Other two weary slow-paced weeks wore through, before Mrs. Catherine
heard any further tidings of her prodigal. At last Mr. Ferguson's
hurried intimation of his arrival in Paris came at once to satisfy and
to stimulate her anxiety--for Mr. Ferguson's brief epistle said
emphatically that it was _well_ he had lost no time in setting out upon
his journey, and that he found "Mr. Archibald" in sorest need of some
steadfast friend about him. A few days after there came a more explicit
letter. Mr. Ferguson had found poor Archibald Sutherland in the strong
grip of despair. Loss of fortune had brought loss of friends--not one of
all his former guests or flatterers remained to comfort him in his
poverty; and save for the jealous solicitude with which he guarded his
sister, Mr. Ferguson believed that his reckless desperation would have
laid him ere now in the grave of the suicide. But Isabel, wilful,
impetuous and admired as she was, bound her fierce guardian to his hated
life--still courted in these gay circles, for the wit and beauty which
all this burden of calamity could not diminish, the ruined man stalked
by her side everywhere, like some intruding spectre, casting a blight
upon the smiles that woke no congenial sunshine in his ghostly face. The
treachery which he had felt surrounding himself--the warning of Mrs.
Catherine's letters had awakened him to a wild anxiety for Isabel: he
could not bear her absence from him. Regardless of sneers and
inuendos--regardless of contempt and indifference, he followed his
sister wherever she went, and scowled away from her in his gaunt pride
and anger, whosoever ventured upon any show of admiration. But no human
spirit could bear that fierce tension long; and when his factor's home
face looked in upon him, so clear, upright, and manlike, with all its
respectful kindliness of sympathy, the heart of Archibald Sutherland
burst from its compulsory hardihood, and melted into very weakness. None
knew or could appreciate better than he, the thoroughly honorable
character of Mr. Ferguson--none better knew the warm kindliness of that
pleasant home of Woodsmuir, which the factor had left for the
discomforts of a long journey and a strange country, to aid and succor
_him_--him, the prodigal, the destroyer of his father's house. Tears,
strange to the eyes of the broken man, fell copiously over Mrs.
Catherine's letter--a time of strange incoherence followed, and when Mr.
Ferguson wrote again, it was from the sick room where Archibald
Sutherland lay, prostrate in body and mind, in the wild heat of fever,
struggling for his life.
Mr. Ferguson wrote with unwonted pathos of that strange phantom of
terror for Isabel, which haunted his patient's mind by night and
day--the one consistent thread through all that delirious chaos--of how
the wilful sister in the pride of her wit and beauty heard it first from
her brother's raving lips with indignant anger, haughtily blaming the
manly watcher by that brother's bedside whose place she did not offer to
take; but how, at last, the "weeping blood of woman's breast" was
reached by that wail of agony, and Isabel gave up her gaieties, and took
her place in the sick room, soothing the sufferer by her very presence.
But Mr. Ferguson did not tell, how unweariedly he himself watched by
that bed of fever, and when doctor and attendant despaired, still hoped
against hope--nor how, when feeble, and pale, and worn out, the
convalescent could raise his head again, it was the strong arm of his
Strathoran factor that held him up--it was the kindly tongue of home
that gave thanks for his recovery.
But long weeks had lengthened into months during Archibald's illness,
and the dark short days of December were rising, in their chill
alternations of frost and rain, upon the northern skies of Strathoran,
when Mr. Ferguson returned home. He came alone, for Captain Duncombe had
joined his wife and brother-in-law in Paris, and was to be their escort
to England. Captain Duncombe had got a considerable accession of
fortune, by the death of some friend, during the time of Archibald's
convalescence, and had managed to effect an exchange into a regiment
stationed near London, whither his wife had no objection to accompany
him. The saturnine Captain was something touched by his hapless
brother-in-law's emaciated appearance, and had no objection to travel
leisurely home for his convenience, though protesting many times, with
unnecessary fervor, that, when once at home, he could do nothing for
him; and Mr. Ferguson, whose own affairs imperatively called for his
presence, and whose strength had been wasted by long confinement,
reluctantly left his patient, and returned to Strathoran alone.
In the meantime, changes had taken place there: bevies of English
sportsmen had arrived with Lord Gillravidge at his newly acquired
property--gamekeepers and grooms, a whole village full, overbrimmed its
quiet precincts. Rough Ralph Falconer, condescendingly noticed at first,
in acknowledgment of his kindred pursuits, was shrinking from the
neighborhood already fairly over-crowed and put down, endeavoring to
hide his mortification under bitter laughter. Bitterly upon them,
"pilgarlic dandies," "hairy fuils," "idle cattle," poured the full flood
of Mrs. Catherine's derision. The countryside was stirred with unwonted
excitement. An Englishman, alien to their blood, and contemptuous of
their Church--the supplanter, besides, of an old and long established
family, in a district peculiarly tenacious of hereditary loves and
hatreds,--the new Lord of Strathoran had all the strongest feelings of
his neighbors arrayed against him.
The new Lord of Strathoran was supremely indifferent. The countryside
and its likings and dislikings, were not of the remotest consequence to
him.
And little Alice Aytoun was beginning to receive gentle and tender hints
from Edinburgh, that the original limits proposed for her visit, had
been considerably overpassed. She had forgotten, in the unconscious
selfishness of a light heart, how lonely the Edinburgh parlor would be,
during the long days which her mother spent there alone--for Alice's
_entree_ into the festivities and party-givings of that quiet district,
which her inexperience called "the world," had been a triumph--and with
so much homage laid at her little feet, and so much girlish delight and
laughing wonder, in receiving that strange, new tribute of admiration,
it was scarcely wonderful that the Edinburgh parlor, with its quiet
dwelling at home, and brief domestic circle, seemed almost sombre in the
contrast. It was arranged, however, that Alice should return home after
the new year, and, her conscience eased of some compunctions it had,
respecting neglect of her mother, Alice looked forward to the especial
merry-makings of that blythe season with a light heart.
Meanwhile, Anne Ross's ingenuity was vainly exercised in devising
expedients to occupy her brother, and divert him from those frequent
visits which it had become his pleasure to pay at the Tower. Lewis found
numberless errands--alleged consultations with Mrs. Catherine, at which
his mother fumed silently in sullen dignity--pretences for advising with
the shrewd factotum of Mrs. Catherine's finely-cultivated home-farm,
concerning those fields immediately adjoining Merkland which Mr. Coulter
advised, putting on some scientific regimen--or even a rare fungus, or
delicate moss to show to Miss Aytoun, who began to be interested in that
beautiful science of botany which Lewis himself had taken up so
suddenly.
These visits, and the too certain end to which they tended, pained Anne
deeply, overpowered her, indeed, sometimes with sick bewilderment, the
more that in the present state of matters, she was perfectly powerless.
Any step of her's might precipitate Lewis, so jealously alive to
interference as he was, and make that certain, which was now only feared
and deprecated, so Anne, like her friend in the Tower, had to wait
perforce for the regular course of events, and with an anxiety still
more intense and painful than Mrs. Catherine's. What but woe and mishap
could come from this unhappy intercourse? What but pain and
disappointment and sorrow to these two youthful hearts.
Anne could perceive that it annoyed her step-mother; that Mrs. Ross,
with her overweening partiality for, and pride in her only son, was
inclined to take his attention to Alice Aytoun as a personal slight and
injury to herself. But it was not because a connection so terrible
existed between the families already--Alice had no friends to elevate
the standing, nor portion to increase the wealth of her future partner,
and therefore Mrs. Ross frowned upon the growing devotion of Lewis, and
already, in many a peevish altercation and sarcastic allusion, had
brought in Alice Aytoun's name--fanning thereby the flame which she
hoped to extinguish.
And during these months, the little girl, so strangely brought to Oran
Mill, was learning the tongue of her new home rapidly. A strange
junction, the liquid Spanish, which fell on Jacky's visionary ear so
pleasantly, "like the words folk hear in dreams," made, mingled with
these soft syllables of the homely, Scottish tongue, broken from what
harshness soever might originally be in them, by the child's voice of
lisping music. Mrs. Melder had been told to call her Lilias, and
affection had already contracted the name into the familiar diminutive
of "Lilie." A strange exotic lily the child seemed with her small, pale
features and olive-tinted cheek, and flood of dusky silken hair, and she
had become already a wonder in the parish.
Mrs. Coulter sent for the miller's wife on some small pretext of
business, that she might see her little lodger, and Lilie returned from
Harrows laden with fruit, and toys, and sweetmeats, and leaving little
Harry Coulter, the agriculturist's Benjamin, struggling with desperate
energy to follow her, and hopelessly in love. Lilie had even been taken
to the Tower, and half smothered with caresses from Alice, had received
from Mrs. Catherine strange looks of musing melancholy, and one abrupt
expression of wonder--
"Who was she like?"
Miss Falconer herself had gallopped a couple of miles out of her way,
and stopped at the Mill, with her horse in a foam, to make acquaintance
with the little Donna. Jacky had constituted herself her bodyguard and
attendant, and carried her off whole days on solitary rambles among the
hills. There were few of all the circle round who were not interested in
the stranger child.
But no one received so great a share of Lilie's regard, or was so
powerfully attracted towards her, as Anne Ross. There was a new pleasure
now in the long walks, which had a half hour's playful intercourse with
Lilie to make them cheerful; and Anne again and again repeated her
inquiries concerning the stranger who had left the child with Mrs.
Melder, without however eliciting anything new.
"She wasna put on like a lady," repeated the miller's wife. "My ain
muckle shawl, wi' the border, was worth twa o' the ain she had on, and
naething but a printed goun. But I have seen folk in silks and satins,
Miss Anne, that had a commoner look--no that she was bonnie--but you saw
her yoursel."
"Yes," said Anne; "she was a very remarkable looking person."
"Na' but the eyes of her! They made me that I near sat down and
fainted--they had sic a wistful, murning look in them. The bairn's are
no unlike. Haud up your head, Lilie, my lamb--only it wad tak watching
and sorrow, if I'm no far mistaken, to gie her yon look. Waes me, Miss
Anne! it spoke o' a sair heart!"
"But Lilie's are bright and happy," said Anne, drawing the child closer
to her, and looking affectionately upon the little face, from which
shone eyes deep enough in their liquid darkness to mirror forth great
sorrows. "We must not let grief come near Lilie."
"Lilie blythe--blythe?" said the child, clinging to her side. "Lilie no
like happy. Blythe is bonnier! Lilie go the morn--up--up!"
"To the hills, Lilie?"
"Up--up!" said the child, imitating with feet and hands the motions of
climbing. "Lilie look away far--at the water."
"At the Oran, Lilie?"
"Where he go to?" asked Lilie, pointing through the window to the brown,
foaming water--"rinning fast? Where he go to?"
"To the sea, Lilie," said Anne.
"Yes--yes," said the child. "Lilie once sail upon the sea; row--row--in
a big boat. Lilie likes to look at it."
"Were you alone, Lilie?" said Anne. "Was no one with you?"
The child did not understand.
"A big boat--big--big--bigger than yon!" Lilie had seen Mrs. Catherine's
little vessel on the Oran, and had been greatly interested in it. "Lilie
ran about," and the child eked out her slender vocabulary with the
universal language of signs, "and saw the sea; but the water did not
come upon Lilie."
"And was there no one to take care of Lilie?" said Anne.--"No one to put
on her little frock, and to comb these pretty curls?"
The child looked up thoughtfully for a moment, and then, hiding her face
in Anne's lap, burst out into a passion of tears, moaning out in her own
language a lamentation over her "good nurse, her Juana," with all the
inconsolable vehemence of childhood.
"She has done that before," said Mrs. Melder. "Can ye make onything o'
the words, Miss Anne? I hae gotten to ken the sound o' them, though
neither Robert nor me can make ony sense o' the outlandish tongue.
Lilie, my lamb, whisht, like a guid bairn, and dry your eyes. See what a
bonnie book Miss Anne has brocht ye, and pictures in't!
"There's mony o' the neighbors wonder at us," continued Mrs. Melder, as
the child, when its fit of weeping was over, clambered up upon the table
in the window, and sat there, in enjoyment of the picture-book, "for
taking a bairn we ken naething about; and ye may think it foolish too,
Miss Anne. But the house was waesome wi' Robert out a' day, and the bit
thing had a pitiful look wi't, and the leddy--for she bid to be a leddy,
though she was plain enough put on--pleaded wi' me in sic a way that I
couldna withstand it; and we're clar o' a' loss, wi' the siller being in
Mr. Foreman's hand; and the bairn--puir wee desolate thing, cast off by
its ain bluid--is a fine bairn, now that she's learning to speak in a
civilized tongue. My ain Bell, if the Almighty had spared her, would hae
been about Lilie's age. Eh, Miss Anne! a young lady like you canna ken
what a sore dispensation that was! But we maun hae our ain way."
"And do you think the lady could be Lilie's mother?" said Anne, after a
pause.
"It's hard to say," said Mrs. Melder; "but I am maistly inclined to
think no, Miss Anne, for ye see the bairn disna greet after her the way
she did the now, when ye asked her wha came hame wi' her; and the leddy
hersel, though she beggit me to be careful o' the bairn, did not keep
her in her sight till the last moment, as a mother would have done; and
when she went by the Mill, Robert says--for he was watching--that she
never stopped to look back; sae I think she may have been a friend
further off, Miss Anne, but she couldna be Lilie's mother."
"Strange!" said Anne, "that any friend, above all a mother should send
away a child so interesting!"
"Ay, Miss Anne," said Mrs. Melder; "but the like o' you disna ken. There
are bitterer things in this world than even grief.--One canna tell. It
may be a shame and a disgrace to some decent family, that that wee
thing, pleasant as she is, has ever drawn breath--and the lady may be
some kin of the mother's, bringing it away out o' the sight o' kent folk
and friends. The like of that is ower common. Eh, pity me! there's nae
counting the wiles o' the enemy! There's Strathoran, ye see, and the
gentlemen that's in't playing at their cartes and their dice, they tell
me, on the very Sabbath day itsel! Is't no enough to bring a judgment on
the country-side? If auld Strathoran--honest man--could but look down
into his ain house now, I canna think but what it would make his heart
sair--even _yonder_. He was a guid man, auld Strathoran, though he did
put Mr. Bairnsfather into the parish."
"Was that wrong, Mrs. Melder?" said Anne.
"The Apostle says we're no to speak evil o' the ruler o' our people,"
said Mrs. Melder; "but, eh, Miss Anne, he's wersh and unprofitable. When
I was in my trouble and sorrow (and who can tell how dark the earth is,
and a'thing in't, when one is bereaved o' their first-born--their only
lamb!) Robert brought the minister, thinking he could speak a word o'
comfort to me; and what think ye he said, Miss Anne? No that I was to
look to my Lord that had gathered my lamb to his ain bosom, out of a'
the ills o' this world, but that I was to be reasonable and calm, and
bear the trouble wi' fortitude, because it couldna be helpit. That was
a' the comfort he had to speak to a distracted woman, whose only bairn
was in its grave! But he never had ony little ones himsel."
"And you do not come to the Church, now?" said Anne, holding out her
hand, as Lilie descended from the table, and came to her side again.
"Na; we were once gaun to the Meeting, Robert and me, for the Seceder
minister preaches guid doctrine, but we couldna think to leave the Kirk.
My father was an elder for twenty year--sae we aye waited on till Mr.
Lumsden came to Portoran. Eh, Miss Anne, he's a grand man! They say
there's no the like o' him in the haill Presbytery!"
"What is this, Lilie?" cried Anne.
Lilie had brought her new "Shorter Catechism," that much-prized
text-book of Presbyterian Scotland, to point out the lessons which she
was to repeat to Robert Melder, on the Sabbath afternoon, according to
the venerable and excellent custom of such religious humble households;
and insisted upon repeating her former "questions" and the first Psalm
she had learnt in her new language.
Anne took the book, well pleased, and listened, while Lilie repeated
that beautiful proposition in which all Scotland for centuries has
learned to define the chief end of man, and then, with some slight
stammering and uncertainty, went on:
"That man hath perfect blessedness,
Who walketh not astray."
The first verse was repeated, and Lilie stayed to remember the second.
"Eh," cried Mrs. Melder, "hasna she come uncommon fast on? but I wish ye
would speak to Jacky Morison, Miss Anne, she's learning the bairn
nonsense ballants and--"
"He shall be like a tree that grows,
Near planted by a river,"
burst out Lilie triumphantly.
"Which in his season yields his fruit,
And his leaf fadeth never.
And all he doth shall prosper well--"
The child paused--accomplished the next three lines with prompting, and
then made a stop.
"Lilie no mind now--Lilie show you the tree."
Anne suffered herself to be drawn out--the tree which Lilie fancied must
be the one meant in the Psalm, was an oak which stood upon a swelling
hillock close by the Oran. When they came near, the child's wandering
attention was caught by some carving on the rude and gnarled trunk.
"What's that?" she asked.
Anne read it, wonderingly:
"Norman R. R. Marion L."
Beneath were two longer lines:
"Like autumn leaves upon the forest ways,
The gentle hours fall soft, the brightest days
Fade from our sight."
and a date. The carvings were near the root, and might have been done by
some one sitting on the grassy bank below. Anne had some difficulty in
deciphering them, and when she had led her little charge home, returned
alone to trace the moss-grown characters again. The date was seventeen
years before--Norman R. R. Could it be possible that some other bore
that name--or was it indeed a record of some bygone pleasant musing of
her unhappy brother's, before name, and fame, and fortune were lost in
that dark crime--before the mark of Cain was sealed upon his brow.
And were there yet greater depths in this calamity than she knew, and
more sufferers; the Marion who shared his happier thoughts--who was she?
or how had Norman's blight, so much more dreadful than death, fallen
upon her?
The dusky December weeks passed on, and, on the last night of the year,
a tall man, closely enveloped in a plaid, walked softly up the dark
avenue towards the house of Strathoran. He seemed to know its turns and
windings well, as keeping under covert of the thickest trees, he
hastily approached the house;--once near it, he crossed the path quickly
to gain the obscurity of its shadow, and then walked round it several
times without manifesting any desire of entering. It was a very dreary
night--the ground was thoroughly soaked with recent rains, and heavy
clouds drifted in dark masses over the sky, of whose dull leaden
surface, and wading afflicted moon you could see occasional glimpses, as
these gloomy hosts of vapors were parted by the wind. A fitful glance of
the moon fell now and then upon the stranger's face. It was pale and
resolute, and rigid, like the face of one undergoing some terrible
surgical operation, to endure which manfully his every nerve was
strained. He paused at last opposite a brilliant window, and retreating
backward, raised himself by aid of a tree, so that he could look in.
Through the closed curtains he could see a party of gentlemen sitting at
their wine--the sound of their laughter, and gay voices, reached him on
his watch. With keen eyes he surveyed the unconscious revellers, marked
every face, took in, as it seemed, every particular of the scene, and
then descending, took his way again through the solitary avenue, and
turning as before into a side path, reached the highway unseen. Onward
he went, walking very quickly for full two dreary miles, and arrived at
last not at any dwelling of man, but at a solitary graveyard, still and
solemn, lying upon Oranside, in the midst of which rose the ruined walls
of an ancient chapel, moss-grown, and clad with clinging ivy.--The alarm
which called forth the parishioners of more southern districts, night
after night, to watch their dead, had not reached the distant stillness
of Strathoran, and the stranger entered unmolested and unseen. He
directed his steps to the chapel, climbed the broken stair, and entered
the small unroofed apartment, with its ruined walls, and trailing ivy,
and floor of lettered flags, bearing upon them the names of those who
slept below--for this was the burial-place of the long-descended
Sutherlands of Strathoran. Another uncertain glance of the wan moon
directed him to a marble tablet in the wall, by the side of which he
stood long in the dreary silence, motionless and still, himself like
some dark statue, mocking the dead with empty honor. Hugh Sutherland and
Isabel his wife, lay underneath the watcher's feet; and the son to whom
they had left so fair a heritage, and who had visited their grave two
twelvemonths since, bearing a name of universal honor, and looking forth
upon a smiling future, through natural tears that became him well--stood
there now, tearless and stern in the thick gloom of night--a houseless,
joyless man.
"I have obeyed," said Archibald Sutherland, leaning upon the ruined
wall. "I have returned to see my father's house in the hands of an alien
to his blood--and now what remains?" His knees were bent upon the stone
that covered the dust of father and of mother--his brow pressed to the
tablet that chronicled their names; and the ruined man in his extremity,
poured out his full heart into the ear of One who heareth always, and
never more certainly than when the voice of supplication rises to Him
"out of the depths." "Who shall stand before thee if thou markest
iniquity? yet is there forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be
feared, and plenteous redemption."
Yes, _that_ remained--omnipotent, over all, in His tender mercy, the God
whose plentiful redemption encircles with its arms of divine compassion
its every returning prodigal--the loving-kindness that turns no
supplicant away. The sympathy most wonderful and strange of all, which
"touches"--the heart of the Incarnate God with "a fellow-feeling for our
infirmities!"--these remained--greater than all sorrows of the earth.
So with less sternness in his pale face, and less despair in his heart,
Archibald Sutherland retraced his steps, and turned to the humble
fisher's house far down the Oran, the inhabitants of which had recently
come to the district, and knew not either the name or the quality of the
stranger whom they had reluctantly agreed to shelter for the night.
He had hovered that same evening in cover of the darkness, in the
neighborhood of the Tower--had passed the hospitable walls of Woodsmuir,
and looked through the bare trees at Merkland; but drawing back in
painful shame, had not dared to enter, or make himself known to any of
them all--they all had households, kindred, warm friends about them. He
only was alone.
The next night, with his plaid wrapped as closely about him as before,
and serving as a disguise, he passed along Oranside in the darkness,
turning his steps to the Tower. He could not delay longer--already
perhaps in the bitter pain of last night's trial, he had delayed too
long, and in passing those wide-spreading fields and plantations, once
his own, but in which now the meanest hind dwelling among them had more
share than he, he felt that last night's trial might be indefinitely
prolonged. He came to the Tower at last, and found it also gay and full
of light. The hall-door was open, and within stood a knot of servants.
The door of Mrs. Euphan Morison's snug room was ajar, and showed Duncan
from Merkland, and Mr. Coulter's grave man-servant sitting comfortably
by the fireside, while the Falcon's Craig groom, and Mr. Foreman's lad,
and one or two younger attendants, stood among Mrs. Catherine's
maid-servants in the hall listening to the music above.
"Jacky, ye monkey, shut that door," cried Mrs. Euphan Morison, "Idle
hizzies clavering nonsense, and decent folk like to get their death o'
cauld. I wad advise ye to tak hame some o' that horehound-balsam wi'
ye, Duncan--it's uncommon guid for hoarseness. I made it with my ain
hand."
Jacky darted forward to do her mother's bidding; and Archibald felt the
girl's keen eye pierce his disguise in a moment.--She paused, looked at
him. "If ye please, will I tell Mrs. Catherine?"
"Yes--but wait, Jacky, let me go up stairs."
Jacky went gravely forward before him, and drawing his plaid more
closely over his face, Archibald followed her unobserved.--The girl led
him to a small apartment which opened into that well-remembered
drawing-room, and without saying a word, left him there. He sat down and
waited. Ah! these gay sounds of mirth and music, how bitterly they mock
sick hearts. A sort of hope had inspired him, as he felt himself once
more in shelter of these stately walls, but now, within hearing of the
sounds of pleasure and rejoicing, his heart again sank within him. There
was no place for him--homeless and hopeless, there. As he listened, a
simple voice began to sing--words chiming strangely in with his changed
fortunes.
"Like autumn leaves upon the forest ways,
The gentle hours fall soft, the brightest days
Fade from our sight.
A dimness steals upon the earth and heaven,
Blended of gloom and light;
Shuts its soft eyelid o'er day's azure levin,
And shades with its soft tints the glories of sweet even
To sober-toned night.
"From his deep cradle the woods among
His russet robes waving free,
The Oran with his kindly tongue,
Is travelling to the sea.
He rushes to the ocean old,
In sparkling wave and foam,
And out into that trackless wold
Bears the kind voice of home.
Wayfaring man, far, on the sea
Listen how he calls to thee!
"Warm household lights are shining out
His rugged channel o'er.
Ill plants of malice, and guile, and doubts
Ne'er blossom on his shore.
There is Peace in her matron's gown and hood.
Her footsteps never roam,
And Hope is in pleasant neighborhood
And strength is strongest at home
Thy foot is weary, thy cheek is wan,
Come to thy kindred, wayfaring man
"Oran's ringing voice he hears,
The great sea waves among,
To yon far shore the ripple bears
The Oran's kindly tongue.
Yet he labors on, and travels far,
For years of toil must glide,
Before he sees the even star
Rise calm on Oranside.
Speed thy labor o'er land and sea,
Home and kindred are waiting for thee!
"The gentle hours fall soft, the brightest days,
Like autumn leaves upon the forest ways,
Fade from our sight.
And night and day he labors as he can,
Far from home's kindly light.
His foot is weary, and his cheek is wan,
Ah! pray, young hearts, for the sad wayfaring man
Laboring this night."
The air was very simple beginning and ending in a low pathetic strain,
and with a quicker measure for the intervening verses--but the music was
but a soft chiming breath, bearing along the words. Archibald Sutherland
leaned his head upon his hands, the burden floating dizzily through his
mind. Alas! for him, beginning his wayfaring so painfully, neither home
nor kindred waited. He heard a step approach--a hand gently open the
door of communication, and raised his head, a sad calmness possessing
him.--Among the gay hearts, divided from him only by that wall, there
might be some one, whose prayer of gentle pity, would indeed rise for
the wayfaring man.