THE QUARRY.
Donal threw everything aside, careless of possible disgrace in the
class the next morning, and, trembling with hope, accompanied Gibbie:
she would be there--surely! It was one of those clear nights in which
a gleam of straw-colour in the west, with light-thinned gray-green
deepening into blue above it, is like the very edge of the axe of the
cold--the edge that reaches the soul. But the youths were warm enough:
they had health and hope. The hospitable crimson room, with its round
table set out for a Scotch tea, and its fire blazing hugely, received
them. And there sat Ginevra by the fire! with her pretty feet on a
footstool before it: in those days ladies wore open shoes, and showed
dainty stockings. Her face looked rosy, but it was from the firelight,
for when she turned it towards them, it showed pale as usual. She
received them, as always, with the same simple sincerity that had been
hers on the bank of the Lorrie burn. But Gibbie read some trouble in
her eyes, for his soul was all touch, and, like a delicate spiritual
seismograph, responded at once to the least tremble of a neighbouring
soul. The minister was not present, and Mrs. Sclater had both to be
the blazing coal, and keep blowing herself, else, however hot it might
be at the smouldering hearth, the little company would have sent up no
flame of talk.
When tea was over, Gibbie went to the window, got within the red
curtains, and peeped out. Returning presently, he spelled with fingers
and signed with hands to Ginevra that it was a glorious night: would
she not come for a walk? Ginevra looked to Mrs. Sclater.
“Gibbie wants me to go for a walk,” she said.
“Certainly, my dear--if you are well enough to go with him,” replied
her friend.
“I am always well,” answered Ginevra.
“I can’t go with you,” said Mrs. Sclater, “for I expect my husband
every moment; but what occasion is there, with two such knights to
protect you?”
She was straining hard on the bit of propriety; but she knew them all
so well! she said to herself. Then first perceiving Gibbie’s design,
Donal cast him a grateful glance, while Ginevra rose hastily, and ran
to put on her outer garments. Plainly to Donal, she was pleased to go.
When they stood on the pavement, there was the moon, the very cream of
light, ladying it in a blue heaven. It was not all her own, but the
clouds about her were white and attendant, and ever when they came near
her took on her livery--the poor paled-rainbow colours, which are all
her reflected light can divide into: that strange brown we see so often
on her cloudy people must, I suppose, be what the red or the orange
fades to. There was a majesty and peace about her airy domination,
which Donal himself would have found difficult, had he known her state,
to bring into harmony with her aeonian death. Strange that the light of
lovers should be the coldest of all cold things within human ken--dead
with cold, millions of years before our first father and mother
appeared each to the other on the earth! The air was keen but dry.
Nothing could fall but snow; and of anything like it there was nothing
but those few frozen vapours that came softly out of the deeps to wait
on the moon. Between them and behind them lay depth absolute, expressed
in the perfection of nocturnal blues, deep as gentle, the very home of
the dwelling stars. The steps of the youths rang on the pavements, and
Donal’s voice seemed to him so loud and clear that he muffled it all in
gentler meaning. He spoke low, and Ginevra answered him softly. They
walked close together, and Gibbie flitted to and fro, now on this side,
now on that, now in front of them, now behind.
“Hoo likit ye the sermon, mem?” asked Donal.
“Papa thought it a grand sermon,” answered Ginevra.
“An’ yersel’?” persisted Donal.
“Papa tells me I am no judge,” she replied.
“That’s as muckle as to say ye didna like it sae weel as he did!”
returned Donal, in a tone expressing some relief.
“Mr. Duff is very good to my father, Donal,” she rejoined, “and I don’t
like to say anything against his sermon; but all the time I could not
help thinking whether your mother would like this and that; for you
know, Donal, any good there is in me I have got from her, and from
Gibbie--and from you, Donal.”
The youth’s heart beat with a pleasure that rose to physical pain. Had
he been a winged creature he would have flown straight up; but being a
sober wingless animal, he stumped on with his two happy legs. Gladly
would he have shown her the unreality of Fergus--that he was a poor
shallow creature, with only substance enough to carry show and seeming,
but he felt, just because he had reason to fear him, that it would
be unmanly to speak the truth of him behind his back, except in the
absolute necessity of rectitude. He felt also that, if Ginevra owed her
father’s friend such delicacy, he owed him at least a little silence;
for was he not under more obligation to this same shallow-pated orator,
than to all eternity he could wipe out, even if eternity carried in it
the possibility of wiping out an obligation? Few men understand, but
Donal did, that he who would cancel an obligation is a dishonest man.
I cannot help it that many a good man--good, that is, because he is
growing better--must then be reckoned in the list of the dishonest: he
is in their number until he leaves it.
Donal remaining silent, Ginevra presently returned him his own question:
“How did _you_ like the sermon, Donal?”
“Div ye want me to say, mem?” he asked.
“I do, Donal,” she answered.
“Weel, I wad jist say, in a general w’y, ’at I canna think muckle o’
ony sermon ’at micht gar a body think mair o’ the precher nor o’ him
’at he comes to prech aboot. I mean, ’at I dinna see hoo onybody was
to lo’e God or his neebour ae jot the mair for hearin’ yon sermon last
nicht.”
“But might not some be frightened by it, and brought to repentance,
Donal?” suggested the girl.
“Ou aye; I daur say; I dinna ken. But I canna help thinkin’ ’at what
disna gie God onything like fair play, canna dee muckle guid to men,
an’ may, I doobt, dee a heap o’ ill. It’s a pagan kin’ o’ a thing yon.”
“That’s just what I was feeling--I don’t say thinking, you know--for
you say we must not say _think_ when we have taken no trouble about it.
I am sorry for Mr. Duff, if he has taken to teaching where he does not
understand.”
They had left the city behind them, and were walking a wide open road,
with a great sky above it. On its borders were small fenced fields, and
a house here and there with a garden. It was a plain-featured, slightly
undulating country, with hardly any trees--not at all beautiful,
except as every place under the heaven which man has not defiled is
beautiful to him who can see what _is_ there. But this night the earth
was nothing: what was in them and over them was all. Donal felt--as
so many will feel, before the earth, like a hen set to hatch the eggs
of a soaring bird, shall have done rearing broods for heaven--that,
with this essential love and wonder by his side, to be doomed to go on
walking to all eternity would be a blissful fate, were the landscape
turned to a brick-field, and the sky to persistent gray.
“Wad ye no tak my airm, mem?” he said at length, summoning courage.
“I jist fin’ mysel’ like a horse wi’ a reyn brocken, gaein’ by mysel’
throu’ the air this gait.”
Before he had finished the sentence Ginevra had accepted the offer. It
was the first time. His arm trembled. He thought it was her hand.
“Ye’re no caul’, are ye, mem?” he said.
“Not the least,” she answered.
“Eh, mem! gien fowk was but a’ made oot o’ the same clay, like, ’at ane
micht say till anither--‘Ye hae me as ye hae yersel’’!”
“Yes, Donal,” rejoined Ginevra; “I wish we were all made of the
poet-clay like you! What it would be to have a well inside, out of
which to draw songs and ballads as I pleased! That’s what you have,
Donal--or, rather, you’re just a draw-well of music yourself.”
Donal laughed merrily. A moment more and he broke out singing:
My thoughts are like fireflies, pulsing in moonlight;
My heart is a silver cup, full of red wine;
My soul a pale gleaming horizon, whence soon light
Will flood the gold earth with a torrent divine.
“What’s that, Donal?” cried Ginevra.
“Ow, naething,” answered Donal. “It was only my hert lauchin’.”
“Say the words,” said Ginevra.
“I canna--I dinna ken them noo,” replied Donal.
“Oh, Donal! are those lovely words gone--altogether--for ever? Shall I
_not_ hear them again?”
“I’ll try to min’ upo’ them whan I gang hame,” he said. “I canna the
noo. I can think o’ naething but ae thing.”
“And what is that, Donal?”
“Yersel’,” answered Donal.
Ginevra’s hand lifted just a half of its weight from Donal’s arm, like
a bird that had thought of flying, then settled again.
“It is very pleasant to be together once more as in the old time,
Donal--though there are no daisies and green fields.--But what place is
that, Donal?”
Instinctively, almost unconsciously, she wanted to turn the
conversation. The place she pointed to was an opening immediately on
the roadside, through a high bank--narrow and dark, with one side
half lighted by the moon. She had often passed it, walking with her
school-fellows, but had never thought of asking what it was. In the
shining dusk it looked strange and a little dreadful.
“It’s the muckle quarry, mem,” answered Donal: “div ye no ken that?
That’s whaur ’maist the haill toon cam oot o’. It’s a some eerie kin’
o’ a place to luik at i’ this licht. I won’er at ye never saw ’t.”
“I have seen the opening there, but never took much notice of it
before,” said Ginevra.
“Come an’ I’ll lat ye see ’t,” rejoined Donal. “It’s weel worth luikin’
intil. Ye hae nae notion sic a place as ’tis. It micht be amo’ the
grenite muntains o’ Aigypt, though they takna freely sic fine blocks
oot o’ this ane as they tuik oot o’ that at Syene. Ye wadna be fleyt to
come an’ see what the meen maks o’ ’t, wad ye, mem?”
“No, Donal. I would not be frightened to go anywhere with you. But--”
“Eh, mem! it maks me richt prood to hear ye say that. Come awa than.”
So saying, he turned aside, and led her into the narrow passage, cut
through a friable sort of granite. Gibbie, thinking they had gone to
have but a peep and return, stood in the road, looking at the clouds
and the moon, and crooning to himself. By and by, when he found they
did not return, he followed them.
When they reached the end of the cutting, Ginevra started at sight of
the vast gulf, the moon showing the one wall a ghastly gray, and from
the other throwing a shadow half across the bottom. But a winding road
went down into it, and Donal led her on. She shrunk at first, drawing
back from the profound, mysterious-looking abyss, so awfully still; but
when Donal looked at her, she was ashamed to refuse to go farther, and
indeed almost afraid to take her hand from his arm; so he led her down
the terrace road. The side of the quarry was on one hand, and on the
other she could see only into the gulf.
“Oh, Donal!” she said at length, almost in a whisper, “this is like a
dream I once had, of going down and down a long roundabout road, inside
the earth, down and down, to the heart of a place full of the dead--the
ground black with death, and between horrible walls.”
Donal looked at her; his face was in the light reflected from the
opposite gray precipice: she thought it looked white and strange, and
grew more frightened, but dared not speak. Presently Donal again began
to sing, and this is something like what he sang:--
“Death! whaur do ye bide, auld Death?”
“I bide in ilka breath,”
Quo’ Death.
“No i’ the pyramids,
An’ no the worms amids,
’Neth coffin-lids;
I bidena whaur life has been,
An’ whaur ’s nae mair to be dune.”
“Death! whaur do ye bide, auld Death?”
“Wi’ the leevin’, to dee ’at’s laith,”
Quo’ Death.
“Wi’ the man an’ the wife
’At lo’e like life,
But (_without_) strife;
Wi’ the bairns ’at hing to their mither,
An’ a’ ’at lo’e ane anither.”
“Death! whaur do ye bide, auld Death?”
“Abune an’ aboot an’ aneath,”
Quo’ Death.
“But o’ a’ the airts,
An’ o’ a’ the pairts,
In herts,
Whan the tane to the tither says na,
An’ the north win’ begins to blaw.”
“What a terrible song, Donal!” said Ginevra.
He made no reply, but went on, leading her down into the pit: he had
been afraid she was going to draw back, and sang the first words her
words suggested, knowing she would not interrupt him. The aspect of the
place grew frightful to her.
“Are you sure there are no holes--full of water, down there?” she
faltered.
“Ay, there’s ane or twa,” replied Donal, “but we’ll haud oot o’ them.”
Ginevra shuddered, but was determined to show no fear: Donal should
not reproach her with lack of faith! They stepped at last on the level
below, covered with granite chips and stones and great blocks. In the
middle rose a confused heap of all sorts. To this, and round to the
other side of it, Donal led her. There shone the moon on the corner of
a pool, the rest of which crept away in blackness under an overhanging
mass. She caught his arm with both hands. He told her to look up. Steep
granite rock was above them all round, on one side dark, on the other
mottled with the moon and the thousand shadows of its own roughness;
over the gulf hung vaulted the blue, cloud-blotted sky, whence the moon
seemed to look straight down upon her, asking what they were about,
away from their kind, in such a place of terror.
Suddenly Donal caught her hand. She looked in his face. It was not the
moon that could make it so white.
“Ginevra!” he said, with trembling voice.
“Yes, Donal,” she answered.
“Ye’re no angry at me for ca’in ye by yer name? I never did it afore.”
“I always call you Donal,” she answered.
“That’s naitral. Ye’re a gran’ leddy, an’ I’m naething abune a
herd-laddie.”
“You’re a great poet, Donal, and that’s much more than being a lady or
a gentleman.”
“Ay, maybe,” answered Donal listlessly, as if he were thinking of
something far away; “but it winna mak up for the tither; they’re no
upo’ the same side o’ the watter, like. A puir lad like me daurna lift
an ee till a gran’ leddy like you, mem. A’ the warl’ wad but scorn him,
an’ lauch at the verra notion. My time’s near ower at the college, an’
I see naething for ’t but gang hame an’ fee (_hire myself_). I’ll be
better workin’ wi’ my han’s nor wi’ my heid whan I hae nae houp left
o’ ever seein’ yer face again. I winna lowse a day aboot it. Gien I
lowse time I may lowse my rizon. Hae patience wi’ me ae meenute, mem;
I’m jist driven to tell ye the trowth. It’s mony a lang sin I hae kent
mysel’ wantin’ you. Ye’re the boady, an’ I’m the shaidow. I dinna
mean nae hyperbolics--that’s the w’y the thing luiks to me i’ my ain
thouchts. Eh, mem, but ye’re bonnie! Ye dinna ken yersel’ hoo bonnie
ye are, nor what a subversion you mak i’ my hert an’ my heid. I cud
jist cut my heid aff, an’ lay ’t aneth yer feet to haud them aff o’ the
caul’ flure.”
Still she looked him in the eyes, like one bewildered, unable to
withdraw her eyes from his. Her face too had grown white.
“Tell me to haud my tongue, mem, an’ I’ll haud it,” he said.
Her lips moved, but no sound came.
“I ken weel,” he went on, “ye can never luik upo’ me as onything mair
nor a kin’ o’ a human bird, ’at ye wad hing in a cage, an’ gie seeds
an’ bits o’ sugar till, an’ hearken till whan he sang. I’ll never
trouble ye nae mair, an’ whether ye grant me my prayer or no, ye’ll
never see me again. The only differ ’ill be ’at I’ll aither hing my
heid or haud it up for the rest o’ my days. I wad fain ken ’at I wasna
despised, an’ ’at maybe gien things had been different,--but na, I
dinna mean that; I mean naething ’at wad fricht ye frae what I wad hae.
It sudna mean a hair mair nor lies in itsel’.”
“What is it, Donal?” said Ginevra, half inaudibly, and with effort: she
could scarcely speak for a fluttering in her throat.
“I cud beseech ye upo’ my k-nees,” he went on, as if she had not
spoken, “to lat me kiss yer bonnie fut; but that ye micht grant for
bare peety, an’ that wad dee me little guid; sae for ance an’ for
a’, till maybe efter we’re a’ ayont the muckle sea, I beseech at the
fawvour o’ yer sweet sowl, to lay upo’ me, as upo’ the lips o’ the
sowl ’at sang ye the sangs ye likit sae weel to hear whan ye was but a
leddy-lassie--ae solitary kiss. It shall be holy to me as the licht;
an’ I sweir by the Trowth I’ll think o’ ’t but as ye think, an’ man nor
wuman nor bairn, no even Gibbie himsel’, sall ken--”
The last word broke the spell upon Ginevra.
“But, Donal,” she said, as quietly as when years ago they talked by the
Lorrie side, “would it be right?--a secret with you I could not tell to
_any_ one?--not even if afterwards--”
Donal’s face grew so ghastly with utter despair that absolute terror
seized her; she turned from him and fled, calling “Gibbie! Gibbie!”
He was not many yards off, approaching the mound as she came from
behind it. He ran to meet her. She darted to him like a dove pursued
by a hawk, threw herself into his arms, laid her head on his shoulder,
and wept. Gibbie held her fast, and with all the ways in his poor power
sought to comfort her. She raised her face at length. It was all wet
with tears which glistened in the moonlight. Hurriedly Gibbie asked on
his fingers:
“Was Donal not good to you?”
“He’s _beautiful_,” she sobbed; “but I couldn’t, you know, Gibbie, I
couldn’t. I don’t care a straw about position and all that--who would
with a poet?--but I couldn’t, you know, Gibbie. I couldn’t let him
think I might have married him--in any case: could I now, Gibbie?”
She laid her head again on his shoulder and sobbed. Gibbie did not
well understand her. Donal, where he had thrown himself on a heap of
granite chips, heard and understood, felt and knew and resolved all in
one. The moon shone, and the clouds went flitting like ice-floe about
the sky, now gray in distance, now near the moon and white, now in her
very presence and adorned with her favour on their bosoms, now drifting
again into the gray; and still the two, Ginevra and Gibbie, stood
motionless--Gibbie with the tears in his eyes, and Ginevra weeping as
if her heart would break; and behind the granite blocks lay Donal.
Again Ginevra raised her head.
“Gibbie, you must go and look after poor Donal,” she said.
Gibbie went, but Donal was nowhere to be seen. To escape the two he
loved so well, and be alone as he felt, he had crept away softly into
one of the many recesses of the place. Again and again Gibbie made the
noise with which he was accustomed to call him, but he gave back no
answer, and they understood that wherever he was he wanted to be left
to himself. They climbed again the winding way out of the gulf, and
left him the heart of its desolation.
“Take me home, Gibbie,” said Ginevra, when they reached the high road.
As they went, not a word more passed between them. Ginevra was as dumb
as Gibbie, and Gibbie was sadder than he had ever been in his life--not
only for Donal’s sake, but because, in his inexperienced heart, he
feared that Ginevra would not listen to Donal because she could
not--because she had already promised herself to Fergus Duff; and with
all his love to his kind, he could not think it well that Fergus should
be made happy at such a price. He left her at her own door, and went
home, hoping to find Donal there before him.
He was not there. Hour after hour passed, and he did not appear. At
eleven o’clock, Gibbie set out to look for him, but with little hope
of finding him. He went all the way back to the quarry, thinking it
possible he might be waiting there, expecting him to return without
Ginevra. The moon was now low, and her light reached but a little way
into it, so that the look of the place was quite altered, and the
bottom of it almost dark. But Gibbie had no fear. He went down to
the spot, almost feeling his way, where they had stood, got upon the
heap, and called and whistled many times. But no answer came. Donal
was away, he did not himself know where, wandering wherever the feet
in his spirit led him. Gibbie went home again, and sat up all night,
keeping the kettle boiling, ready to make tea for him the moment he
should come in. But even in the morning Donal did not appear. Gibbie
was anxious--for Donal was unhappy.
He might hear of him at the college, he thought, and went at the usual
hour. Sure enough, as he entered the quadrangle, there was Donal going
in at the door leading to the moral philosophy class-room. For hours,
neglecting his own class, he watched about the court, but Donal never
showed himself. Gibbie concluded he had watched to avoid him, and had
gone home by Crown-street, and himself returned the usual and shorter
way, sure almost of now finding him in his room--although probably with
the door locked. The room was empty, and Mistress Murkison had not seen
him.
Donal’s final examination, upon which alone his degree now depended,
came on the next day: Gibbie watched at a certain corner, and unseen
saw him pass--with a face pale but strong, eyes that seemed not to have
slept, and lips that looked the inexorable warders of many sighs. After
that he did not see him once till the last day of the session arrived.
Then in the public room he saw him go up to receive his degree. Never
before had he seen him look grand; and Gibbie knew that there was not
_any_ evil in the world, except wrong. But it had been the dreariest
week he had ever passed. As they came from the public room, he lay in
wait for him once more, but again in vain: he must have gone through
the sacristan’s garden behind.
When he reached his lodging, he found a note from Donal waiting him, in
which he bade him good-bye, said he was gone to his mother, and asked
him to pack up his things for him: he would write to Mistress Murkison
and tell her what to do with the chest.