THE TWO PAIRS.
The next morning, on the way to the village, the brothers overtook
Christina and Mercy, and they walked along together.
The young men felt inclined to be the more friendly with the girls,
that the men of their own family were so unworthy of them. A man who
does not respect a woman because she is a woman, cannot have
thorough respect for his own mother, protest as he pleases: he is
incapable of it, and cannot know his own incapacity. Alas for girls
in a family where the atmosphere of vile thinking, winnowed by the
carrion wings of degraded and degrading judgments, infolds them! One
of the marvels of the world is, that, with such fathers and
brothers, there are so few wicked women. Type of the greater number
stands Ophelia, poor, weak, and not very refined, yet honest, and,
in all her poverty, immeasurably superior to father and brother.
Christina's condescension had by this time dwindled almost to the
vanishing-point, and her talk was in consequence more natural: the
company, conversation, and whole atmosphere of the young men, tended
to wake in the girls what was best and sweetest. Reality appeals at
once to the real, opens the way for a soul to emerge from the fog of
the commonplace, the marsh of platitude, the Sahara of lies, into
the colour and air of life. The better things of humanity often need
the sun of friendship to wile them out. A girl, well-bred, tolerably
clever, and with some genius of accommodation, will appear to a man
possessed of a hundred faculties of which she knows nothing; but his
belief will help to rouse them in her. A young man will see an angel
where those who love her best see only a nice girl; but he sees not
merely what she might be, but what one day she must be.
Christina had been at first rather taken with the ploughman, but she
turned her masked batteries now mainly on the soldier. During the
dinner she had noted how entirely Ian was what she chose to call a
man of the world; and it rendered him in her eyes more worthy of
conquest. Besides, as elder sister, must she not protect the
inexperienced Mercy?
What is this passion for subjugation? this hunger for homage? Is it
of hell direct, or what is there in it of good to begin with?
Apparently it takes possession of such women as have set up each
herself for the object of her worship: she cannot then rest from the
effort to bring as many as possible to worship at the same shrine;
and to this end will use means as deserving of the fire as any
witchcraft.
Christina stopped short with a little cry, and caught Ian's arm.
"I beg your pardon," she said, "but I cannot bear it a moment
longer! Something in my boot hurts me so!"
She limped to the road-side, sat down, accepted the service of Ian
to unlace her boot, and gave a sigh of relief when he pulled it off.
He inverted and shook it, then searched and found a nail which must
have hurt her severely.
But how to get rid of the cruel projection! Ian's slender hand could
but just reach with its finger-tips the haunted spot. In vain he
tried to knock it down against a stone put inside. Alister could
suggest nothing. But Mistress Conal's cottage was near: they might
there find something to help! Only Christina could not be left
behind, and how was she to walk in a silk stocking over a road
frozen hard as glass? The chief would have carried her, but she
would not let him. Ian therefore shod her with his Glengarry bonnet,
tying it on with his handkerchief.
There was much merriment over the extemporized shoe, mingled with
apologetic gratitude from Christina, who, laughing at her poulticed
foot, was yet not displeased at its contrast with the other.
When the chief opened the door of the cottage, there was no one to
be seen within. The fire was burning hot and flameless; a
three-footed pot stood half in it; other sign of presence they saw
none. As Alister stooped searching for some implement to serve their
need, in shot a black cat, jumped over his back, and disappeared.
The same instant they heard a groan, and then first discovered the
old woman in bed, seemingly very ill. Ian went up to her.
"What is the matter with you, Mistress Conal?" he asked, addressing
her in English because of the ladies.
But in reply she poured out a torrent of Gaelic, which seemed to the
girls only grumbling, but was something stronger. Thereupon the
chief went and spoke to her, but she was short and sullen with him.
He left her to resume his search.
"Let alone," she cried. "When that nail leaves her brog, it will be
for your heart."
Ian sought to soothe her.
"She will bring misery on you all!" she insisted.
"You have a hammer somewhere, I know!" said Alister, as if he had
not heard her.
"She shall be finding no help in MY house!" answered the old woman
in English.
"Very well, Mistress Conal!" returned the chief; "the lady cannot
walk home; I shall have to carry her!"
"God forbid!" she cried. "Go and fetch a wheelbarrow."
"Mistress Conal, there is nothing for it but carry her home in my
arms!"
"Give me the cursed brog then. I will draw the nail."
But the chief would not yield the boot; he went out and searched the
hill-side until he found a smooth stone of suitable size, with which
and a pair of tongs, he beat down the nail. Christina put on the
boot, and they left the place. The chief stayed behind the rest for
a moment, but the old woman would not even acknowledge his presence.
"What a rude old thing she is! This is how she always treats us!"
said Christina.
"Have you done anything to offend her?" asked Alister.
"Not that we know of. We can't help being lowlanders!"
"She no doubt bears you a grudge," said Ian, "for having what once
belonged to us. I am sorry she is so unfriendly. It is not a common
fault with our people."
"Poor old thing! what does it matter!" said Christina.
A woman's hate was to her no more than the barking of a dog.
They had not gone far, before the nail again asserted itself; it had
been but partially subjugated. A consultation was held. It resulted
in this, that Mercy and the chief went to fetch another pair of
boots, while Ian remained with Christina.
They seated themselves on a stone by the roadside. The sun clouded
over, a keen wind blew, and Christina shivered. There was nothing
for it but go back to the cottage. The key was in the door, Ian
turned it, and they went in. Certainly this time no one was there.
The old woman so lately groaning on her bed had vanished. Ian made
up the fire, and did what he could for his companion's comfort.
She was not pleased with the tone of his attentions, but the way she
accepted them made her appear more pleased than Ian cared for, and
he became colder and more polite. Piqued by his indifference, she
took it nevertheless with a sweetness which belonged to her nature
as God made it, not as she had spoiled it; and even such a butterfly
as she, felt the influence of a man like Ian, and could not help
being more natural in his presence. His truth elicited what there
was of hers; the true being drew to the surface what there was of
true in the being that was not true. The longer she was in his
company, the more she was pleased with him, and the more annoyed
with her failure in pleasing him.
It is generally more or less awkward when a young man and maiden
between whom is no convergent rush of spiritual currents, find
themselves alone together. Ian was one of the last to feel such
awkwardness, but he thought his companion felt it; he did his best,
therefore, to make her forget herself and him, telling her story
after story which she could not but find the more interesting that
for the time she was quieted from self, and placed in the humbler
and healthier position of receiving the influence of another. For
one moment, as he was narrating a hair's-breadth escape he had had
from a company of Tartar soldiers by the friendliness of a young
girl, the daughter of a Siberian convict, she found herself under
the charm of a certain potency of which he was himself altogether
unconscious, but which had carried away hearts more indifferent than
hers.
In the meantime, Alister and Mercy were walking toward the New
House, and, walking, were more comfortable than those that sat
waiting. Mercy indeed had not much to say, but she was capable of
asking a question worth answering, and of understanding not a
little. Thinking of her walk with Ian on Christmas day,--
"Would you mind telling me something about your brother?" she said.
"What would you like to know about him?" asked Alister.
"Anything you care to tell me," she answered.
Now there was nothing pleased Alister better than talking about Ian;
and he talked so that Mercy could not help feeling what a brother he
must be himself; while on his part Alister was delighted with the
girl who took such an interest in Ian: for Ian's sake he began to
love Mercy. He had never yet been what is called in love--had
little opportunity indeed of falling in love. His breeding had been
that of a gentleman, and notwithstanding the sweetness and
gentleness of the maidens of his clan, there were differences which
had as yet proved sufficient to prevent the first approaches of
love, though, once entertained, they might have added to the depth
of it. At the same time it was by no means impossible for Alister to
fall in love with even an uneducated girl--so-called; neither would
he, in that case, have felt any difficulty about marrying her; but
the fatherly relation in which he stood toward his clan, had tended
rather to prevent the thing. Many a youth falls to premature
love-making, from the lack in his daily history of the womanly
element. Matrons in towns should be exhorted to make of their houses
a refuge. Too many mothers are anxious for what they count the
welfare of their own children, and care nothing for the children of
other women! But can we wonder, when they will wallow in meannesses
to save their own from poverty and health, and damn them into
comfort and decay.
Alister told Mercy how Ian and he used to spend their boyhood. He
recounted some of their adventures in hunting and herding and
fishing, and even in going to and from school, a distance of five
miles, in all weathers. Then he got upon the poetry of the people,
their legends, their ballads and their songs; and at last came to
the poetry of the country itself--the delights of following the
plough, the whispers and gleams of nature, her endless appeal
through every sense. The mere smell of the earth in a spring
morning, he said, always made him praise God.
"Everything we have," he went on, "must be shared with God. That is
the notion of the Jewish thank-offering. Ian says the greatest word
in the universe is ONE; the next greatest, ALL. They are but the two
ends of a word to us unknowable--God's name for himself."
Mercy had read Mrs. Barbauld's Hymns, and they had been something to
her; but most of the little poetry she had read was only platitude
sweetened with sound; she had never read, certainly never understood
a real poem. Who can tell what a nature may prove, after feeding on
good food for a while? The queen bee is only a better fed working
bee. Who can tell what it may prove when it has been ploughed with
the plough of suffering, when the rains of sorrow, the frosts of
pain, and the winds of poverty have moistened and swelled and dried
its fallow clods?
Mercy had not such a sweet temper as her sister, but she was not so
selfish. She was readier to take offence, perhaps just because she
was less self-satisfied. Before long they might change places. A
little dew from the eternal fountain was falling upon them.
Christina was beginning to be aware that a certain man, neither rich
nor distinguished nor ambitious, had yet a real charm for her. Not
that for a moment she would think seriously of such a man! That
would be simply idiotic! But it would be very nice to have a little
innocent flirtation with him, or perhaps a "Platonic friendship!
"--her phrase, not mine. What could she have to do with Plato, who,
when she said I, was aware only of a neat bundle of foolish desires,
not the God at her heart!
Mercy, on the other hand, was being drawn to the big, strong,
childlike heart of the chief. There is always, notwithstanding the
gulf of unlikeness between them, an appeal from the childish to the
childlike. The childish is but the shadow of the childlike, and
shadows are little like the things from which they fall. But to what
save the heavenly shall the earthly appeal in its sore need, its
widowhood, its orphanage? with what shall the childish take refuge
but the childlike? to what shall ignorance cry but wisdom? Mercy
felt no restraint with the chief as with Ian. His great, deep, yet
refined and musical laugh, set her at ease. Ian's smile, with its
shimmering eternity, was no more than the moon on a rain-pool to
Mercy. The moral health of the chief made an atmosphere of conscious
safety around her. By the side of no other man had she ever felt so.
With him she was at home, therefore happy. She was already growing
under his genial influence. Every being has such influence who is
not selfish.
When Christina was re-shod, and they were leaving the cottage, Ian,
happening to look behind him, spied the black cat perched on the
edge of the chimney in the smoke.
"Look at her," he said, "pretending innocence, when she has been
watching you all the time!"
Alister took up a stone.
"Don't hurt her," said Ian, and he dropped it.