THE FIR-GROVE.
As the ladies went up the ridge, regarded in the neighbourhood as
the chief's pleasure-ground where nobody went except to call upon
the chief, they must, having mounted it lower down than where they
descended, pass the cottage. The grove of birch, mountain-ash, and
fir which surrounded it, was planted quite irregularly, and a narrow
foot-path went winding through it to the door. Against one of the
firs was a rough bench turned to the west, and seated upon it they
saw Ian, smoking a formless mass of much defiled sea-foam, otherwise
meer-schaum. He rose, uncovered, and sat down again. But Christina,
who regarded it as a praiseworthy kindness to address any one
beneath her, not only returned his salutation, but stopped, and
said,
"Good morning! We have been learning how they plough in Scotland,
but I fear we annoyed the ploughman."
"Fergus does sometimes LOOK surly," said Ian, rising again, and
going to her; "he has bad rheumatism, poor fellow! And then he can't
speak a word of English, and is ashamed of it!"
"The man we saw spoke English very well. Is Fergus your brother's
name?"
"No; my brother's name is Alister--that is Gaelic for Alexander."
"He was ploughing with two wild little oxen, and could hardly manage
them."
"Then it must have been Alister--only, excuse me, he could manage
them perfectly. Alister could break a pair of buffaloes."
"He seemed rather vexed, and I thought it might be that we made the
creatures troublesome.--I do not mean he was rude--only a little
rough to us."
Ian smiled, and waited for more.
"He did not like to be told he was hard on the animals. I only said
the poor things did not know better!"
"Ah--I see!--He understands animals so well, he doesn't like to be
meddled with in his management of them. I daresay he told you that,
if they didn't know better, he had to teach them better! They are
troublesome little wretches.--Yes, I confess he is a little touchy
about animals!"
Somehow Christina felt herself rebuked, and did not like it. He had
almost told her that, if she had quarrelled with his ploughman-brother,
the fault must be hers!
"But indeed, Captain Macruadh," she said--for the people called him
captain, "I am not ignorant about animals! We have horses of our
own, and know all about them.--Don't we, Mercy?"
"Yes," said Mercy; "they take apples and sugar from our hands."
"And you would have the chief's bulls tamed with apples and sugar!"
returned Ian, laughing. "But the horses were tamed before ever you
saw them! If you had taken them wild, or even when they were foals,
and taught them everything, then you would know a little about them.
An acquaintance is not a friendship! My brother loves animals and
understands them almost like human beings; he understands them
better than some human beings, for the most cunning of the animals
are yet simple. He knows what they are thinking when I cannot read a
word of their faces. I remember one terrible night, winters
ago--there had been a blinding drift on and off during the day, and
my father and mother were getting anxious about him--how he came
staggering in, and fell on the floor, and a great lump in his plaid
on his back began to wallow about, and forth crept his big colley!
They had been to the hills to look after a few sheep, and the poor
dog was exhausted, and Alister carried him home at the risk of his
life."
"A valuable animal, I don't doubt," said Christina.
"He had been, but was no more what the world calls valuable. He was
an old dog almost past work--but the wisest creature! Poor fellow,
he never recovered that day on the hills! A week or so after, we
buried him--in the hope of a blessed resurrection," added Ian, with
a smile.
The girls looked at each other as much as to say, "Good heavens!" He
caught the look, but said nothing, for he saw they had "no
understanding."
The brothers believed most devoutly that the God who is present at
the death-bed of the sparrow does not forget the sparrow when he is
dead; for they had been taught that he is an unchanging God; "and,"
argued Ian, "what God remembers, he thinks of, and what he thinks
of, IS." But Ian knew that what misses the heart falls under the
feet! A man is bound to SHARE his best, not to tumble his
SEED-PEARLS into the feeding-trough, to break the teeth of them that
are there at meat. He had but lifted a corner to give them a glimpse
of the Life eternal, and the girls thought him ridiculous! The human
caterpillar that has not yet even begun to sicken with the growth of
her psyche-wings, is among the poorest of the human animals!
But Christina was not going to give in! Her one idea of the glory of
life was the subjugation of men. As if moved by a sudden impulse,
she went close up to him.
"Do not be angry with me," she said, almost coaxingly, but with a
visible mingling of boldness and shyness, neither of them quite
assumed; for, though conscious of her boldness, she was not
frightened; and there was something in the eagle-face that made it
easy to look shy. "I did not mean to be rude. I am sorry."
"You mistake me," he said gently. "I only wanted you to know you
misjudged my brother."
"Then, if you have forgiven me, you will let me sit for a few
minutes! I am SO tired with walking in the sticky earth!"
"Do, pray, sit down," responded Ian heartily, and led the way.
But she sank gracefully at the foot of the next fir, while Mercy sat
down on the bench.
"Do go on with your pipe," she said, looking up as she arranged her
dress; "I am quite used to smoke. Papa would smoke in church if he
dared!"
"Chrissy! You KNOW he NEVER smokes in the drawing-room!" cried
Mercy, scandalized.
"I have seen him--when mamma was away."
Ian began to be a little more interested in the plain one. But what
must his mother think to see them sitting there together! He could
not help it! if ladies chose to sit down, it was not for him to
forbid them! And there WAS a glimmer of conscience in the younger!
Most men believe only what they find or imagine possible to
themselves. They may be sure of this, that there are men so
different from them that no judgment they pass upon them is worth a
straw, simply because it does not apply to them. I assert of Ian
that neither beauty nor intellect attracted him. Imagination would
entice him, but the least lack of principle would arrest its
influence. The simplest manifestation of a live conscience would
draw him more than anything else. I do not mean the conscience that
proposes questions, but the conscience that loves right and turns
from wrong.
Notwithstanding the damsel's invitation, he did not resume his pipe.
He was simple, but not free and easy--too sensitive to the relations
of life to be familiar upon invitation with any girl. If she was not
one with whom to hold real converse, it was impossible to blow
dandelions with her, and talk must confine itself to the
commonplace. After gentlest assays to know what was possible, the
result might be that he grew courteously playful, or drew back, and
confined himself to the formal.
In the conversation that followed, he soon found the younger capable
of being interested, and, having seen much in many parts of the
world, had plenty to tell her. Christina smiled sweetly, taking
everything with over-gentle politeness, but looking as if all that
interested her was, that there they were, talking about it. Provoked
at last by her persistent lack of GENUINE reception, Ian was tempted
to try her with something different: perhaps she might be moved to
horror! Any feeling would be a FIND! He thought he would tell them
an adventure he had read in a book of travels.
In Persia, alone in a fine moonlit night, the traveller had fallen
asleep on his horse, but woke suddenly, roused by something
frightful, he did not know what. The evil odour all about him
explained, however, his bewilderment and terror. Presently he was
bumped on this side, then bumped on that; first one knee, then the
other, would be struck; now the calf of one leg was caught, now the
calf of the other; then both would be caught at once, and he shoved
nearly over his pommel. His horse was very uneasy, but could ill
help himself in the midst of a moving mass of uncertain objects. The
traveller for a moment imagined himself in a boat on the sea, with a
huge quantity of wrecked cargo floating around him, whence came the
frequent collisions he was undergoing; but he soon perceived that
the vague shapes were boxes, pannierwise on the backs of mules,
moving in caravan along the desert. Of not a few the lids were
broken, of some gone altogether, revealing their contents--the
bodies of good Mussulmans, on their way to the consecrated soil of
Mecca for burial. Carelessly shambled the mules along, stumbling as
they jogged over the uneven ground, their boxes tilting from side to
side, sorely shaken, some of them, in frustration of dying hopes,
scattering their contents over the track--for here and there a mule
carried but a wreck of coffins. On and on over the rough gravelly
waste, under the dead cold moon, weltered the slow stream of death!
"You may be sure," concluded Ian, "he made haste out of the ruck!
But it was with difficulty he got clear, happily to windward--then
for an hour sat motionless on his horse, watching through the
moonlight the long dark shadow flitting toward its far-off goal.
When at length he could no longer descry it, he put his horse to his
speed--but not to overtake it."
As he spoke, Mercy's eyes grew larger and larger, never leaving his
face. She had at least imagination enough for that! Christina curled
her pretty lip, and looked disgusted. The one at a horrible tale was
horrified, the other merely disgusted! The one showed herself
capable of some reception; the other did not.
"Something might be done with that girl!" thought Ian.
"Did he see their faces?" drawled Christina.
Mercy was silent, but her eyes remained fixed on him. It was Ian's
telling, more than the story, that impressed her.
"I don't think he mentions them," answered Ian. "But shall I tell
you," he went on, "what seems to me the most unpleasant thing about
the business?"
"Do," said Christina.
"It is that the poor ghosts should see such a disagreeable fuss made
with their old clothes."
Christina smiled.
"Do you think ghosts see what goes on after they are dead?" asked
Mercy.
"The ghosts are not dead," said Ian, "and I can't tell. But I am
inclined to think some ghosts have to stay a while and look on."
"What would be the good of that?" returned Mercy.
"Perhaps to teach them the little good they were in, or got out of
the world," he answered. "To have to stick to a thing after it is
dead, is terrible, but may teach much."
"I don't understand you," said Mercy. "The world is not dead!"
"Better and better!" thought Ian with himself. "The girl CAN
understand!--A thing is always dead to you when you have done with
it," he answered her. "Suppose you had a ball-dress crumpled and
unsightly--the roses on it withered, and the tinsel shining
hideously through them--would it not be a dead dress?"
"Yes, indeed."
"Then suppose, for something you had done, or for something you
would not stop being, you had to wear that ball-dress till something
came about--you would be like the ghosts that cannot get
away.--Suppose, when you were old and wrinkled,--"
"You are very amusing, Captain Macruadh!" said Christina, with a
bell-like laugh. But Ian went on.
"Some stories tell us of ghosts with the same old wrinkled faces in
which they died. The world and its uses over, they are compelled to
haunt it still, seeing how things go but taking no share in them
beholding the relief their death is to all, feeling they have lost
their chance of beauty, and are fixed in ugliness, having wasted
being itself! They are like a man in a miserable dream, in which he
can do nothing, but in which he must stay, and go dreaming, dreaming
on without hope of release. To be in a world and have nothing to do
with it, must be awful! A little more imagination would do some
people good!"
"No, please!--no more for me!" said Christina, laughing as she rose.
Mercy was silent. Though she had never really thought about anything
herself, she did not doubt that certain people were in earnest about
something. She knew that she ought to be good, and she knew she was
not good; how to be good she did not know, for she had never set
herself, to be good. She sometimes wished she were good; but there
are thousands of wandering ghosts who would be good if they might
without taking trouble: the kind of goodness they desire would
not be worth a life to hold it.
Fear is a wholesome element in the human economy; they are merely
silly who would banish it from all association with religion. True,
there is no religion in fear; religion is love, and love casts out
fear; but until a man has love, it is well he should have fear. So
long as there are wild beasts about, it is better to be afraid than
secure.
The vague awe ready to assail every soul that has not found rest in
its source, readier the more honest the soul, had for the first time
laid hold of Mercy. The earnest face of the speaker had most to do
with it. She had never heard anybody talk like that!
The lady of the house appeared, asking, with kind dignity, if they
would not take some refreshment: to a highlander hospitality is a
law where not a passion. Christina declined the offer.
"Thanks! we were only a little tired, and are quite rested now," she
said. "How beautifully sheltered your house is!"
"On the side of the sea, yes," answered Mrs. Macruadh; "but not much
on the east where we want it most. The trees are growing, however!"
When the sisters were out of sight of the cottage--
"Well!" remarked Christina, "he's a nice young man too, is he not?
Exceedingly well bred! And what taste he has! He knows how to amuse
ladies!"
Mercy did not answer.
"I never heard anything so disgusting!" pursued Christina.
"But," suggested Mercy, "you like to READ horrid stories, Chrissy!
You said so only yesterday! And there was nothing in what he told us
that oughtn't to be spoken about."
"What!--not those hideous coffins--and the bodies dropping out of
them--all crawling, no doubt?"
"That is your own, Chrissy! You KNOW he did not go so far as that!
If Colonel Webberly had told you the story, you would have called it
charming--in fun, of course, I mean!"
But Christina never liked the argumentum ad feminam.
"I would not! You know I would not!" she exclaimed. "I do believe
the girl has fallen in love with the horrid man! Of the two, I
declare, I like the ploughman better. I am sorry I happened to vex
him; he is a good stupid sort of fellow! I can't bear this man! How
horribly he fixed his eyes on you when he was talking that rubbish
about the ball-dress!"
"He was anxious to make himself understood. I know he made me think
I must mind what I was about!"
"Oh, nonsense! We didn't come into this wilderness to be preached to
by a lay John the Baptist! He is an ill-bred fellow!"
She would not have said so much against him, had not Mercy taken his
part.
Mercy rarely contradicted her sister, but even this brief passage
with a real man had roused the justice in her.
"I don't agree with you, Chrissy," she said. "He seems to me VERY
MUCH of a gentleman!"
She did not venture to say all she felt, not choosing to be at
absolute variance, and the threatened quarrel blew over like a
shower in spring.
But some sort of impression remained from the words of Ian on the
mind of Mercy, for the next morning she read a chapter in the book
of Genesis, and said a prayer her mother had taught her.