THEIR REWARD.
By degrees Gibbie had come to be well known about the Mains and
Glashruach. Angus’s only recognition of him was a scowl in return for
his smile; but, as I have said, he gave him no farther annoyance, and
the tales about the beast-loon were dying out from Daurside. Jean Mavor
was a special friend to him: for she knew now well enough who had been
her brownie, and made him welcome as often as he showed himself with
Donal. Fergus was sometimes at home; sometimes away; but he was now
quite a fine gentleman, a student of theology, and only condescendingly
cognizant of the existence of Donal Grant. All he said to him when he
came home a master of arts, was, that he had expected better of him:
he ought to be something more than herd by this time. Donal smiled and
said nothing. He had just finished a little song that pleased him,
and could afford to be patronized. I am afraid, however, he was not
contented with that, but in his mind’s eye measured Fergus from top to
toe.
In the autumn, Mr. Galbraith returned to Glashruach, but did not remain
long. His schemes were promising well, and his self-importance was
screwed yet a little higher in consequence. But he was kinder than
usual to Ginevra. Before he went he said to her that, as Mr. Machar
had sunk into a condition requiring his daughter’s constant attention,
he would find her an English governess as soon as he reached London;
meantime she must keep up her studies by herself as well as she could.
Probably he forgot all about it, for the governess was not heard of at
Glashruach, and things fell into their old way. There was no spiritual
traffic between the father and daughter, consequently Ginevra never
said anything about Donal or Gibbie, or her friendship for Nicie. He
had himself to blame altogether; he had made it impossible for her to
talk to him. But it was well he remained in ignorance, and so did not
put a stop to the best education she could at this time of her life
have been having--such as neither he nor any friend of his could have
given her.
It was interrupted, however, by the arrival of the winter--a wild time
in that region, fierce storm alternating with the calm of death. After
howling nights, in which it seemed as if all the _polter-geister_ of
the universe must be out on a disembodied lark, the mountains stood
there in the morning solemn still, each with his white turban of snow
unrumpled on his head, in the profoundest silence of blue air, as if
he had never in his life passed a more thoughtful, peaceful time than
the very last night of all. To such feet as Ginevra’s the cottage on
Glashgar was for months almost as inaccessible as if it had been in
Sirius. More than once the Daur was frozen thick; for weeks every beast
was an absolute prisoner to the byre, and for months was fed with straw
and turnips and potatoes and oilcake. Then was the time for stories;
and often in the long dark, while yet it was hours too early for bed,
would Ginevra go with Nicie, who was not much of a _raconteuse_, to the
kitchen, to get one of the other servants to tell her an old tale. For
even in his own daughter and his own kitchen, the great laird could not
extinguish the accursed superstition. Not a glimpse did Ginevra get all
this time of Donal or of Gibbie.
At last, like one of its own flowers in its own bosom, the spring
began again to wake in God’s thought of his world; and the snow, like
all other deaths, had to melt and run, leaving room for hope; then
the summer woke smiling, as if she knew she had been asleep; and the
two youths and the two maidens met yet again on Lorrie bank, with the
brown water falling over the stones, the gold nuggets of the broom
hanging over the water, and the young larch-wood scenting the air all
up the brae side between them and the house, which the tall hedge hid
from their view. The four were a year older, a year nearer trouble,
and a year nearer getting out of it. Ginevra was more of a woman,
Donal more of a poet, Nicie as nice and much the same, and Gibbie, if
possible, more a foundling of the universe than ever. He was growing
steadily, and showed such freedom and ease, and his motions were all
so rapid and direct, that it was plain at a glance the beauty of his
countenance was in no manner or measure associated with weakness. The
mountain was a grand nursery for him, and the result, both physical and
spiritual, corresponded. Janet, who, better than anyone else, knew what
was in the mind of the boy, revered him as much as he revered her; the
first impression he made upon her had never worn off--had only changed
its colour a little. More even than a knowledge of the truth, is a
readiness to receive it; and Janet saw from the first that Gibbie’s
ignorance at its worst was but room vacant for the truth: when it came
it found bolt nor bar on door or window, but had immediate entrance.
The secret of this power of reception was, that to see a truth and
to do it was one and the same thing with Gibbie. To know and not do
would have seemed to him an impossibility, as it is in vital idea a
monstrosity.
This unity of vision and action was the main cause also of a certain
daring simplicity in the exercise of the imagination, which so far from
misleading him reacted only in obedience--which is the truth of the
will--the truth, therefore, of the whole being. He did not do the less
well for his sheep, that he fancied they knew when Jesus Christ was on
the mountain, and always at such times both fed better and were more
frolicsome. He thought Oscar knew it also, and interpreted a certain
look of the dog by the supposition that he had caught a sign of the
bodily presence of his Maker. The direction in which his imagination
ran forward, was always that in which his reason pointed; and so long
as Gibbie’s fancies were bud-blooms upon his obedience, his imagination
could not be otherwise than in harmony with his reason. Imagination is
a poor root, but a worthy blossom, and in a nature like Gibbie’s its
flowers cannot fail to be lovely. For no outcome of a man’s nature is
so like himself as his imaginations, except it be his fancies, indeed.
Perhaps his imaginations show what he is meant to be, his fancies what
he is making of himself.
In the summer, Mr. Galbraith, all unannounced, reappeared at
Glashruach, but so changed that, startled at the sight of him, Ginevra
stopped midway in her advance to greet him. The long thin man was now
haggard and worn; he looked sourer too, and more suspicious--either
that experience had made him so, or that he was less equal to the
veiling of his feelings in dignified indifference. He was annoyed that
his daughter should recognize an alteration in him, and, turning away,
leaned his head on the hand whose arm was already supported by the
mantelpiece, and took no further notice of her presence; but perhaps
conscience also had something to do with this behaviour. Ginevra knew
from experience that the sight of tears would enrage him, and with all
her might repressed those she felt beginning to rise. She went up to
him timidly, and took the hand that hung by his side. He did not repel
her--that is, he did not push her away, or even withdraw his hand, but
he left it hanging lifeless, and returned with it no pressure upon
hers--which was much worse.
“Is anything the matter, papa?” she asked with trembling voice.
“I am not aware that I have been in the habit of communicating with you
on the subject of my affairs,” he answered; “nor am I likely to begin
to do so, where my return after so long an absence seems to give so
little satisfaction.”
“Oh, papa! I was frightened to see you looking so ill.”
“Such a remark upon my personal appearance is but a poor recognition of
my labours for your benefit, I venture to think, Jenny,” he said.
He was at the moment contemplating, as a necessity, the sale of every
foot of the property her mother had brought him. Nothing less would
serve to keep up his credit, and gain time to disguise more than one
failing scheme. Everything had of late been going so badly, that he had
lost a good deal of his confidence and self-satisfaction; but he had
gained no humility instead. It had not dawned upon him yet that he was
not unfortunate, but unworthy. The gain of such a conviction is to a
man enough to outweigh infinitely any loss that even his unworthiness
can have caused him; for it involves some perception of the worthiness
of the truth, and makes way for the utter consolation which the birth
of that truth in himself will bring. As yet Mr. Galbraith was but
overwhelmed with care for a self which, so far as he had to do with the
making of it, was of small value indeed, although in the possibility,
which is the birthright of every creature, it was, not less than that
of the wretchedest of dog-licked Lazaruses, of a value by himself
unsuspected and inappreciable. That he should behave so cruelly to
his one child, was not unnatural to that self with which he was so
much occupied: failure had weakened that command of behaviour which so
frequently gains the credit belonging only to justice and kindness,
and a temper which never was good, but always feeling the chain, was
ready at once to show its ugly teeth. He was a proud man, whose pride
was always catching cold from his heart. He might have lived a hundred
years in the same house with a child that was not his own, without
feeling for her a single movement of affection.
The servants found more change in him than Ginevra did; his relations
with them, if not better conceived than his paternal ones, had been
less evidently defective. Now he found fault with every one, so
that even Joseph dared hardly open his mouth, and said he must give
warning. The day after his arrival, having spent the morning with Angus
walking over certain fields, much desired, he knew, of a neighbouring
proprietor, inwardly calculating the utmost he could venture to ask
for them with a chance of selling, he scolded Ginevra severely on his
return because she had not had lunch, but had waited for him; whereas
a little reflection might have shown him she dared not take it without
him. Naturally, therefore, she could not now eat, because of a certain
sensation in her throat. The instant he saw she was not eating, he
ordered her out of the room: he would have no such airs in his family!
By the end of the week--he arrived on the Tuesday--such a sense of
estrangement possessed Ginevra, that she would turn on the stair and
run up again, if she heard her father’s voice below. Her aversion
to meeting him, he became aware of, and felt relieved in regard to
the wrong he was doing his wife, by reflecting upon her daughter’s
behaviour towards him; for he had a strong constitutional sense of what
was fair, and a conscience disobeyed becomes a cancer.
In this evil mood he received from some one--all his life Donal
believed it was Fergus--a hint concerning the relations between his
daughter and his tenant’s herd-boy. To describe his feelings at the
bare fact that such a hint was possible, would be more labour than the
result would repay.--What! his own flesh and blood, the heiress of
Glashruach, derive pleasure from the boorish talk of such a companion!
It could not be true, when the mere thought, without the belief of it,
filled him with such indignation! He was overwhelmed with a righteous
disgust. He did himself the justice of making himself certain before
he took measures; but he never thought of doing them the justice of
acquainting himself first with the nature of the intercourse they held.
But it mattered little; for he would have found nothing in that to give
him satisfaction, even if the thing itself had not been outrageous. He
watched and waited, and more than once pretended to go from home: at
last one morning, from the larch-wood, he saw the unnatural girl seated
with her maid on the bank of the river, the cow-herd reading to them,
and on the other side the dumb idiot lying listening. He was almost
beside himself--with what, I can hardly define. In a loud voice of bare
command he called to her to come to him. With a glance of terror at
Nicie she rose, and they went up through the larches together.
I will not spend my labour upon a reproduction of the verbal torrent of
wrath, wounded dignity, disgust, and contempt, with which the father
assailed his shrinking, delicate, honest-minded woman-child. For Nicie,
he dismissed her on the spot. Not another night would he endure her in
the house, after her abominable breach of confidence! She had to depart
without even a good-bye from Ginevra, and went home weeping in great
dread of what her mother would say.
“Lassie,” said Janet, when she heard her story, “gien onybody be to
blame it’s mysel’; for ye loot me ken ye gaed whiles wi’ yer bonnie
missie to hae a news wi’ Donal, an’ I saw an’ see noucht ’at’s wrang
intil ’t. But the fowk o’ this warl’ has ither w’ys o’ jeedgin’ o’
things, an’ I maun bethink mysel’ what lesson o’ the serpent’s wisdom I
hae to learn frae ’t. Ye’re walcome hame, my bonnie lass. Ye ken I aye
keep the wee closet ready for ony o’ ye ’at micht come ohn expeckit.”
Nicie, however, had not long to occupy the closet, for those of her
breed were in demand in the country.