George MacDonald - There & Back

“I understand.”

“You see then how the printer’s blunder, which might not appear to matter much, has come to matter a great deal, for it has, it seems to me, caused a fault-spot in the loveliest poem!”

During this conversation Richard’s work had scarcely relaxed; but now that a pause came it seemed to gather diligence.

“Why do you spend your time patching up books?” said Barbara.

“Because they are worth patching up; and because I earn my bread by patching them.”

“But you seem to care most for what is inside them!”

“If I did not, I should never have taken to mending, I should have been content with binding them. New covers make more show, and are much easier put on than patches.”

Another pause followed.

“What a lot you know!” said Barbara.

“Very little,” answered Richard.

“Then where am I!” she returned.

“Perhaps ladies don’t need books! I don’t know about ladies.”

“I think they don’t care about them. I never hear them talk as you do—as if books were their friends. But why should they? Books are only books!”

“You would not say that if once you knew them!”

“I wish you would make me know them, then!”

“There are books, and you can read, miss!”

“Ah, but I can’t read as you read! I understand that much! I was born where there ain’t any books. I can shoot and fish and run and ride and swim, and all that kind of thing. I never had to fight. I think I could shoe a horse, if any one would give me a lesson or two.”

“I will, with pleasure, miss.”

“Oh, thank you. That will be jolly! But how is it you can do everything?”

“I can only do one or two things. I can shoe a horse, but I never had the chance of riding one.”

“Teach me to shoe Miss Brown, and I will teach you to ride her. How is your hand?”

“Quite well, thank you.”

“I would rather learn to read, though—the right way, I mean—the way that makes one book talk to another.”

“That would be better than shoeing Miss Brown; but I will teach you both, if you care to learn.”

“Thank you indeed! When shall we begin?”

“When you please.”

“Now?”

“I cannot before six o’clock. I must do first what I am paid to do!—What kind of reading do you like best?”

“I don’t know any best. I used to read the papers to papa, but now I don’t even do that. I hope I never may.”

“Where do you live, miss, when you’re at home?” asked Richard, all the time busy with the quarto.

“Don’t you know?”

“I don’t even know who you are, miss!”

“I am Barbara Wylder. I live at Wylder Hall, a few miles from here.—I don’t know the distance exactly, because I always go across country: that way reminds me a little of home. My father was the third son, and never expected to have the Hall. He went out to New Zealand, and married my mother, and made a fortune—at least people say so: he never tells me anything. They don’t care much for me: I’m not a boy!”

“Have you any brothers?”

“I have one,” she answered sadly. “I had two, but my mother’s favourite is gone, and my father’s is left, and mamma can’t get over it. They were twins, but they did not love each other. How could they? My father and mother don’t love each other, so each loved one of the twins and hated the other.”

She mentioned the dismal fact with a strange nonchalance—as if the thing could no more be helped, and needed no more be wondered at, than a rainy day. Yet the sigh she gave indicated trouble because of it.

Richard held his peace, rather astonished, both that a lady should talk to him in such an easy way, and that she should tell him the saddest family secrets. But she seemed quite unaware of doing anything strange, and after a brief pause resumed.

“Yes, they had long been tired of each other,” she said, us if she had been reflecting anew on the matter, “but the quarrelling came all of taking sides about the twins! At least I do not remember any of it before that. They were both fine children, and they could not agree which was the finer, but, as the boys grew, quarrelled more and more about them. They would be at it whole evenings, each asserting the merits of one of the twins, and neither listening to a word about the other. Each was determined not to be convinced, and each called the other obstinate.”

“Were the twins older or younger than you, miss?” asked Richard.

“They were three years younger than me. But when I look back it seems as if I had been born into the bickering. It always looked as natural as the grassy slopes outside the door. I thought it was a consequence of twins, that all parents with twins went on so. When my father’s next older brother fell ill, and there seemed a possibility of his succeeding to the property, the thing grew worse; now it was which of them should be heir to it. Waking in the middle of the night, I would hear them going on at it. Then which was the elder, no one could tell. My mother had again and again, before they began to quarrel, confessed she did not know. I don’t think I ever saw either of my parents do a kindness to the other, or to the child favoured by the other. So from the first the boys understood that they were enemies, and acted accordingly. Each always wanted everything for himself. They scowled at each other long before they could talk. Their games, always games of rivalry and strife, would for a minute or two make them a little less hostile, but the moment the game ceased, they began to scowl again. They were both kind to me, and I loved them both, and naturally tried to make them love each other; but it was of no use. It seemed their calling to rival and obstruct one another. When they came to blows, as they frequently did, my father and mother would almost come to blows too, each at once taking the usual side. I would run away then, put a piece of bread in my pocket, and get on a horse. Nobody ever missed me.”

“Did you never lose your way?” asked Richard: he must say something, he felt so embarrassed.

“My horse always knew the way home. I have often been out all night, though; and how peaceful it was to be alone with Widow Wind, as I used to call the night I—I don’t know why now; I suppose I once knew.”

Something in this way she ran on with her story, but I fail to approach the charm of her telling. Her narrative was almost childish in its utterance, but childlike in its insight. What could have moved her so to confide in a stranger and a workman? In truth, she needed little moving; her nature was to trust everybody; but there were not many to whom she could talk. Miss Brown helped her with no response; to her parents she had no impulse to speak; the young people she met stared at the least allusion to the wild ways of her past life, making her feel she was not one of them. Even Arthur Lestrange had more than once looked awkward at a remark she happened to make! So, instead of confiding in any of them, that is, letting her heart go in search of theirs, she had taken to amusing them, and in this succeeded so thoroughly as to be an immense favourite—which, however, did not make her happy, did not light up the world within her. Hence it was no great wonder that, being such as she was, she should feel drawn to Richard. He was the first man she had even begun to respect. In her humility she found him every way her superior. It was wonderful to her that he should know so much about books, the way people made them, what they meant, and how mistakes got into them, and went from one generation to another: they were his very friends! She thought it was his love for books that had made him a bookbinder, as indeed it was his love for them that had made him a book-mender. Her heart and mind were free from many social prejudices. She knew that people looked down upon men who did things with their hands; but she had done so many things herself with her hands, and been so much obliged to others who could do things with their hands better than she, that she felt the superiority of such whose hands were their own perfect servants, and ready to help others as well.