Stapylton sought the trysting-place on the hill on the decisive day with
all the excitement natural to the crisis, but with little fear of the
result. He had taken none of the precautions of which he had spoken to
Isabel. What need was there of precautions? she would wear a veil of
course, and a cloak. The road to Kilcranion was little frequented,
especially on such a day; and by the time Kilcranion was reached, they
would be, to some extent, among strangers, not liable to recognition at
every step as here. He made up for himself a small bag of necessaries,
put the money he had just received to carry him home in his pocket,
buttoned his greatcoat, and took his way through the drizzling rain to
the hill-side.
He had loitered there for about half an hour watching for traces of
Isabel’s approach, and gradually beginning to be angry, when the rain
suddenly stopped, and the sky cleared ever so little. That was so far
good. He put down his bag, and lighted a cigar to comfort himself as he
waited. Below where he stood, just within sight, the thatched roof of
the Glebe Cottage rose like some natural growth out of the heather. No
doubt she must have waited for this moment; though why she should have
waited, keeping him in the rain, he could not imagine. However it was a
pardonable sin if she came now. This thought went through his mind just
at the moment when Isabel, rising to go to him, fell back and fainted in
her chair. He paced up and down the wet turf, and smoked his cigar, and
looked for her, calculating in his own mind how long the weather would
‘keep up,’ and whether there might be time to reach Kilcranion before it
came on to rain again. Another half-hour, it might be, was spent in
these speculations; and then he took out his watch suddenly, and woke to
the consciousness that he had been waiting for an hour on the moor, that
the steamer must be gone from Kilcranion, and that the way of escape
unobserved was closed to them for that night.
It would be difficult to describe the rage which rose in a moment in his
mind. She, whom he thought so entirely subject to him, whom he had felt
to be delivered over to him bound hand and foot when she was deprived of
her sister--had Isabel rebelled against his influence? Had she cast him
off? It did not seem possible. He would--but was that Isabel? It seemed
to him he could hear sounds from the cottage; the noise of doors opening
and shutting--a babble of tongues. Could they be detaining her by force?
But then no one in the world had any right to detain her--she was
absolutely free. Still there was some agitation about the Glebe. He
snatched up his bag, not without a private imprecation upon Isabel for
making him thus ridiculous, that he should have to drag it about from
one place to another; and then he turned rapidly down the hill. Someone
came out of the cottage as he got full in sight of it--someone whom he
easily divined to be Mr. Lothian. ‘Confound him!’ said the young fellow;
what was he doing there just at the moment when Stapylton’s fate was
being decided? Could she have consulted him? Was it through the
minister’s plotting that his purpose had thus been brought to nothing?
The young man hurried down, carrying in his hand, and cursing the
troublesome bag, which but for her---- it was a small matter, but it
exasperated him more than a greater. He had half a mind to fling it at
the cottage door, and order Jamie to carry it for him for sixpence, by
way of driving the stepmother out of her senses. But surely there was
something strange going on at the Glebe. Jenny Spence had just come out
with another woman, and stood in audible colloquy with her at the door.
‘You’ll tell the doctor she’s come to hersel,’ said Jenny. ‘It lasted an
hour, Jean thinks. But time looks awfu’ long when folk are feared, and
maybe it wasna an hour. She’s come to hersel, and very quiet, and
there’s nae such haste as we thought. But for a’ that, tell him he’s to
come on here as soon as he can.’
‘And will I say what was the cause?’ said the messenger, while Stapylton
listened eagerly.
‘He’s mair likely to tell us,’ said the other; ‘the first thing she
asked was, What o’clock was it? And when she heard gave an awfu’ sigh,
and syne lay as quiet as a wean--though what the clock had to do with it
Gude kens. I hope it’s no her head; that would be worse of a’.’
‘But she’s ay been real healthy and strong. A body in trouble may faint,
and yet no be that ill after a’.’
‘But ye see decline’s in the family,’ said Jenny Spence, and then they
parted, the one returning to the house, the other speeding on her
mission. The bag grew less oppressive in Stapylton’s hands. His clouded
brow cleared a little. After all, she had not meant to leave him in the
lurch. If she was ill that was a different matter. After a pause he went
and knocked at the door, and asked how Miss Diarmid was?
‘If you’re meaning Isabel, she’s no that weel,’ said Jenny Spence; ‘she
was out yesterday in the damp, and she’s gotten a cauld.’ This was all
the information she would condescend upon to a stranger and a ‘young
lad.’
‘But what did I hear you say about a faint?’ said Stapylton eagerly.
‘Lord!’ said Jenny, who, like most of the villagers, disliked the
Englishman, ‘how can I tell what ye might hear me say? I say plenty
whiles that I canna mind myself; but Isabel’s gotten the cauld. It’s
natural at this time of the year.’
‘Cold? and nothing more?’ asked the young man.
‘Ane can never tell--it might turn into an influenza,’ said Jenny; ‘but
that’s a’ the noo, for a’ that I can see.’
And then she closed the door upon him, with a certain malicious
satisfaction. Stapylton was no favourite in the parish; perhaps because
of a sneer which was always lurking behind the few civilities which he
had ever been known to offer. Jenny had no confidence either in his
friendship or his love.
‘Yon’s the lad that would beguile a young lass, but be dour as iron and
steel to his wife as soon as she had married him. I hope there’s
naething amiss between him and Isabel,’ she said to Jean, when she
described this visit; and Jean felt a little thrill go through her, as
if this new event threw light on something, though she could scarcely
tell what.
‘Do you think our Isabel would be thinking of any such nonsense at such
a time!’ she said, indignantly. But still a sensation as of some
discovery darted through her own heart.
Stapylton, however, shut out as he thus was from all approach to Isabel,
was not to be so easily put off. He hastened down the road at his
quickest pace, determined to find out, at least, from the minister what
had happened. Mr. Lothian was standing at the door of the doctor’s house
when the young man made up to him.
‘Is it you, Stapylton?’ he said, with an evident struggle to be
friendly. ‘It has been a dreadful day.’
‘Not cheerful,’ said the young man; ‘but only, after all, “a wee saft,”
as you say in these parts. You have not been consulting the doctor, I
hope, for yourself?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Lothian, fixing his eyes upon his interrogator, and
adding nothing to the syllable. Stapylton’s spirit of natural rivalry
woke up at once.
‘I saw a messenger for the doctor coming from the Glebe,’ he said. ‘I
hope I might be mistaken--or if there is anyone ill there, that it is
only one of the children. Children are always ill.’
‘It is not one of the children,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘It is--Isabel.’ He
uttered the name with a sigh. He was so anxious, that he was glad to
speak, even to Stapylton, of the subject that lay nearest his heart.
‘What is the matter?’ said the young man, himself feeling somewhat
breathless.
‘She fainted to-day,’ said the minister, ‘without any reason, so far as
we know. She had been out yesterday, at her sister’s grave, and I fear
she caught cold; but a fainting fit shows a state of weakness which--I
cannot but be alarmed at it,’ he added, hurriedly, with a faltering
voice.
‘So she said she had been at her sister’s grave!’--Stapylton thought
within himself. He liked her all the better for having lied to keep
their meeting secret. He had not thought she had so much spirit. And
after all it would have been a wretched day for a journey. To-morrow
would still leave time enough. He must send her a note somehow, to say
so; and, well or ill, she must pluck up her forces and do it at last. He
looked at the glass as he went to his room, and found that it was
rising; and already it had ceased to rain. Dry clothes and a fine day
would make all the difference. And Isabel, who could no longer assume
any superiority over him--who had been as sly about it as any ordinary
girl--would have given herself to him by that time, and be altogether in
his power. The young man whistled in sheer lightheartedness as he
changed his dress. After this she could never mount her high horse, and
show her superior sentiments, as of yore. The first thing he did when
his toilet was accomplished was to write her a note. It was the first
communication of the kind which had ever passed between them, but the
fact did not excite him as it does most young lovers. Poor Mr. Lothian,
on the eminence of his fifty years, would have written to Isabel with
very different feelings; but Stapylton took it calmly, not being of an
imaginative turn. His letter was as follows:--
‘DEAREST ISABEL,--I was in an awful state of mind when I found you
did not turn up to-day at the usual spot. I felt furious I can
assure you, and called you a jilt and a dozen other names. But I
hear you’ve been ill, and I forgive you, my darling. Of course it
never would have answered to set out in the rain on such a
frightful day if you were ill. I got soaked to the skin waiting for
you, which I hope you will be sorry to hear. But, Isabel, remember
to-morrow is the last day. Go I must to-morrow. If you can’t pick
yourself up and get well, and join me at the same place and the
same hour, I shall go mad, I think, for I must go. My people are
writing letters upon letters. There’s one waiting for me now, but I
have not opened it, for they’re all pretty much the same thing over
again. They’ve written to Mr. Lothian, and to Smeaton at the farm,
for information as to what detains me; and I must not risk it any
longer. But of course, when you know it’s so necessary, I can trust
to your spirit to get well, and join me as I arranged. We’ll have a
run into Edinburgh and do the business, and then I can write home.
I don’t care much about seeing sights myself, but it will all be
new to you, and you’ll enjoy it. So get well, my pet, as fast as
ever you can, and remember to-morrow at the old place at two
o’clock. I’ll have a trap waiting on the hill: but for Heaven’s
sake don’t be late.
‘You may think me joking, but I never was more serious in my life.
That is my way, as you know. I can’t look solemn and use big words
like you Scotch. But I mean it all the same. If you don’t love me
enough to come to me to-morrow, I’ll take it for granted you don’t
love me at all. I will go right away by myself, and I can’t hold
out any hope to you that I will ever come back. Now don’t mistake
me, or think I am threatening you. I have waited long enough, and
you must not make a fool of me any longer. If I am once driven
away, the chances are I can never return to Loch Diarmid--or to
you. Come then now. It is our only chance. I will wait for you
to-morrow as I did to-day. I shall be there at half-past one, and I
shall wait till a quarter after two. No longer. You must be
punctual. It’s for you to decide if we are to be together for ever,
or separated for ever. I can do no more. To-morrow at the old
place, or most likely never in this world.
‘Come, Isabel, my darling, come! Don’t fail me. If you do, I will
never see you more.
‘Yours, if you will have me,
‘H. S.’
When he had finished this epistle he read it over with a little
complacency. If anything would do it, surely this would do it; though,
indeed, there was no reason to believe that Isabel required any special
entreaty. As he thought it over, it occurred to him that probably she
had fainted out of sheer aggravation and passion when she found she
could not go to him; and that was easily comprehensible. When he had
folded his note, and got up to find some wax to seal it (for envelopes
were not common articles in those days), he found the letters Mr.
Lothian had told him of on the table, and tore the first that came
uppermost open, suddenly, holding still his love-letter in his hand. His
face grew heavy as he read, and pale. He went back to his chair and
hurried through it, and the other which accompanied it. They were
written on the same day, and to the same purpose. His father was ill.
One of the letters was from his sister, the other from the doctor.
‘Come for mamma’s sake,’ wrote the first. ‘Papa is fearfully angry, and
threatens to change his will. For your own sake don’t waste a moment.’
‘Your father is dying,’ said the doctor. ‘There is not a moment to lose.
He is clamouring for a lawyer. Everything that I can do to postpone this
you may be sure I will. But come! you may yet be in time.’
Young Stapylton wiped the heavy moisture from his forehead and stared
into the air as if he had been staring at himself. ‘Clamouring for a
lawyer!’--‘threatening to change his will!’ Horace was not a devoted
son, but such words as these penetrate the most callous heart. After the
first shock he set himself to consider with a promptitude that did him
credit. There was not a moment to lose. After all, it was just as well
he had packed his bag. He would borrow the miller’s horse and the
minister’s old gig, and there was still time perhaps to get to Glasgow
before the English mail should be gone. But there was not a moment to
lose. It was only when he sprang up to prepare for immediate departure
that he found the note to Isabel crushed in his hand, and bethought
himself of her. He sat down again hastily and added a few words to it:
and he was in the act of sealing it at Mr. Lothian’s writing-table when
the minister came in. Even then a spark of malice crossed his mind. Here
was the best messenger he could find to carry his love-letter--and it
would be a Parthian arrow, a farewell blow at his adversary.
‘My father is ill,’ he said; ‘I must go instantly. There is just time to
catch the coach for Glasgow if Andrew White will lend me his mare. I am
going to ask him now.’
‘Going--instantly?’ said the minister, stupified, looking at the two
letters on the table. Stapylton gathered them carefully up and nodded in
reply.
‘I shall see you again,’ he said. ‘I must rush up now to the mill. I may
have the gig, I suppose? But look here,’ he continued, coming back from
the door. ‘There’s one good turn you can do me, if you will. If not I’ll
send it by someone else; will you take this note for me to the Glebe
when you go?’
The minister started slightly and coloured high, but he made a little
ceremonious bow at the same time and held out his hand. ‘I will take
it,’ he said gravely; and then, perhaps out of the softening of his
heart towards the young fellow, who was thus torn away at such a moment,
leaving him master of the field--for to be left master of the field is
very softening and consolatory to the soul--he laid his hand upon
Stapylton’s arm. ‘The doctors says it is but grief and agitation--you’ll
be glad to hear it,’ he said.
‘Yes, yes,’ cried Stapylton, scarcely taking in the words; ‘and I may
have the gig? There is not a moment to lose.’