I SEE A STAR
We were still at Thrieve. The woods were yet one manifest emerald.
Only the birds began to take up again their later after-summer song.
It was a fair place. But--how shall I describe it?--to me there was a
veil over everything. Over the river something smoked black like a
chimney that will not draw aright. A grey netting of mist was flung
over the trees. At times there came a thicker drift of the same
slate-coloured reek, as if the pain and the sin went crying up from
the ground like the blood of righteous Abel.
Even the splendours of sunset over the purple ridges of Balmaghie and
the dewy clearness of sunrise welling up out of the east behind the
wood-crests of Carlinwark were tached and bedabbled by that black
spume, the breath as of the burning of Babylon the great, mother of
abominations.
Only at one spot did the countryside about Thrieve keep its ancient
sweetness, and that was up towards the little kirkyard of
Balmaghie--_outside_ of which they had buried him, my babe.
There comes a wetness in these old eyes as I write, that was lacking
in them forty years ago. Then I could look with scarcely more than a
dry, hot twitching of the throat at the place. But now, grown old and
once more verging on childhood, the tears come great and salt--though
not easily as they used to do at Cour Cheverney, or at Thrieve during
those ten years when I fretted waiting for that which was to bring me
so much pain when I gat it.
For the rest I can hardly tell the wonderful thoughts that came into
my head during these days. I had changed my chamber from the south
side, where the black reek seemed to whirl and drift most thickly
(though all the time I knew it was only in my head!), to the north,
from which, up the splendid pathway of the broad undivided river,
glancing crystal-clear, I could see the ridge, behind which was
Balmaghie’s little white kirk, with the birds singing in the lilac
bushes under which he lay, just outside the wall of consecration (but
within God’s heavenly acre), my bairn--the Douglas who had never a
name or a title when they laid him in earth.
Then at morn, at the very first breaking of it, green and infinite as
if the Dawn of Dawns were indeed come, I was used to rise and look out
of that northward window. Yonder, pearl-clear and unsullied amid the
green, glowed His grave--yes, His. And I could not help but think of
him as like That Other who had his grave in a green garden--the
Sinless One who died for the sins of others.
And above, where she sat at her Son’s feet, the Mother Mary was not
angry that I thought of this, but smiled and was well pleased. So that
for a moment the clouds were rolled aside. The sky glowed white and
blue, the Holy Virgin’s colours, and, till the darkness shut down and
the eager pain banked up again in my heart, I could even put up a
prayer to Mary and her Son.
To God I could not pray. For He, I knew, was going to punish James for
his wrong-doing--and in that, though I could not forget, I desired to
have no part. It was not that I did not forgive. For myself I
did--yes, from the first. But that dear dead babe cried from the
ground. And once, in the silence of the night I heard him cry, and I
awoke and looked, and lo! to the north, clear and wonderful, a star!
Then I put on my clothes very quietly, and, passing on tiptoe the door
where Maud slumbered, tired out with her manifold anxieties, then out
by the little private door, I slipped past the sentries like a ghost
till on the shingle without I found a skiff moored. I pushed across
the black pool, striking the water at random, sometimes with one oar
and sometimes with two, but keeping my eyes always on the star. How it
shone--large and pure and gracious, like the rising of the harvest
moon over the serried sheaves of corn. By and by I came to the land,
or rather, it pushed itself softly against the boat. A place
deep-hidden among lush meadow grasses it was. Often, and in vain, I
have tried to find it since.
Dew-wet above, sponge-soft underneath it must have been, but of that I
have no memory. Certain tall marish grasses I remember shaking their
heads as I went by. Then came the acrid smell of bog-bean at night, of
wet Queen of the Meadow also, which thrust a tassel of blond dripping
fur into my face. I gathered my gown and sped northward--mine eyes on
the star. I feared--oh, how I feared that it would fade before I gat
there--the way was so long!
Yes, I prayed that it might not! For I thought--I seemed to feel that
all was in that. If I saw the light when I reached the spot, my babe
(whom they had buried unblessed by priestly hand) would see the face
of God and lie on the bosom of that Other Mother, whose benediction
would not be lacking. Also I thought that James, after God had
reckoned with him on earth, might also be forgiven. Perhaps. At least
I prayed so.
So I ran on, eager and forgetful of all, save what God was to do for
me, and the babe and James--and, yes--for that poor unhappy girl also,
that Magdalen, whose beauty had tempted my--no, I could not yet call
him _that_--had tempted James Douglas to his fate! For such are one
woman’s best thoughts of another!
Then was strength given me, not of myself, not the strength of my poor
limbs, made weak by suffering; but something quite different--out of
me, of divine gift, marvellous.
On and on I went, till the marshes gave way to the drier
field-pastures with the starting sheep, and then, hedged with thorns
and prickles, came little patches of yellowing corn. And once in a
hollow I lost the light, and I fell prone on my face. But not till
long afterwards did I know myself hurt. For in a moment I was up again
and ran on. And lo! the light, as I came nearer, grew more bright;
but, as it were, divided and scattered here and there among the
gravestones.
And I heard a sound of singing as if a myriad of the heavenly host was
chanting a psalm in honour of a little babe. So I ran fast and faster,
lest all might vanish like a dream of the night, and be ended like the
song of a bird, when, being frighted, it flies from one wood to
another far away.
For this reason I grew cautious, as those who see visions must often
be. I had heard of the tricks the Little People play. So I went
a-tiptoe to the gable-end of the kirk, knowing I could come to no harm
there. The kirkyard lay beyond. The kirk itself rose black above, as
it seemed, cutting hard against the stars, making a blank in heaven.
And over the rigging, lo, a soft gleaming of light from below! All the
winds were still. For sure, for very sure, I was to see the angels,
and die. What matter? Better so, indeed! Better for me and for the
babe.
Secretly I looked, hiding my poor clogged body behind a gravestone. I
remember now I was at once chill with cold and burning with fever. My
gown clung wet about me. My teeth chattered. Yet for all that my blood
ran hot and my heart beat fast. I was to see the angels--perhaps
also--perhaps? But no, that could not be, and I did not want it to be.
Maud had told me he was dead, and Maud did not lie. But if I could
only see the angels blessing him, carrying his soul upwards, my little
one whom men held not fit to lie within the hallowed precinct, dying
unbaptized--I should be happy. It would be enough.
I looked again. And behold, the little lich-gate of the kirkyard was
open! I could see many men in priestly robes come chanting, bearing
great candles in their hands. One in the midst, whose apparel was most
glorious, bore on his arms something small, wrapped about in white.
And as he led the way into the church, priests and holy brethren
followed with their tall candles--till they came to a new-made grave
dug within the altar rails. And, looking through a little window, I
saw how the man in the beautiful raiment, whose face was hidden, knelt
with the white bundle in his arms, and how another, more simply
dressed in white, with bands of gold and purple over his shoulders,
read out of a book. And after a while, even as I looked, the man whose
face had been hidden rose up, and lo, it was Laurence!
And I saw him lay the little white, oblong bundle in the grave, and
the priest blessed it again, and sprinkled holy water, and scattered
earth upon it. And even as he stood there with his hands outspread,
something gave way within me, and I rushed through the door and up the
aisle till I threw me, as it were, across the very grave wherein he
lay--the babe who was now blessed, anointed, and baptized, mayhap
against the canons of Holy Church, but of a certainty according to the
desires of Him who drew the little children unto Him.
I lay stretched out before the priest wet and shivering, they tell me,
though burning hot with fever. And with my mouth to the ground I cried
(I have no remembrance of it)--
“_Bless me also, O Holy Ones; bless me, and the babe, with his father,
and--Yes, I will say it, her who hath taken him from me!_”
* * * * * * *
They lifted me up and brought me home, to lie long in the
north-looking room betwixt life and death--and of the two infinitely
nearer to death--for many weeks.
And Laurence, ere he left the kirkyard, bade all the fathers and
brethren keep silence, for if these things were known at Rome every
man of them would lose their frocks. “But,” he added, “the God who
made a man His vicegerent on the earth be my Court of Appeal whether
this night I have done right or no!”
And while they were carrying me home to Thrieve, they intoned very
solemnly the _Laus Deo_ and the _Gloria_. They knew not whether or no
I lived, but they knew that here or hence, having seen what I had
seen, a great weight would be gone from my soul.
And so, indeed, it was. For when, faint with the hand of Death scarce
withdrawn from my heart, I was carried to the southward balcony to
look forth, lo! the black reek (which was Sin Unforgiven) had clean
gone from off the land.
All was as the soul of my babe, newly washed like my own, my little
_chrisom_, with the holy oil of anointing, though late, still moist
upon his brow. So that evil at least had passed away, and for a time
my soul had ease.
And as I lay long, holding Maud’s hand, I asked her under my breath by
what name they had called him. For a while she did not answer, and
then said only, “Laurence thought it wise to call him
William--because”--
Then, as she hesitated, I interrupted.
“Do not fear for me,” I cried; “as ever, Laurence did the right.
Though I loved him not, William Douglas was my true husband. It is
well that the babe who was another’s, dying unspotted by the world,
should bear a good man’s name in that nursery where such God’s
children are kept and watched and tended! I am glad indeed!”
At that she kissed me and I kissed her--for the first time for long
out of love and with a full heart. And from that time forth I think I
was to her even as one of her own children.