousness of being as is common to mankind. He
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: had spent his years like a weary dream through a
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: long night, a strange, dismal, unkindly dream. And now the
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: morning was at hand. Often in his dream had he
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: listened with sleepy senses to the ringing of the bell,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: But that bell would awake him at last. He was
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: like a seed buried too deep in the soil, to
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: which the light is never penetrated, and which therefore has
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: never forced its way upwards to the open air, never
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: experienced the resurrection of the dead. But seeds will grow
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: ages after they have fallen into the earth, And indeed,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: with many kinds, and within some limits, the older the
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: seed before it germinates, more plentiful the fruit. And may
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: it not be believed of many human beings, that the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Great Husbandman, having sown them like seeds in the soil
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: of human affairs, there they lie buried a life long,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: and only after the upturning of the soil by death,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: reach a position in which the awakening of their aspiration
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and the consequent growth become possible. Surely he has made
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: nothing in vain. A violent cold and cough brought him
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: at last near to his end, and, hearing that he
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: was ill, Elsie ventured one bright spring day to go
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: to see him. When she entered the miserable room where
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: he lay, he held out his hand to her with
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: something like a smile, and muttered, feebly and painfully, I
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: am going to the wow, nay to come back again.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Elsie could not restrain her tears, while the old man,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: looking fixedly at her, though with meaningless eyes, muttered for
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: the last time, come hame, and sank into a lethargy,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: from which nothing could rouse him till next morning he
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: was waked by friendly death from the long sleep of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: this world's night. They bore him to his favorite churchyard
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: and buried him within the sight of the old church,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: below his loved bell, which had ever been to him
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: as the cookoo note of a coming spring. Thus he
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: at length obeyed at summons and went home. Elsie lingered
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: till the first summer days, lay warm on the land
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: several kind hearts in the village, hearing of her illness,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: visited her and ministered to her. Wondering at her sweetness
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: and patience, They regretted they had not known her before.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: How much consolation might not their kindness have imparted, and
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: how much might not their sympathy have strengthened her on
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: her painful road. But they could not long have delayed
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: her going home, nor mentally constituted as she was, would
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: this have been at all to be desired. Indeed, it
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: was chiefly the expectation of departure that quieted and soothed
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: her tremulous nature. It is true that a deep spring
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: of hope and faith kept singing on in her heart.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: But this alone, without the anticipation of speedy release, could
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: only have kept her mind at peace, and could not
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: have reached, at least for a long time, the border
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: land between body and mind in which her disease lay.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: One still night of summer, the nurse who watched by
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: her bedside heard her murmur through her sleep, I hear it,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: come hame, come heme, I am coming, I am coming.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I am going home to the wow nay to come back.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: She awoke at the sound of her own words, and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: begged the nurse to convey to her brother her last request,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: that she might be buried by the side of the
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: fool within the old church of Ruthven. Then she turned
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: her face to the wall, and in the morning was
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: found quiet and cold. She must have died with in
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: a few minutes after her last words. She was buried
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: according to her request. And thus she too went home,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: side by side rest the aged fool and the young maiden.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: For the bell called them, and they obeyed, And surely
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: they found the fire burning bright, and heard friendly voices
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and felt sweet lips on theirs in the home to
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: which they went. Surely both intellect and love are waiting them.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: There still the old bell hangs in the old gable,
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and whenever another is born to the old churchyard, it
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: keeps calling to those who are left behind, with the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: same sad but friendly and unchanging voice. Come Hame, Come Hame,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Come Hame. Thy son shall no more go down, neither
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: shall thy moon withdraw itself. For the Lord shall be
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: thine everlasting light, and the days of thy morning shall
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: be ended dead. Isaiah fourteen twenty, end of section five