A Double Story

A Double Story

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Title: A Double Story
Author: George MacDonald
Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5676] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on August 7, 2002]

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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DOUBLE
STORY ***

Produced by Charles Aldarondo

A DOUBLE STORY
BY GEORGE MACDONALD.
NEW YORK:

A DOUBLE STORY
I.

There was a certain country where things used to go rather oddly. For
instance, you could never tell whether it was going to rain or hail, or
whether or not the milk was going to turn sour. It was impossible to say
whether the next baby would be a boy, or a girl, or even, after he was a
week old, whether he would wake sweet-tempered or cross.
In strict accordance with the peculiar nature of this country of
uncertainties, it came to pass one day, that in the midst of a shower of
rain that might well be called golden, seeing the sun, shining as it fell,
turned all its drops into molten topazes, and every drop was good for a
grain of golden corn, or a yellow cowslip, or a buttercup, or a dandelion
at least;--while this splendid rain was falling, I say, with a musical

patter upon the great leaves of the horse-chestnuts, which hung like
Vandyke collars about the necks of the creamy, red-spotted blossoms,
and on the leaves of the sycamores, looking as if they had blood in their
veins, and on a multitude of flowers, of which some stood up and
boldly held out their cups to catch their share, while others cowered
down, laughing, under the soft patting blows of the heavy warm
drops;-- while this lovely rain was washing all the air clean from the
motes, and the bad odors, and the poison-seeds that had escaped from
their prisons during the long drought;--while it fell, splashing and
sparkling, with a hum, and a rush, and a soft clashing--but stop! I am
stealing, I find, and not that only, but with clumsy hands spoiling what
I steal:--
"O Rain! with your dull twofold sound, The clash hard by, and the
murmur all round:"
--there! take it, Mr. Coleridge;--while, as I was saying, the lovely little
rivers whose fountains are the clouds, and which cut their own channels
through the air, and make sweet noises rubbing against their banks as
they hurry down and down, until at length they are pulled up on a
sudden, with a musical plash, in the very heart of an odorous flower,
that first gasps and then sighs up a blissful scent, or on the bald head of
a stone that never says, Thank you;--while the very sheep felt it
blessing them, though it could never reach their skins through the depth
of their long wool, and the veriest hedgehog--I mean the one with the
longest spikes--came and spiked himself out to impale as many of the
drops as he could;--while the rain was thus falling, and the leaves, and
the flowers, and the sheep, and the cattle, and the hedgehog, were all
busily receiving the golden rain, something happened. It was not a
great battle, nor an earthquake, nor a coronation, but something more
important than all those put together. A BABY-GIRL WAS BORN;
and her father was a king; and her mother was a queen; and her uncles
and aunts were princes and princesses; and her first-cousins were dukes
and duchesses; and not one of her second-cousins was less than a
marquis or marchioness, or of their third-cousins less than an earl or
countess: and below a countess they did not care to count. So the little
girl was Somebody; and yet for all that, strange to say, the first thing

she did was