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Updated: June 28, 2025
"But, majie," said Mark, "how can a sword ever grow ugly?" Again the major had to think. "When people put things to a bad use, they are not good themselves," he said; "and when they are not good, they are lazy, and neglect things. When a soldier takes to drinking or cruelty, he neglects his weapons, and the rust begins to eat them, and at last will eat them up." "What is rust, majie?"
His words never wear out, or need to be made over again. Majie, I do wish everybody was as good as Jesus! He won't be pleased till we all are. Isn't it glad! That's why I feel so safe that I like to hear the wind roaring.
"I will, Markie." "I've seen your sword, you know, majie! and I think it is the beautifullest thing in the world. I wonder why a thing for killing should be so beautiful! Can you tell me, majie?" The major had to think in order to answer that question, but thinking he hit upon something like the truth of the thing.
"But God must be able to let them know what foolish creatures they are, majie!" It was on the major's lips to say 'He has sent you to teach it to me, Mark! but he thought it better not to say it. And indeed it was better the child should not be set thinking about what he could do so much better by not thinking about it!
I stretched out my arms to him, and he caught me up in his, and then it was all right; I was Corney's keeper, and Corney was my keeper, and God was all of us's keeper. And it was then I woke, majie, not before." The days went on. Every new day Mark said, "Now, majie, I do think to-day I shall tell Corney my dream and the message I have for him!"
If I did not know that he knows all about the wind, and that it is not the bad man's wind, but the good man's wind, I should be unhappy, for it might hurt somebody, and now it cannot. If I thought he did not care whether everybody was good or not, it would make me so miserable that I should like to die and never come to life again! He will make Corney good won't he, majie?"
A lamp was burning, but the fire-light was stronger. Mark spoke. In a moment the major was bending over him. "Majie," he said, "I want Corney. I want to tell him." The major, on his way to Corney, told the father that the end was nigh. With sorely self-accusing heart, for the vision of the boy on the stone in the middle of the moor haunted him, he repaired to the anteroom of heaven.
But he was not yet ascended. With a strength seeming wonderful when they thought of it afterwards, he signed to the major. "Majie," he whispered, with a look and expression into the meaning of which the major all his life long had never done inquiring, "Majie! Corney! you tell!" Then he went. I think it was the grief at the grave of Lazarus that made our Lord weep, not his death.
Hence he was not often ready to speak freely to Corney or to another when he was within hearing distance. "But I'll tell you what, majie," he went on " I'll tell you the dream, and then, if I should go away without having told him, you must tell it to Corney. He won't laugh then at least I don't think he will. Do you promise to tell it to him, majie?"
"You see, majie," Mark went on, "it won't do for you and me to be so safe from all the storm and wind, wrapped in God's cloak, and poor Corney out in the wind and rain, with the wolves howling after him! You may say it's his own fault it's because he won't let God take him up and carry him: that's very true, but then that's just the pity of it! It is so dreadful! I can't understand it!"
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