Fourth Reader

“I’m very, very hungry, sir; couldn’t you spare me a bit of bread before I go?”

“Bread, indeed!” said Schwartz. “Do you suppose we’ve nothing to do with our bread but to give it to such red-nosed fellows as you?”

“Why don’t you sell your feather?” said Hans, sneeringly. “Out with you!”

“A little bit,” said the old gentleman.

“Be off!” said Schwartz.

“Pray, gentlemen!”

“Off and be hanged!” cried Hans, seizing him by the collar. But he had no sooner touched the old gentleman’s collar than away he went after the rolling-pin, spinning round and round till he fell in the corner on top of it. Then Schwartz was very angry, and ran at the old gentleman to turn him out; but he also had hardly touched him, when away he went after Hans and the rolling-pin, and hit his head against the wall as he tumbled into the corner. And so there they lay, all three.

Then the old gentleman spun himself round with velocity in the opposite direction, continued to spin until his long cloak was all wound neatly about him, clapped his cap on his head, very much on one side (for it could not stand upright without going through the ceiling), gave an additional twist to his corkscrew mustaches, and replied with perfect coolness: “Gentlemen, I wish you a very good morning. At twelve o’clock to-night I’ll call again; after such a refusal of hospitality as I have just experienced, you will not be surprised if that visit is the last I ever pay you.”

“If I ever catch you here again,” muttered Schwartz, coming half frightened out of the corner – but before he could finish his sentence the old gentleman had shut the house door behind him with a great bang; and there drove past the window at the same instant a wreath of ragged cloud that whirled and rolled away down the valley in all manner of shapes, turning over and over in the air, and melting away at last in a gush of rain.

“A very pretty business, indeed, Mr. Gluck!” said Schwartz. “Dish the mutton, sir! If ever I catch you at such a trick again – bless me, why, the mutton’s been cut!”

“You promised me one slice, brother, you know,” said Gluck.

“Oh! and you were cutting it hot, I suppose, and going to catch all the gravy. It’ll be long before I promise you such a thing again. Leave the room, sir, and have the kindness to wait in the coal cellar till I call you!”

Gluck left the room melancholy enough. The brothers ate as much as they could, locked the rest in the cupboard, and proceeded to get very drunk after dinner.

Such a night as it was! Howling wind and rushing rain without intermission! The brothers had just sense enough left to put up all the shutters and double-bar the door before they went to bed. They usually slept in the same room. As the clock struck twelve they were both awakened by a tremendous crash. Their door broke open with a violence that shook the house from top to bottom,

“What’s that?” cried Schwartz, starting up in his bed.

“Only I,” said the little gentleman.

The two brothers sat up on their pillows and stared into the darkness. The room was full of water, and by the misty moonbeam which found its way through a hole in the shutter they could see in the midst of it an immense foam globe, spinning round and bobbing up and down like a cork, on which, as on a most luxurious cushion, reclined the little old gentleman, cap and all. There was plenty of room for it now, for the roof was off.

“Sorry to inconvenience you,” said their visitor, with a laugh. “I’m afraid your beds are dampish; perhaps you had better go to your brother’s room; I’ve left the ceiling on there.”

They required no second admonition, but rushed into Gluck’s room, wet through, and in an agony of terror.

“You’ll find my card on the kitchen table,” the old gentleman called after them. “Remember, the last visit!”

“Pray Heaven it may!” said Schwartz, shuddering. And the foam globe disappeared.

Dawn came at last, and the two brothers looked out of Gluck’s window in the morning. The Treasure Valley was one mass of ruin and desolation. The flood had swept away trees, crops, and cattle, and left in their stead a waste of red sand and gray mud. The two brothers crept shivering and horror-struck into the kitchen. The water had gutted the whole first floor; grain, money, almost every movable thing had been swept away, and there was left only a small white card on the kitchen table. On it, in large, breezy, long-legged letters, were engraved the words:

    – John Ruskin.

JACQUES CARTIER

In the seaport of St. Malo, ’twas a smiling morn in May,
When the Commodore Jacques Cartier to the westwards sailed away;
In the crowded old cathedral all the town were on their knees
For the safe return of kinsmen from the undiscovered seas;
And every autumn blast that swept o’er pinnacle and pier,
Fill’d manly hearts with sorrow, and gentle hearts with fear.

A year passed o’er St. Malo – again came round the day
When the Commodore Jacques Cartier to the westwards sailed away;
But no tidings from the absent had come the way they went,
And tearful were the vigils that many a maiden spent;
And manly hearts were filled with gloom, and gentle hearts with fear,
When no tidings came from Cartier at the closing of the year.

But the Earth is as the Future, it hath its hidden side;
And the captain of St. Malo was rejoicing, in his pride,
In the forests of the North; – while his townsmen mourned his loss,
He was rearing on Mount Royal the fleur-de-lis and cross;
And when two months were over, and added to the year,
St. Malo hailed him home again, cheer answering to cheer.

He told them of a region, hard, iron-bound, and cold,
Nor seas of pearl abounded, nor mines of shining gold:
Where the Wind from Thule freezes the word upon the lip,
And the ice in spring comes sailing athwart the early ship;
He told them of the frozen scene until they thrilled with fear,
And piled fresh fuel on the hearth to make him better cheer.

But when he changed the strain – he told how soon are cast
In early spring the fetters that hold the waters fast;
How the winter causeway, broken, is drifted out to sea,
And the rills and rivers sing with pride the anthem of the free;
How the magic wand of summer clad the landscape to his eyes,
Like the dry bones of the just, when they wake in Paradise.

He told them of the Algonquin braves – the hunters of the wild,
Of how the Indian mother in the forest rocks her child;
Of how, poor souls! they fancy, in every living thing
A spirit good or evil, that claims their worshipping;
Of how they brought their sick and maimed for him to breathe upon,
And of the wonders wrought for them through the Gospel of St. John.

He told them of the river whose mighty current gave
Its freshness for a hundred leagues to Ocean’s briny wave;
He told them of the glorious scene presented to his sight,
What time he reared the cross and crown on Hochelaga’s height,
And of the fortress cliff that keeps of Canada the key;
And they welcomed back Jacques Cartier from his perils o’er the sea.

    – Thomas D’Arcy McGee.

BLESS THE LORD, O MY SOUL