George MacDonald

A Rough Shaking George MacDonald

It was a day when everything around seemed almost perfect: everything does, now andthen, come nearly right for a moment or two, preparatory to coming all right for good at thelast. It was the third week in June. The great furnace was glowing and shining in full force, driving the ship of our life at her best speed through the ocean of space. For on deck, andbetween decks, and aloft, there is so much more going on at one time than at another, that Imay well say she was then going at her best speed, for there is quality as well as rate inmotion. The trees were all well clothed, most of them in their very best. Their garmentswere soaking up the light and the heat, and the wind was going about among them, tellingnow one and now another, that all was well, and getting through an immense amount ofcomfort-work in a single minute. It said a word or two to myself as often as it passed me, and made me happier than any boy I know just at present, for I was an old man, and oughtto be more easily made happy than any mere beginner. I was walking through the thin edge of a little wood of big trees, with a slope of green onmy left stretching away into the sunny distance, and the shadows of the trees on my rightlying below my feet. The earth and the grass and the trees and the air were togetherweaving a harmony, and the birds were leading the big orchestra-which was indeed onthe largest scale. For the instruments were so different, that some of them only were meantfor sound; the part of others was in odour, of others yet in shine, and of still others inmotion; while the birds turned it all as nearly into words as they could. Presently, tocomplete the score, I heard the tones of a man's voice, both strong and sweet. It was talkingto some one in a way I could not understand. I do not mean I could not understand thewords: I was too far off even to hear them; but I could not understand how the voice cameto be so modulated. It was deep, soft, and musical, with something like coaxing in it, andsomething of tenderness, and the intent of it puzzled me. For I could not conjecture from itthe age, or sex, or relation, or kind of the person to whom the words were spoken. You cantell by the voice when a man is talking to himself; it ought to be evident when he is talkingto a woman; and you can, surely, tell when he is talking to a child; you could tell if he werespeaking to him who made him; and you would be pretty certain if he was holdingcommunication with his dog: it made me feel strange that I could not tell the kind of earopen to the gentle manly voice saying things which the very sound of them made me longto hear. I confess to hurrying my pace a little, but I trust with no improper curiosity, tosee-I cannot say the interlocutors, for I had heard, and still heard, only one voic