Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

ANOTHER SHIPWRECK. 109
"I think I can walk, Cuthbert; my feet are as hard as iron."
" No, but I must carry you," said Cuthbert. " Get up, brother."
Charles prepared to comply, and Cuthblert suddenly pulled off
his shoes and stockings, and made ready.
"0 Cuthbert, don't do that," said Charles; "you break my
heart."
" Do let me, dear Charles. I seldom ask you a favor. If I
did n't know that it was acceptable to God, do you think I would
do it?"
Charles hesitated one moment; but he caught William's eye,
and William's eye and William's face said so plainly " Do' it,"
that Charles hesitated no longer, but got on his brother's back.
Cuthbert ordered William, who was barefoot, to put on his discarded shoes and stockings, which William did; and then Cuthbert
went toiling up the stony path towards the hall, with his brother
on his back, glorying in his penance.
Is this ridiculous? I cannot say I can see it in this light. I
may laugh to scorn the religion which teaches men that, by artificially producing misery and nervous terror, and in that state
flying to religion as a comfort and refuge, we in any way glorify
God, or benefit ourselves. I can laugh, I say, at a form of religion
like this; but I cannot laugh at the men who believe in it, and
act up to it. No. I may smoke my pipe, and say that the fool
Cuthbert Ravenshoe took off his shoes, and gave them to the
groom, and carried a twelve-stone brother for a quarter of a mile
barefoot, and what a fool he must be, and so forth. But the sneer
is a failure, and the laugh dies away; and I say, " Well, Cuthbert,
if you are a fool, you are a consistent and manly one, at all
events."
Let us leave these three toiling up the steep, rocky path, and
take a glance elsewhere. When the gale had come on, little
Mary had left Densil, and, putting on her bonnet, gone down to
the beach. She had asked the elder fishermen whether there
would be any danger in beaching the boat, and they had said in
chorus, " 0, bless her sweet ladyship's heart, no. The young
men would have the tackles on her and have her up, 0, ever so
quick"; and so she had been reassured, and walked up and down.
But as the wind came stronger and stronger, and she had seen
the last boat taken in half full of water, — and as the women
kept walking up and down uneasily, with their hands under their
aprons, - and as she saw many an old eagle eye, shaded by a
horny hand,, gazing anxiously seaward at the two brown sails
plunging about in the offing, - she had lost heart again, and
had sat her down on a windlass apart, with a pale face and a sick
heart.
A tall, gaunt brown woman came up to her and said, -