sae lang i’ the tongue, Aggie.”
“Think ye a lang tongue ’s a lass’s safety, Cosmo? I wad awe nane
til ’t! But what’s ta’en ye the nicht, ’at ye speyk to me sae? I ken
no occasion.”
“Aggie, I wadna willin’ly say a word to vex ye,” answered Cosmo;
“but I hae notit an h’ard ’at the best ’o wuman whiles tak
oonaccootable fancies to men no fit to haud a can’le to them.”
Aggie turned her head aside.
“I wad ill like you, for instance, to be drawn to yon Crawford,” he
went on. “It’s eneuch to me ’at he’s been lang the factotum o’ an
ill man.”
A slight convulsive movement passed across Aggie’s face, leaving
behind it a shadow of hurtless resentment, yielding presently to a
curious smile.
“I micht mak a better man o’ ’im,” she said, and again looked away.
“They a’ think that, I’m thinkin’!” returned Cosmo with a sad
bitterness. “An’ sae they wull, to the warl’s en’.--But, Aggie,” he
added, after a pause, “ye ken ye’re no to be oonaiqually yokit.”
“That’s what I hae to heed, I ken,” murmured Aggie. “But what do ye
un’erstan’ by ’t, Cosmo? There’s nae worshippers o’ idols the noo,
as i’ the days whan the apostle said that.”
“There’s idols visible, an’ idols invisible,” answered Cosmo.
“There’s heaps o’ idols amo’ them ’at ca’s themsel’s an’ ’s coontit
christians. Gien a man set himsel’ to lay by siller, he’s the
worshipper o’ as oogly an idol as gien he said his prayers to the
fish-tailt god o’ the Philistines.”
“Weel I wat that!” returned Agnes, and a silence followed.
“You an’ me’s aye been true til ane anither, Aggie,” resumed Cosmo
at length, “an’ I wad fain hae a promise frae ye--jist to content
me.”
“What aboot, Cosmo?”
“Promise, an’ I’ll tell ye, as the bairnies say.”
“But we’re no bairnies, Cosmo, an’ I daurna--even to you ’at I wad
trust like the Bible. Tell me what it is, an’ gien I may, I wull.”
“It’s no muckle atween you an’ me, Aggie. It’s only this--’at gien
ever ye fa’ in love wi’ onybody, ye’ll lat me ken.”
Agnes was silent for a moment; then, with a tremble in her voice,
which in vain she sought to smooth out, and again turning her head
away, answered:
“Cosmo, I daurna.”
“I want naething mair,” said Cosmo, thinking she must have
misapprehended, “nor the promise ’at what ye ken I sail ken. I wad
fain be wi’ ye at sic a time.”
“Cosmo,” said Aggie with much solemnity, “there’s ane at’s aye at
han’, ane that sticketh closer nor a brither. The thing ye require
o’ me, micht be what a lass could tell to nane but the father o’
her--him ’at’s in haiven.”
Cosmo was silenced, as indeed it was time and reason he should be;
for had she been his daughter, he would have had no right to make
such a request of her. He did it in all innocence, and might well
have asked her to tell him, but not to promise to tell him. He did
not yet understand however that he was wrong, and was the more
troubled about her, feeling as if, for the first time in their
lives, Aggie and he had begun to be divided.
They entered the kitchen. Aggie hastened to help Grizzie lay the
cloth for supper. Her grandfather looked up with a smile from the
newspaper he was reading in the window. The laird, who had an old
book in his hand, called out,
“Here, Cosmo! jist hearken to this bit o’ wisdom, my man--frae a
hert doobtless praisin’ God this mony a day in higher warl’s:--‘He
that would always know before he trusts, who would have from his
God a promise before he will expect, is the slayer of his own
eternity.’”
The words mingled strangely with what had just passed between him
and Agnes. Both they and that gave him food for thought, but could
not keep him awake.
The bailiff continued to haunt the goings and comings of Agnes, but
few supposed his attentions acceptable to her. Cosmo continued more
and less uneasy.
The harvest was over at length, and the little money earned mostly
laid aside for the sad winter, once more on its way. But no good
hope dies without leaving a child, a younger and fresher hope,
behind it. The year’s fruit must fall that the next year’s may
come, and the winter is the only way to the spring.
CHAPTER XLV.
THE FINAL CONFLICT.
As there was no more weekly pay for teaching, and no extra hands
were longer wanted for farm-labour, Cosmo, hearing there was a
press of work and a scarcity of workmen in the building-line,
offered his services, at what wages he should upon trial judge them
worth, to Sandy Shand, the mason, then erecting a house in the
village for a certain Mr. Pennycuik--a native of the same, who,
having left it long ago, and returned from India laden with riches,
now desired, if not to end, yet to spend his days amid the
associations of his youth. Upon this house, his offer accepted,
Cosmo laboured, now doing the work of a mason, now of a carpenter,
and receiving fair wages, until such time when the weather put a
stop to all but in-door work of the kind. But the strange thing
was, that, instead of reaping golden opinions for his readiness to
turn his hand to anything honest by which he could earn a shilling,
Cosmo became in consequence the object of endless blame--that a
young man of his abilities, with a college-education, should spend
his time--_waste_ it, people said--at home, pottering about at work
that was a disgrace to a gentleman, instead of going away and
devoting himself to some _honourable calling_. “Look at Mr.
Pennycuik!” they said. “See how he has raised himself in the social
scale, and that without one of the young laird’s advantages! There
he stands, a rich man and employer of labour, while the
poor-spirited gentleman is one of his hired labourers!” Such is the
mean idea most men have of the self-raising that is the duty of a
man! They speak after their kind, putting ambition in the place of
aspiration. Not knowing the spirit they were of, these would have
had Cosmo say to his father, _Korban_. They knew nothing of, and were
incapable of taking into the account certain moral refinements and
delicate difficulties entailed upon him by that father, such as
might indeed bring him to beggary, but could never allow him to
gather riches like those of Mr. Pennycuik. Like his father he had a
holy weakness for the purity that gives alms of the things within
us. If there is one thing a Christian soul recoils from, it is
meanness--of action, of thought, of judgment. What a heaven some
must think to be saved into! At the same time Cosmo would not have
left his father to make a fortune the most honourable.
Through stress of weather, Cosmo was therefore thrown back once
more upon his writing. But still, whether it was that there was too
little of Grizzie or too much of himself in these later stories,
his work seemed to have lost either the power or the peculiarity
that had recommended it. Things therefore did not look promising.
But they had a fair stock of oatmeal laid in, and that was the
staff of life, also a tolerable supply of fuel, which neighbours
had lent them horses to bring from the peat-moss.
With the cold weather the laird began again to fail, and Cosmo to
fear that this would be the last of the good man’s winters. As the
best protection from the cold he betook himself to bed, and Cosmo
spent his life almost in the room, reading aloud when the old man
was able to listen, and reading to himself or writing when he was
not. The other three of the household were mostly in the kitchen,
saving fuel, and keeping each other company. And thus the little
garrison awaited the closer siege of the slow-beleaguering winter,
most of them in their hearts making themselves strong to resist the
more terrible enemies which all winter-armies bring flying on their
flanks--the haggard fiends of doubt and dismay--which creep through
the strongest walls. To trust in spite of the look of being
forgotten; to keep crying out into the vast whence comes no voice,
and where seems no hearing; to struggle after light, where is no
glimmer to guide; at every turn to find a doorless wall, yet ever
seek a door; to see the machinery of the world pauseless grinding
on as if self-moved, caring for no life, nor shifting a
hair’s-breadth for all entreaty, and yet believe that God is awake
and utterly loving; to desire nothing but what comes meant for us
from his hand; to wait patiently, willing to die of hunger, fearing
only lest faith should fail--such is the victory that overcometh
the world, such is faith indeed. After such victory Cosmo had to
strive and pray hard, sometimes deep sunk in the wave while his
father floated calm on its crest: the old man’s discipline had been
longer; a continuous communion had for many years been growing
closer between him and the heart whence he came.
“As I lie here, warm and free of pain,” he said once to his son,
“expecting the redemption of my body, I cannot tell you how happy I
am. I cannot think how ever in my life I feared anything. God knows
it was my obligation to others that oppressed me, but now, in my
utter incapacity, I am able to trust him with my honour, and my
duty, as well as my sin.”
“Look here, Cosmo,” he said another time; “I had temptations such
as you would hardly think, to better my worldly condition, and
redeem the land of my ancestors, and the world would have
commended, not blamed me, had I yielded. But my God was with me all
the time, and I am dying a poorer man than my father left me,
leaving you a poorer man still, but, praised be God, an honest one.
Be very sure, my son, God is the only adviser to be trusted, and
you must do what he tells you, even if it lead you to a stake, to
be burned by the slow fire of poverty.--O my Father!” cried the old
man, breaking out suddenly in prayer, “my soul is a flickering
flame of which thou art the eternal, inextinguishable fire. I am
blessed because thou art. Because thou art life, I live. Nothing
can hurt me, because nothing can hurt thee. To thy care I leave my
son, for thou lovest him as thou hast loved me. Deal with him as
thou hast dealt with me. I ask for nothing, care for nothing but
thy will. Strength is gone from me, but my life is hid in thee. I
am a feeble old man, but I am dying into the eternal day of thy
strength.”
Cosmo stood and listened with holy awe and growing faith. For what
can help our faith like the faith of the one we most love, when,
sorely tried, it is yet sound and strong!
But there was still one earthy clod clinging to the heart of Cosmo.
There was no essential evil in it, yet not the less it held him
back from the freedom of the man who, having parted with
everything, possesses all things. The place, the things, the
immediate world in which he was born and had grown up, crowded with
the memories and associations of childhood and youth, amongst them
the shadowy loveliness of Lady Joan, had a hold of his heart that
savoured of idolatry. The love was born in him, had come down into
him through generation after generation of ancestors, had a power
over him for whose existence he was not accountable, but for whose
continuance, as soon as he became aware of its existence, he would
know himself accountable. For Cosmo was not one of those weaklings
who, finding in themselves certain tendencies with whose existence
they had nothing to do, and therefore in whose presence they have
no blame, say to themselves, “I cannot help it,” and at once create
evil, and make it their own, by obeying the inborn impulse.
Inheritors of a lovely estate, with a dragon in a den, which they
have to kill that the brood may perish, they make friends with the
dragon, and so think to save themselves trouble.
But I would not be misunderstood: I do not think Cosmo loved his
home too much; I only think he did not love it enough in God. To
love a thing divinely, is to be ready to yield it without a pang
when God wills it; but to Cosmo, the thought of parting with the
house of his fathers and the rag of land that yet remained to it,
was torture. This hero of mine, instead of sleeping the perfect
sleep of faith, would lie open-eyed through half the night,
hatching scheme after scheme--not for the redemption of the
property--even to him that seemed hopeless--but for the retention
of the house. Might it not at least go to ruin under eyes that
loved it, and with the ministration of tender hands that yet could
not fast enough close the slow-yawning chasms of decay? His dream
haunted him, and he felt that, if it came true, he would rather
live in the dungeon wine-cellar of the mouldering mammoth-tooth,
than forsake the old stones to live elsewhere in a palace. The love
of his soul for Castle Warlock was like the love of the Psalmist
for Jerusalem: when he looked on a stone of its walls, it was dear
to him. But the love of Jerusalem became an idolatry, for the Jews
no longer loved it because the living God dwelt therein, but
because it was _theirs_, and then it was doomed, for it was an idol.
The thing was somewhat different with Cosmo: the house was almost a
part of himself--an extension of his own body, as much his as the
shell of a snail is his. But because into this shell were not
continued those nerves of life which give the consciousness of the
body, and there was therefore no reaction from it of those feelings
of weakness and need which, to such a man as Cosmo, soon reveal the
fact that he is not lord of his body, that he cannot add to it one
cubit, or make one hair white or black, and must therefore leave
the care of it to him who made it, he had to learn in other ways
that his castle of stone was God’s also. His truth and humility and
love had not yet reached to the quickening of the idea of the old
house with the feeling that God was in it with him, giving it to
him. Not yet possessing therefore the soul of the house, its
greatest bliss, which nothing could take from him, he naturally
could not be content to part with it. It seemed an impossibility
that it should be taken from him--a wrong to things, to men, to
nature, that a man like Lick-my-loof should obtain the lordship
over it. As he lay in the night, in the heart of the old pile, and
heard the wind roaring about its stone-mailed roofs, the thought of
losing it would sting him almost to madness,--hurling him from his
bed to the floor, to pace up and down the room, burning, in the
coldest midnight of winter, like one of the children in the fiery
furnace, only the furnace was of worse fire, being the wrath which
worketh not the righteousness of God.
Suddenly one such night he became aware that he could not
pray--that in this mood he never prayed. In every other trouble he
prayed--felt it the one natural thing to pray! Why not in this?
Something must be wrong--terribly wrong!
It was a stormy night; the snow-burdened wind was raving; and Cosmo
would have been striding about the room but that now he was in his
father’s, and dreaded disturbing him. He lay still, with a stone on
his heart, for he was now awake to the fact that he could not say,
“Thy will be done.” He tried sore to lift up his heart, but could
not. Something rose ever between him and his God, and beat back his
prayer. A thick fog was about him--no air wherewith to make a cry!
In his heart not one prayer would come to life; it was like an old
nest without bird or egg in it.
It was too terrible! Here was a schism at the very root of his
being. The love of things was closer to him than the love of God.
Between him and God rose the rude bulk of a castle of stone! He
crept out of bed, laid himself on his face on the floor, and prayed
in an agony. The wind roared and howled, but the desolation in his
heart made of the storm a mere play of the elements. How few of my
readers will understand even the possibility of such a state! How
many of them will scorn the idea of it, as that of a man on the
high road to insanity!
“God,” he cried, “I thought I knew thee, and sought thy will; and I
have sought thy will in greater things than this wherein I now lie
ashamed before thee. I cannot even pray to thee. But hear thou the
deepest will in me, which, thou knowest, must bow before thine,
when once thou hast uttered it. Hear the prayer I cannot offer. Be
my perfect Father to fulfil the imperfection of thy child. Be God
after thy own nature, beyond my feeling, beyond my
prayer--according to that will in me which now, for all my trying,
refuses to awake and arise from the dead. O Christ, who knowest me
better a thousand times than I know myself, whose I am, divinely
beyond my notions of thee and me, hear and save me eternally, out
of thy eternal might whereby thou didst make me and give thyself to
me. Make me strong to yield all to thee. I have no way of
confessing thee before men, but in the depth of my thought I would
confess thee, yielding everything but the truth, which is thyself;
and therefore, even while my heart hangs back, I force my mouth to
say the words--_Take from me what thou wilt, only make me clean,
pure, divine._ To thee I yield the house and all that is in it. It
is thine, not mine. Give it to whom thou wilt. I would have nothing
but what thou choosest shall be mine. I have thee, and all things
are mine.”
Thus he prayed, thus he strove with a reluctant heart, forcing its
will by the might of a deeper will, that _would_ be for God and
freedom, in spite of the cleaving of his soul to the dust.
Then for a time thought ceased in exhaustion. When it returned, lo!
he was in peace, in the heart of a calm unspeakable. How it came he
could not tell, for he had not been aware of its approach; but the
contest was over, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep--ten
times his own because a thousand times another’s--one with him whom
all men in one could not comprehend, whom yet the heart of every
true child lays hold upon and understands.
I would not have it supposed that, although the crisis was past,
there was no more stormy weather.
Often it blew a gale--often a blast would come creeping in--almost
always in the skirts of the hope that God would never require such
a sacrifice of him. But he never again found he could not pray.
Recalling the strife and the great peace, he made haste to his
master, compelling the refractory slave in his heart to be free,
and cry, “Do thy will, not mine.” Then would the enemy withdraw,
and again he breathed the air of the eternal.
When a man comes to the point that he will no longer receive
anything save from the hands of him who has the right to withhold,
and in whose giving alone lies the value of possession, then is he
approaching the inheritance of the saints in light, of those whose
strength is made perfect in weekness. But there are those who for
the present it is needless to trouble any more than the chickens
about the yard. Their hour will come, and in the meantime they are
counted the fortunate ones of the earth.
CHAPTER XLVI.
A REST.
But now James Gracie fell sick. They removed him therefore from the
men’s quarters, and gave him Cosmo’s room, that he might be better
attended to, and warmer than in his own. Cosmo put up a bed for
himself in his father’s room, and Grizzie and Aggie slept together;
so now the household was gathered literally under one roof--that of
the kitchen-tower, as it had been called for centuries.
James’s attack was serious, requiring much attention, and involving
an increase of expenditure which it needed faith to face. But of
course Cosmo did not shrink from it: so long as his money lasted,
his money should go. James himself objected bitterly to such waste,
as he called it, saying what remained of his life was not worth it.
But the laird, learning the mood the old man was in, rose, and
climbed the stair, and stood before his bed, and said to him
solemnly, “Jeames, wha are ye to tell the Lord it’s time he sud tak
ye? what _kin’_ o’ faith is ’t, to refuse a sup, ’cause ye see na
anither spunefu’ upo’ the ro’d ahin’ ’t?”
James hid his old face in his old hands. The laird went back to his
bed, and nothing more ever passed on the subject.
The days went on, the money ran fast away, no prospect appeared of
more, but still they had enough to eat.
One morning in the month of January, still and cold, and dark
overhead, a cheerless day in whose bosom a storm was coming to
life, Cosmo, sitting at his usual breakfast of _brose_, the simplest
of all preparations of oatmeal, bethought himself whether some of
the curiosities in the cabinets in the drawing-room might not, with
the help of his friend the jeweller, be turned to account. Not
waiting to finish his breakfast, for which that day he had but
little relish, he rose and went at once to examine the family
treasures in the light of necessity.
The drawing-room felt freezing-dank like a tomb, and looked weary
of its memories. It was so still that it seemed as if sound would
die in it. Not a mouse stirred. The few pictures on the walls
looked perishing with cold and changelessness. The very shine of
the old damask was wintry. But Cosmo did not long stand gazing. He
crossed to one of the shrines of his childhood’s reverence, opened
it, and began to examine the things with the eye of a seller. Once
they had seemed treasures inestimable, now he feared they might
bring him nothing in his sore need. Scarce a sorrow at the thought
of parting with them woke in him, as one after another he set those
aside, and took these from their places and put them on a table. He
was like a miner searching for golden ore, not a miser whom hunger
had dominated. The sole question with him was, would this or that
bring money. When he had gone through the cabinet, he turned from
it to regard what he had found. There was a dagger in a sheath of
silver of raised work, with a hilt cunningly wrought of the same; a
goblet of iron with a rich pattern in gold beaten into it; a
snuff-box with a few diamonds set round a monogram in gold in the
lid: these, with several other smaller things that had an air of
promise about them, he thought it might be worth while to make the
trial with, and packed them carefully, thinking to take them at
once to Muir of Warlock, and commit them to the care of the
carrier. But when he returned to his father, he found he had been
missing him, and put off going till the next day.
As the sun went down, the wind rose, and the storm in the bosom of
the stillness came to life--the worst of that winter. It reminded
both father and son of the terrible night when Lord Mergwain went
out into the deep. The morning came, fierce with gray cold age, a
tumult of wind and snow. There seemed little chance the carrier
would go for days to come. But the storm might have been more
severe upon their hills than in the opener country, and Cosmo would
go and see. Certain things too had to be got for the invalids.
It was with no small difficulty he made his way through the snow to
the village, and there also he found it so deep, that the question
would have been how to get the cart out of the shed, not whether
the horses were likely to get it through the Glens o’ Fowdlan. He
left the parcel therefore with the carrier’s wife, and proceeded,
somewhat sad at heart, to spend the last of his money, amounting to
half-a-crown. Having done so, he set out for home, the wind
blowing fierce, and the snow falling thick.
Just outside the village he met a miserable-looking woman, with a
child in her arms. How she came to be there he could not think. She
moved him with the sense of community in suffering: hers was the
greater share, and he gave her the twopence he had left. Prudence
is but one of the minor divinities, if indeed she be anything
better than the shadow of a virtue, and he took no counsel with
her, knowing that the real divinity, Love, would not cast him out
for the deed. The widow who gave the two mites was by no means a
prudent person. Upon a certain ancient cabinet of carved oak is
represented _Charity_, gazing at the child she holds on her arm, and
beside her _Prudence_, regarding herself in a mirror.
Cosmo had not gone far, battling with wind and snow above and
beneath, before he began to feel his strength failing him. It had
indeed been failing for some time. Grizzie knew, although he
himself did not, that he had not of late been eating so well; and
he had never quite recovered his exertions in Lord Lick-my-loof’s
harvest-fields. Now, for the first time in his life, he began to
find his strength unequal to elemental war. But he laughed at the
idea, and held on. The wind was right in his face, and the cold was
bitter. Nor was there within him, though plenty of courage, good
spirits enough to supply any lack of physical energy. His breath
grew short, and his head began to ache. He longed for home that he
might lie down and breathe, but a long way and a great snowy wind
were betwixt him and rest. He fell into a reverie, and seemed to
get on better for not thinking about the exertion he had to make.
The monotony of it at the same time favoured the gradual absorption
of his thoughts in a dreamy meditation. Alternately sunk in himself
for minutes, and waking for a moment to the consciousness of what
was around him, he had walked, as it seemed, for hours, and at
length, all notion of time and distance gone, began to wonder
whether he must not be near the place where the parish-road turned
off. He stood, and sent sight into his eyes, but nothing was to be
seen through the drift save more drift behind it. Was he upon the
road at all? He sought this way and that, but could find neither
ditch nor dyke. He was lost! He knew well the danger of sitting
down, knew on the other hand that the more exhausted he was when he
succumbed, the sooner would the cold get the better of him, and
that even now he might be wandering from the abodes of men,
diminishing with every step the likelihood of being found. He
turned his back to the wind and stood--how long he did not know,
but while he stood thus ’twixt waking and sleeping, he received a
heavy blow on the head--or so it seemed--from something soft. It
dazed him, and the rest was like a dream, in which he walked on and
on for ages, falling and rising again, following something, he
never knew what. There all memory of consciousness ceased. He came
to himself in bed.
Aggie was the first to get anxious about him. They had expected him
home to dinner, and when it began to grow dark and he had not come,
she could bear it no longer, and set out to meet him. But she had
not far to go, for she had scarcely left the kitchen-door when she
saw some one leaning over the gate. Through the gathering twilight
and the storm she could distinguish nothing more, but she never
doubted it was the young laird, though whether in the body or out
of it she did doubt not a little. She hurried to the gate, and
found him standing between it and the wall. She thought at first he
was dead, for there came no answer when she spoke; but presently
she heard him murmur something about conic sections. She opened the
gate gently. He would have fallen as it yielded, but she held him.
Her touch seemed to bring him a little to himself. She supported
and encouraged him; he obeyed her, and she succeeded in getting him
into the house. It was long ere Grizzie and she could make him warm
before the kitchen-fire, but at last he came to himself
sufficiently to walk up the stairs to bed, though afterwards he
remembered nothing of it.
He was recovering before they let the laird understand in what a
dangerous plight Aggie had found him, but the moment he learned
that his son was ailing, the old man seemed to regain a portion of
his strength. He rose from his bed, and for the two days and three
nights during which Cosmo was feverish and wandering, slept only in
snatches. On the third day Cosmo himself persuaded him to return to
his bed.
The women had now their hands full--all the men in the house laid
up, and they two only to do everything! The first night, when they
had got Cosmo comfortable in bed, and had together gone down again
to the kitchen, in the middle of the floor they stopped, and looked
at each other: their turn had come! They understood each other, and
words were needless. Each had saved a little money--and now no
questions would be asked! Aggie left the room and came back with
her store, which she put into Grizzie’s hand. Grizzie laid it on
the table, went in her turn to her box, brought thence her store,
laid it on the other, took both up, closed her hands over them,
shook them together, murmured over them, like an incantation, the
words, “It’s nae mair mine, an’ it’s nae mair thine, but belangs to
a’, whatever befa’,” and put all in her pocket under her winsey
petticoat. Thence, for a time, the invalids wanted nothing--after
the moderate ideas of need, that is, ruling in the house.
When Cosmo came to himself on the third day, he found that self
possessed by a wondrous peace. It was as if he were dead, and had
to rest till his strength, exhausted with dying, came back to him.
Bodiless he seemed, and without responsibility of action, with that
only of thought. Those verses in _The Ancient Mariner_ came to him as
if he spoke them for himself:
“I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.”
His soul was calm and trusting like that of a bird on her eggs, who
knows her one grand duty in the economy of the creation is repose.
How it was he never could quite satisfy himself, but, remembering
he had spent their last penny, he yet felt no anxiety; neither,
when Grizzie brought him food, felt inclination to ask her how she
had procured it. The atmosphere was that of the fairy-palace of his
childish visions, only his feelings were more solemn, and the
fairy, instead of being beautiful, was--well, was dear old Grizzie.
His sole concern was his father, and the cheerful voice that
invariably answered his every inquiry was sufficient reassurance.
For three days more he lay in a kind of blessed lethargy, with
little or no suffering. He fancied he could not recover, nor did he
desire to recover, but to go with his father to the old world, and
learn its ways from his mother. In his half slumbers he seemed ever
to be gently floating down a great gray river, on which thousands
more were likewise floating, each by himself, some in canoes, some
in boats, some in the water without even an oar; every now and then
one would be lifted and disappear, none saw how, but each knew that
his turn would come, when he too would be laid hold of; in the
meantime all floated helpless onward, some full of alarm at the
unknown before them, others indifferent, and some filled with
solemn expectation; he himself floated on gently waiting: the
unseen hand would come with the hour, and give him to his mother.
On the seventh day he began to regard the things around him with
some interest, began to be aware of returning strength, and the
approach of duty: presently he must rise, and do his part to keep
things going! Still he felt no anxiety, for the alarum of duty had
not yet called him. And now, as he lay passive to the influences of
restoring strength, his father from his bed would tell him old
tales he had heard from his grandmother; and sometimes they made
Grizzie sit between the two beds, and tell them stories she had
heard in her childhood. Her stock seemed never exhausted. Now one,
now the other would say, “There, Grizzie! I never heard that
before!” and Grizzie would answer, “I daursay no, sir. Hoo sud ye
than? I had forgotten ’t mysel’!”
Here is one of the stories Grizzie told them.
“In a cauld how, far amo’ the hills, whaur the winter was a sair
thing, there leevit an honest couple, a man ’at had a gey lot o’
sheep, an’ his wife--fowk weel aff in respec’ o’ this warl’s gear,
an’ luikit up til amo’ the neebours, but no to be envyed, seein’
they had lost a’ haill bonny faimily, ane efter the ither, till
there was na ane left i’ the hoose but jist ae laddie, the bonniest
an’ the best o’ a’, an’ as a maitter o’ coorse, the verra aipple o’
their e’e.--Amo’ the three o’ ’s laird,” here Grizzie paused in her
tale to remark, “Ye’ll be the only ane ’at can fully un’erstan’ hoo
the hert o’ a parent maun cleave to the last o’ his flock.--Weel,
whether it was ’at their herts was ower muckle wrappit up i’ this
ae human cratur for the growth o’ their sowls, I dinna ken--there
bude to be some rizzon for ’t--this last ane o’ a’ begud in his turn
to dwine an’ dwin’le like the lave; an’ whaurever thae twa puir
fowk turnt themsel’s i’ their pangs, there stude deith, glowerin’
at them oot o’ his toom e’en. Pray they did, ye may be sure, an’
greit whan a’ was mirk, but prayers nor tears made nae differ; the
bairn was sent for, an’ awa’ the bairn maun gang. An’ whan at
len’th he lay streekit in his last clean claes till the robe o’
richteousness ’at wants na washin’ was put upon ’im, what cud they
but think the warl’ was dune for them!
“But the warl’ maun wag, though the hert may sag; an’ whan the deid
lies streekit, there’s a hoose to be theekit. An’ the freens an’
the neebours gaithert frae near an’ frae far, till there was a
heap o’ fowk i’ the hoose, come to the beeryin’ o’ the bonny bairn.
An’ fowk maun ait an’ live nane the less ’at the maitter they come
upo’ be deith; an’ sae the nicht afore the yerdin’, their denner
the neist day whan they cam back frae the grave, had to be
foreordeent.
“It was i’ the spring-time o’ the year, unco late i’ thae pairts.
The maist o’ the lambs hed come, but the storms war laith to lea’
the laps o’ the hills, an’ lang efter it begud to be something like
weather laicher doon, the sheep cudna be lippent oot to pick their
bit mait for themsel’s, but had to be keepit i’ the cot. Sae to the
cot the gudeman wad gang, to fess hame a lamb for the freens an’
the neebours’ denners. An’ as it fell oot, it was a fearsome nicht
o’ win’ an’ drivin’ snaw--waur, I wad reckon, nor onything we hae
hereawa’. But he turnt na aside for win’ or snaw, for little cared
he what cam til ’im or o’ ’im, wi’ sic a how in his hert. O’ the
contrar’, the storm was like a freenly cloak til ’s grief, for upo’
the ro’d he fell a greitin’ an’ compleenin’ an’ lamentin’ lood,
jeedgin’ nae doobt, gien he thoucht at a’, he micht du as he likit
wi’ naebody nigh. To the sheep cot, I say, he gaed wailin’ an’
cryin’ alood efter bonny bairn, the last o’ his flock, oontimeous
his taen.
“Half blin’ wi’ the nicht an’ the snaw an’ his ain tears, he cam at
last to the door o’ the sheep-cot. An’ what sud he see there but a
man stan’in’ afore the door--straucht up, an’ still i’ the mirk! It
was ’maist fearsome to see onybody there--sae far frae ony
place--no to say upo’ sic a nicht! The stranger was robed in some
kin’ o’ a plaid, like the gude-man himsel’, but whether a lowlan’
or a hielan’ plaid, he cudna tell. But the face o’ the man--that
was ane no to be forgotten--an’ that for the verra freenliness o’
’t! An’ whan he spak, it was as gien a’ the v’ices o’ them ’at had
gane afore, war mad up intil ane, for the sweetness an’ the pooer
o’ the same.
“‘What mak ye here in sic a storm, man?’ he said. An’ the soon’ o’
his v’ice was aye safter nor the words o’ his mooth.
“‘I come for a lamb,’ answered he.
“‘What kin’ o’ a lamb?’ askit the stranger.
“‘The verra best I can lay my han’s upo’ i’ the cot,’ answered he,
‘for it’s to lay afore my freens and neebours. I houp, sir, ye’ll
come hame wi’ me an’ share o’ ’t. Ye s’ be welcome.’
“‘Du yer sheep mak ony resistance whan ye tak the lamb? or whan
it’s gane, du they mak an ootcry?’
“‘No, sir--never.’
“The stranger gae a kin’ o’ a sigh, an’ says he,
“‘That’s no hoo they trait me! Whan I gang to my sheep-fold, an’
tak the best an’ the fittest, my ears are deavt an’ my hert torn
wi’ the clamours--the bleatin’, an’ ba’in’ o’ my sheep--my ain
sheep! compleenin’ sair agen me;--an’ me feedin’ them, an’ cleedin’
them, an’ haudin’ the tod frae them, a’ their lives, frae the first
to the last! It’s some oongratefu’, an’ some sair to bide.’
“By this time the man’s heid was hingin’ doon; but whan the v’ice
ceased, he luikit up in amaze. The stranger was na there. Like ane
in a dream wharvin he kenned na joy frae sorrow, or pleesur frae
pain, the man gaed into the cot, an’ grat ower the heids o’ the
’oo’y craters ’at cam croodin’ aboot ’im; but he soucht the best
lamb nane the less, an’ cairriet it wi’ ’im. An’ the next day he
cam hame frae the funeral wi’ a smile upo’ the face whaur had been
nane for mony a lang; an’ the neist Sunday they h’ard him singin’
i’ the kirk as naebody had ever h’ard him sing afore. An’ never
frae that time was there a moan or complaint to be h’ard frae the
lips o’ aither o’ the twa. They hadna a bairn to close their e’en
whan their turn sud come, but whaur there’s nane ahin’, there’s the
mair to fin’.”
Grizzie ceased, and the others were silent, for the old legend had
touched the deepest in them.
Many years after, Cosmo discovered that she had not told it quite
right, for having been brought up in the Lowlands, she did not
thoroughly know the ancient customs of the Highlands. But she had
told it well after her own fashion, and she could not have had a
fitter audience. [Footnote: See Mrs. Grant’s Essays on the
Superstitions of the Highlanders.]
“It’s whiles i’ the storm, whiles i’ the desert, whiles i’ the
agony, an’ whiles i’ the calm, whaurever he gets them richt them
lanes, ’at the Lord visits his people--in person, as a body micht
say,” remarked the laird, after a long pause.
Cosmo did not get well so fast as he had begun to expect. Nothing
very definite seemed the matter with him; it was rather as if life
itself had been checked at the spring, therefore his senses dulled,
and his blood made thick and slow. A sleepy weariness possessed
him, in which he would lie for hours, supine and motionless,
desiring nothing, fearing nothing, suffering nothing, only loving.
The time would come when he must be up and doing, but now he would
not think of work; he would fancy himself a bird in God’s nest--the
nest into which the great brother would have gathered all the
children of Jerusalem. Poems would come to him--little songs and
little prayers--spiritual butterflies, with wings whose spots
matched; sometimes humorous little parables concerning life and its
affairs would come; but the pity was that none of them would stay;
never, do what he might, could he remember so as to recall one of
them, and had to comfort himself with the thought that nothing true
can ever be lost; if one form of it go, it is that a better may
come in its place. He doubted if the best could be forgotten. A
thing may be invaluable, he thought, and the form in which it
presents itself worth but little, however at the moment it may
share the look of the invaluable within it. But happy is the
half-sleeper whose brain is a thoroughfare for lovely things--all
to be caught in the nets of Life, for Life is the one miser that
never loses, never can lose.
When he was able to get up for a while every day, Grizzie yielded a
portion of her right of nursing to Aggie, and now that he was able
to talk a little, the change was a pleasant one. And now first the
laird began to discover how much there was in Aggie, and expressing
his admiration of her knowledge and good sense, her intellect and
insight, was a little surprised that Cosmo did not seem so much
struck with them as himself. Cosmo, however, explained that her
gifts were no discovery to him, as he had been aware of them from
childhood.
“There are few like her, father,” he said. “Mony’s the time she’s
hauden me up whan I was ready to sink.”
“The Lord reward her!” responded the laird.
All sicknesses are like aquatic plants of evil growth: their hour
comes, and they wither and die, and leave the channels free. Life
returns--in slow, soft ripples at first, but not the less in
irresistible tide, and at last in pulses of mighty throb through
every pipe. Death is the final failure of all sickness, the
clearing away of the very soil in which the seed of the ill plant
takes root and prevails.
By degrees Cosmo recovered strength, nor left behind him the peace
that had pervaded his weakness. The time for action was at hand.
For weeks he had been fed like the young ravens in the nest, and,
knowing he could do nothing, had not troubled himself with the
useless _how_; but it was time once more to understand, that he might
be ready to act. Mechanically almost, he opened his bureau: there
was not a penny there. He knew there could not be--except some
angel had visited it while he lay, and that he had not looked for.
He closed it, and sat down to think. There was no work to be had he
knew of; there was little strength to do it with, had there been
any. As the spring came on, there would be labour in the fields,
and that he would keep in view, but the question was of present or
all but present need. One thing only he would not do. There were
many in the country around on friendly terms with his father and
himself, but his very soul revolted from any endeavour to borrow
money while he saw no prospect of repaying it. He would carry the
traditions of his family no further in that direction. Literally,
he would rather die. But rather than his father should want, he
would beg. “Where borrowing is dishonest,” he said to himself,
“begging may be honourable. The man who scorns to accept a gift of
money, and does not scruple to borrow, knowing no chance of
repaying, is simply a thief; the man who has no way of earning the
day’s bread, _has a divine right to beg_.” In Cosmo’s case, however,
there was this difficulty: he could easily make a living of some
sort, would he but leave his father, and that he was determined not
to do. Before absolute want could arrive, they must have parted
with everything, and then he would take him to some city or town,
where they two would live like birds in a cage. No; he was not
ready yet to take his _pack_ and make the rounds of the farm-houses
to receive from each his dole of a handful of meal! Something must
be possible! But then again, what?
Once more he fell a thinking; but it was only to find himself again
helplessly afloat where no shore of ways or means was visible.
Nothing but beggary in fact, and that for the immediate future,
showed in sight. Could it be that God verily intended for him this
last humiliation of all? But again, would such humiliation be equal
to that under which they had bowed for so many long years--the
humiliation of owing and not being able to pay? What a man gives,
he gives, but what a man lends, he lends expecting to be repaid! A
beggar may be under endless obligation, but a debtor who cannot pay
is a slave! He may be God’s free man all the while--that depends on
causes and conditions, but not the less is he his fellow’s slave!
His slavery may be to him a light burden, or a sickening misery,
according to the character of his creditor--but, except indeed
there be absolute brotherhood between them, he is all the same a
slave!
Again the immediately practical had vanished, lost in reasoning,
and once more he tried to return to it. But it was like trying to
see through a brick wall. No man can invent needs for others that
he may supply them. To write again to Mr. Burns would be too near
the begging on which he had not yet resolved. He never suspected
that the parcel he had left at the carrier’s house was lying there
still--safe in his wife’s press, under a summer-shawl! He could not
go to Mr. Simon, for he too was poor, and had now for some time
been far from well, fears being by the doctor acknowledged as to
the state of his lungs. He would go without necessaries even to
help them, and that was an insurmountable reason against
acquainting him with their condition!
All at once a thought came to him: why should he not, for present
need, pledge the labour of his body in the coming harvest? That
would be but to act on a reasonable probability, nor need he be
ashamed to make the offer to any man who knew him enough to be
friendly. He would ask but a part of the fee in advance, and a
charitable or kindly disposed man would surely venture the amount
of risk involved! True, when the time came he might be as much in
want of money as he was now, and there would be little or none to
receive, but on the other hand, if he did not have help now, he
could never reach that want, and when he did, there might be other
help! Better beg then than now! He would make the attempt, and that
the first day he was strong enough to walk the necessary distance!
In the meantime, he would have a peep into the meal-chest!
It stood in a dark corner of the kitchen, and he had to put his
hand in to learn its condition. He found a not very shallow layer
of meal in the bottom. How there could be so much after his long
illness, he scarcely dared imagine. He must ask Grizzie, he said to
himself, but he shrank in his heart from questioning her.
There came now a spell of warm weather, and all the invalids
improved. Cosmo was able to go out, and every day had a little walk
by himself. Naturally he thought of the only other time in his life
when he first walked out after an illness. Joan had been so near
him then it scarce seemed anything could part them, and now she
seemed an eternity away! For months he had heard nothing of her.
She must be married, and, knowing well his feelings, must think it
kinder not to write! Then the justice of his soul turned to the
devotion of the two women who had in this trouble tended him,
though the half of it he did not yet know; and from that he turned
to the source of all devotion, and made himself strong in the
thought of the eternal love.
From that time, the weather continuing moderate, he made rapid
progress, and the week following judged himself equal to a long
walk.
CHAPTER XLVII.
HELP.
He had come to the resolve to carry his petition first to the
farmer in whose fields he had laboured the harvest before the last.
The distance was rather great, but he flattered himself he would be
able to walk home every night. In the present state of his
strength, however, he found it a long trudge indeed; and before the
house came in sight, was very weary. But he bore up and held on.
“I was almost as ill-off,” he said to himself, “when I came here
for work the first time, yet here I am--alive, and likely to work
again! It’s just like going on and on in a dream, wondering what we
are coming to next.”
He was shown into the parlour, and had not waited long when the
farmer came. He scarcely welcomed him, but by degrees his manner
grew more cordial. Still the coldness with which he had been
received caused Cosmo to hesitate, and a pause ensued. The farmer
broke it.
“Ye didna gie ’s the fawvour o’ yer company last hairst!” he said.
“I wad hae thought ye micht hae f’un’ yersel’ fully mair at hame
wi’ the like o’ us nor wi’ that ill-tongued vratch, Lord
Lick-my-loof! Nane o’ ’s tuik it ower weel ’at ye gied na ’s the
chance o’ yer guid company.”
This explained his reception, and Cosmo made haste in his turn to
explain his conduct.
“Ye may be sure,” he answered, “it gaed some agen the grain to seek
wark frae _him_, an’ I had no rizzon upon earth for no comin’ to you
first but that I didna want to be sae far, at nicht especially,
frae my father. He’s no the man he was.”
“Verra nait’ral!” responded the farmer heartily, and wondered in
himself whether any of his sons would have considered him so much.
“Weel,” he went on, “I’m jist relieved to un’erstan’ the thing; for
the lasses wad hae perswaudit me I hed gien ye some offence wi’ my
free-spoken w’y, whan I’m sure naething cud hae been far’er frae
the thoucht o’ my hert.”
“Indeed,” said Cosmo, half rising in his eagerness, “I assure you,
Mr. Henderson, there is not a man from whom I should be less ready
to imagine offence than yourself. I do not know how to express my
feeling of the kindness with which you always treated me. Nor could
I have given you a better proof that I mean what I say than by
coming to you first, the moment I was able for the walk, with the
request I have now to make. Will you engage me for the coming
harvest, and pay me a part of the fee in advance? I know it is a
strange request, and if you refuse it, I doubt if there is another
to whom I shall venture to make it. I confess also that I have been
very ill, but I am now fairly on the mend, and there is a long time
to recover my strength in before the harvest. To tell you the
truth, we are much in want of a little money at the castle. We are
not greatly in debt now, but we have lost all our land; and a
house, however good, won’t grow corn. Something in my mind tells me
that my father, unlikely as it may seem, will yet pay everything;
and anyhow we want to hold on as long as we can. I am sure, if you
were in our place, you would not be willing to part with the house
a moment before you were absolutely compelled.”
“But, laird,” said the farmer, who had listened with the utmost
attention, “hoo can the thing be, ’at amo’ a’ the great fowk ye hae
kent, there sud be nane to say, ‘Help yersel’? I canna un’erstan’
hoo the last o’ sic an auld faimily sud na hae a han’ held oot to
help them!”
“It is not so very hard to explain,” replied Cosmo. “Almost all my
father’s _old_ friends are dead or gone, and a man like him,
especially in straitened circumstances, does not readily make new
friends. Almost the only person he has been intimate with of late
years is Mr. Simon, whom I daresay you know. Then he has what many
people count peculiar notions--so peculiar, indeed, that I have
heard of some calling him a fool behind his back because he paid
themselves certain moneys his father owed them. I believe if he had
rich friends they would say it was no use trying to help such a
man.”
“Weel!” exclaimed the farmer, “it jist blecks me to ken hoo there
can be ony trowth i’ the Bible, whan a man like that comes sae near
to beggin’ his breid!”
“He is very near it, certainly,” assented Cosmo, “but why not he as
well as another?”
“’Cause they tell me the Bible says the richteous man sall never
come to beg his breid.”
“Well, _near_ is not _there_. But I fancy there must be a mistake. The
writer of one of the psalms--I do not know whether David or
another, says he never saw the righteous forsaken or his seed
begging bread; but though he may not have seen it, another may.”
“Weel, I fancy gien he hed, he wadna hae been lang in puttin’ a
stop til ’t! Laird, gien a sma’ maitter o’ fifty poun’ or sae wad
tide ye ower the trible--weel, ye cud pay me whan ye likit.”
It was a moment or two before Cosmo could speak. A long
conversation followed, rising almost to fierceness, certainly to
oaths, on the part of the farmer, because of Cosmo’s refusal to
accept the offered loan.
“I do see my way,” persisted Cosmo, “to paying for my wages with my
work, but I see it to nothing more. Lend me two pounds, Mr. Henderson,
on the understanding that I am to work it out in the
harvest, and I shall be debtor to your kindness to all eternity;
but more I cannot and will not accept.”
Grumbling heavily, the farmer at length handed him the two pounds,
but obstinately refused any written acknowledgment or agreement.
Neither of them knew that, all the time the friendly altercation
proceeded, there was Elsie listening at the door, her colour coming
and going like the shadows in a day of sun and wind. Entering at
its close she asked Cosmo to stop and take tea with them, and the
farmer following it up, he accepted the invitation, and indeed was
glad to make a good meal. Elsie was sorely disappointed that her
father had not succeeded in making him his debtor to a larger
extent, but the meal passed with pleasure to all, for the relief of
having two pounds in his pocket, and those granted with such
genuine kindness, put Cosmo in great spirits, and made him more
than usually agreeable. The old farmer wondered admiringly at the
spirit of the youth who in such hardship could yet afford to be
merry. But I cannot help thinking that a perfect faith would work
at last thorough good spirits, as well as everything else that is
good.
Cosmo sat with his kind neighbours till the gloaming began to fall.
When he rose to go, they all rose with him, and accompanied him
fully half-way home. When they took their leave of him, and he was
again alone, his heart grew so glad that, weak as he yet was, and
the mists rising along his path, he never felt the slightest chill,
but trudged cheerily on, praying and singing and _making_ all the
way, until at length he was surprised to find how short it had
been.
For a great part of it, after his friends left him, he had glimpses
now and then of some one before him that looked like Aggie, but the
distance between them gradually lengthened, and before he reached
home he had lost sight of her. When he entered the kitchen, Aggie
was there.
“Was yon you upo’ the ro’d afore me, Aggie?” he said.
“Ay, was ’t.”
“What for didna ye bide?”
“Ye had yer company the first half o’ the ro’d, an’ yer sangs the
last, an’ I didna think ye wantit me.”
So saying she went up the stair.
As Cosmo followed, he turned and put his hand into the meal-chest.
It was empty! There was not enough to make their supper. He smiled
in his heart, and said to himself,
“The links of the story hold yet! When one breaks, the world will
drift.”
Going up to his father, he had to pass the door of his own room,
now occupied by James Gracie. As he drew near it, he heard the
voice of Aggie speaking to her grandfather. What she said he did
not know, but he heard the answer.
“Lassie,” said the old man, “ye can never see by (_past_) the Lord to
ken whaur he’s takin’ ye. Ye may jist as weel close yer e’en. His
garment spreads ower a’ the ro’d, an’ what we hae to du is to haud
a guid grip o’ ’t--no to try an’ see ayont it.”
Cosmo hastened up, and told his father what he had overheard.
“There’s naething like faith for makin’ o’ poets, Cosmo!” said the
laird. “Jeames never appeart to me to hae mair o’ what’s ca’d
intellec’ nor an ord’nar’ share; but ye see the man ’at has faith
he’s aye growin’, an’ sae may come to something even i’ this warl’. An’
whan ye think o’ the ages to come, truly it wad seem to maitter
little what intellec’ a man may start wi’. I kenned mysel’ ane ’at
in ord’nar’ affairs was coontit little better nor an idiot, ’maist
turn a prophet whan he gaed doon upo’ his knees. Ay! fowk may lauch
at what they haena a glimp o’, but it’ll be lang or their political
economy du sae muckle for sic a man! The economist wad wuss his
neck had been thrawn whan he was born.”
Here Cosmo heard Grizzie come in, and went down to her. She was
sitting in his father’s chair by the fire, and did not turn her
face when he spoke. She was either tired or vexed, he thought.
Aggie was also now in the kitchen again.
“Here, Grizzie!” said Cosmo, “here’s twa poun’; an’ ye’ll need to
gar ’t gang far’er nor it can, I’m thinkin’, for I dinna ken whaur
we’re to get the neist.”
“Ken ye whaur ye got the last?” muttered Grizzie, and made haste to
cover the words:
“Whaur got ye that, Cosmo?” she said.
“What gien I dinna tell ye, Grizzie?” he returned, willing to rouse
her with a little teazing.
“That’s as ye see proper, sir,” she answered. “Naebody has a richt
to say til anither ‘Whaur got ye that?’ ’cep’ they doobt ye hae
been stealin’.”
It was a somewhat strange answer, but there was no end to the
strange things Grizzie would say: it was one of her charms! Cosmo
told her at once where and how he had got the money; for with such
true comrades, although not yet did he know how true, he felt
almost that a secret would be a sin.
But the moment Grizzie heard where Cosmo had engaged himself, and
from whom on the pledge of that engagement he had borrowed money,
she started from her chair, and cried, with clenched and
outstretched hand,
“Glenwarlock, yoong sir, ken ye what ye’re duin’?--The Lord
preserve ’s! he’s an innocent!” she added, turning with an
expression of despair to Aggie, who regarded the two with a strange
look.
“Grizzie!” cried Cosmo, in no little astonishment, “what on earth
gars ye luik like that at the mention o’ ane wha has this moment
helpit us oot o’ the warst strait ever we war in!”
“Gien there had been naebody nearer hame to help ye oot o’ waur
straits, it’s waur straits ye wad be in. An’ it’s waur ye’ll be in
yet, gien that man gets his wull o’ ye!”
“He’s a fine, honest chiel’! An’ for waur straits, Grizzie--are na
ye at the verra last wi’ yer meal?”
As he spoke he turned, and, in bodily reference to fact, went to
the chest into which he had looked but a few minutes before. To his
astonishment, there was enough in it for a good many meals! He
turned again, and stared at Grizzie. But she had once more seated
herself in his father’s chair, with her back to him, and before he
could speak she went on thus:
“Shame fa’ him, say I, ’at made his siller as a flesher i’ the wast
wyn’ o’ Howglen, to ettle at a gentleman o’ a thoosan’ year for ane
o’ his queans! But, please the Lord, we s’ haud clear o’ ’im yet!”
“Hootoot, Grizzie! ye canna surely think ony sic man wad regaird
the like o’ me as worth luikin’ efter for a son-in-law! He wadna be
sic a gowk!”
“Gowk here, gowk there! he kens what ye are an’ what ye’re
worth--weel that! Hasna he seen ye at the scythe? Disna he ken
there’s ten times mair to be made o’ ae gentleman like you, wi’ siller
at his back, nor ten common men sic as he’s like to get for
his dothers? Weel kens he it’s nae faut o’ you or yours ’at ye’re
no freely sae weel aff as some ’at oucht an’ wull be waur, gien it
be the Lord’s wull, or a’ be dune! Disna he ken ’at Castle Warlock
itsel’ wad be a warl’s honour to ony leddy--no to say a lass
broucht up ower a slauchter-hoose? Shame upo’ him an’ his!”
“Weel, Grizzie,” rejoined Cosmo, “ye may say ’at ye like, but I
dinna believe he wad hae dune what he has dune--”
“Cha!” interrupted Grizzie; “what has he dune? Disna he ken the
word o’ a Warlock’s as guid as gowd? Disna he ken _your_ wark,
what wi’ yer pride an’ what wi’ yer ill-placed graititude, ’ill be
worth til ’im that o’ twa men? The man’s nae coof! He kens what
he’s aboot! Haith, ye needna waur (_spend_) muckle graititude
upo’ sic benefactions!”
“To show you, Grizzie, that you are unfair to him, I feel bound to
tell you that he pressed on me the loan of fifty pounds.”
“I tellt ye sae!” screamed Grizzie, starting again to her feet. “God
forbid ye took ’im at his offer!”
“I did not,” answered Cosmo; “but all the same--”
“The Lord be praised for his abundant an’ great mercy!” cried
Grizzie, more heartily than devoutly. “We may contrive to win ower
the twa poun’, even sud ye no work it oot; but _fifty!_--the
Lord be aboot us frae ill! so sure ’s deith, ye wad hae had to tak
the lass!--Cosmo, ye canna but ken the auld tale o’ muckle-moo’d
Meg?”
“Weel that,” replied Cosmo. “But ye’ll alloo, Grizzie, times are
altert sin’ the day whan the laird cud gie a ch’ice atween a wife
an’ the wuddie! Mr. Hen’erson canna weel hang me gien I sud say
_no_.”
“Say ye _no_, come o’ the hangin’ what like,” rejoined Grizzie.
“But, Grizzie,” said Cosmo, “I wad fain ken whaur that meal i’ the
kist cam frae. There was nane intil ’t an hoor ago.”
With all her faults of temper and tongue, there was one evil word
Grizzie could not speak. In the course of a not very brief life she
had tried a good many times to tell a lie, but had never been able;
and now, determined not to tell where the meal had come from, she
naturally paused unprepared. It was but for a moment. Out came the
following utterance.
“Some fowk says, sir, ’at the age o’ mirracles is ower. For mysel’ I
dinna preten’ to ony opingon; but sae lang as the needcessity was
the same, I wad be laith to think Providence wadna be consistent
wi’ itsel’. Ye maun min’ the tale, better nor I can tell ’t ye,
concernin’ yon meal-girnel--muckle sic like, I daursay, as oor ain,
though it be ca’d a barrel i’ the Buik--hit ’at never wastit, ye
ken, an’ the uily-pig an’ a’--ye’ll min’ weel--though what ony wuman
in her senses cud want wi’ sic a sicht o’ ile’s mair nor I ever cud
faddom! Eh, but a happy wuman was she ’at had but to tak her bowl
an’ gang to the girnel, as I micht tak my pail an’ gang to the
wall! An’ what for michtna the Almichty mak a meal-wall as weel ’s a
watter-wall, I wad like to ken! What for no a wall ’at sud rin
ile--or say milk, which wad be mair to the purpose? Ae thing maun
be jist as easy to him as anither--jist as ae thing’s as hard to us
as anither! Eh, but we’re helpless craturs!”
“I’ your w’y, Grizzie, ye wad keep us as helpless as ever, for ye
wad hae a’ thing hauden to oor han’, like to the bairnie in his
mither’s lap! It’s o’ the mercy o’ the Lord ’at he wad mak men an’
women o’ ’s--no haud ’s bairns for ever!”
“It may be as ye say, Cosmo; but whiles I cud maist wuss I was a
bairn again, an’ had to luik to my mither for a’ thing.”
“An’ isna that siclike as the Lord wad hae o’ ’s, Grizzie? We canna
aye be bairns to oor mithers--an’ for me I wasna ane lang--but we
can an’ maun aye be bairns to the great Father o’ ’s.”
“I hae an ill hert, I doobt, Cosmo, for I’m unco hard to content.
An’ I’m ower auld noo, I fear, to mak muckle better o’. But maybe
some kin’ly body like yersel’ ’ill tak me in han’ whan I’m deid,
an’ put some sense intil me!”
“Ye hae sense eneuch, Grizzie, an’ to spare, gien only ye wad--”
“Guide my tongue a wee better, ye wad say! But little ye ken the
temptation o’ ane ’at has but ae solitary wapon, to mak use o’ that
same! An’ the gift ye hae ye’re no to despise; ye maun turn a’ til
acoont.”
Cosmo did not care to reason with her further, and went back to his
father.
Grizzie had gained her point; which was to turn him aside from
questions about the meal.
For a little while they had now wherewith to live; and if it seem
to my reader that the horizon of hope was narrowing around them, it
does not follow that it must have seemed so to them. For what is
the extent of our merely rational horizon at any time? But for
faith and imagination it would be a narrow one indeed! Even what we
call experience is but a stupid kind of faith. It is a trusting in
impetus instead of in love. And those days were fashioning an
eternal joy to father and son, for they were loving each other a
little more ere each day’s close, and were thus putting time,
despite of fortune, to its highest use.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
A COMMON MIRACLE.
Until he was laid up, Cosmo had all the winter, and especially
after his old master was taken ill, gone often to see Mr. Simon.
The good man was now beginning, chiefly from the effects of his
complaint, to feel the approach of age; but he was cheerful and
hopeful as ever, and more expectant. As soon as he was able Cosmo
renewed his visits, but seldom stayed long with him, both because
Mr. Simon could not bear much talking, and because he knew his
father would be watching for his return.
One day it had rained before sunrise, and a soft spring wind had
been blowing ever since, a soothing and persuading wind, that
seemed to draw out the buds from the secret places of the dry
twigs, and whisper to the roots of the rose-trees that their
flowers would be wanted by and by. And now the sun was near the
foot of the western slope, and there was a mellow, tearful look
about earth and sky, when Grizzie, entering the room where Cosmo
was reading to his father, as he sat in his easy chair by the
fireside, told them she had just heard that Mr. Simon had had a bad
night and was worse. The laird begged Cosmo to go at once and
inquire after him.
The wind kept him company as he walked, flitting softly about him,
like an attendant that needed more motion than his pace would
afford, and seemed so full of thought and love, that, for the
thousandth time, he wondered whether there could be anything but
spirit, and what we call matter might not be merely the consequence
of our human way of looking at the wrong side of the golden tissue.
Then came the thought of the infinitude of our moods, of the hues
and shades and endless kinds and varieties of feeling, especially
in our dreams; and he said to himself “how rich God must be, since
from him we come capable of such inconceivable differences of
conscious life!”
“How poor and helpless,” he said to himself, “how mere a pilgrim
and a stranger in a world over which he has no rule, must he be who
has not God all one with him! Not otherwise can his life be free
save as moving in loveliest harmony with the will and life of the
only Freedom--that which wills and we are!”
“How would it be,” he thought again, “if things were to come and go
as they pleased in my mind and brain? Would that not be madness?
For is it not the essence of madness, that things thrust themselves
upon one, and by very persistence of seeming, compel and absorb the
attention, drowning faith and will in a false conviction? The soul
that is empty, swept, and garnished, is the soul which adorns
itself, where God is not, and where therefore other souls come and
go as they please, drawn by the very selfhood, and make the man the
slave of their suggestions. Oneness with the mighty All is at the
one end of life; distraction, things going at a thousand foolish
wills, at the other. God or chaos is the alternative; all thou
hast, or no Christ!”
And as he walked thinking thus, the stream was by his side,
tumbling out its music as it ran to find its eternity. And the wind
blew on from the moist west, where the gold and purple had fallen
together in a ruined heap over the tomb of the sun. And the stars
came thinking out of the heavens, and the things of earth withdrew
into the great nest of the dark. And so he found himself at the
door of the cottage, where lay one of the heirs of all things,
waiting to receive his inheritance.
But the news he heard was that the master was better; and the old
woman showed him at once to his room, saying she knew he would be
glad to see him. When he entered the study, in which, because of
his long illness and need of air, Mr. Simon lay, the room seemed to
grow radiant, filled with the smile that greeted him from the
pillow. The sufferer held out his hand almost eagerly.
“Come, come!” he said; “I want to tell you something--a little
experience I have just had--an event of my illness. Outwardly it is
nothing, but to you it will not be nothing.--It was blowing a great
wind last night.”
“So my father tells me,” answered Cosmo, “but for my part I slept
too sound to hear it.”
“It grew calm with the morning. As the light came the wind fell.
Indeed I think it lasted only about three hours altogether.
“I have of late been suffering a good deal with my breathing, and
it has always been worst when the wind was high. Last night I lay
awake in the middle of the night, very weary, and longing for the
sleep which seemed as if it would never come. I thought of Sir
Philip Sidney, how, as he lay dying, he was troubled, because, for
all his praying, God would not let him sleep: it was not the want
of the sleep that troubled him, but that God would not give it him;
and I was trying hard to make myself strong to trust in God
whatever came to me, sleep or waking weariness or slow death, when
all at once up got the wind with a great roar, as if the prince of
the power of the air were mocking at my prayers. And I thought with
myself, ‘It is then the will of God that I shall neither sleep nor
lie at peace this night!’ and I said, ‘Thy will be done!’ and laid
myself out to be quiet, expecting, as on former occasions, my
breathing would begin to grow thick and hard, and by and by I
should have to struggle for every lungsful. So I lay waiting. But
still as I waited, I kept breathing softly. No iron band ringed
itself about my chest; no sand filled up the passages of my lungs!
“The cottage is not very tight, and I felt the wind blowing all
about me as I lay. But instead of beginning to cough and wheeze, I
began to breathe better than before. Soon I fell fast asleep, and
when I woke I seemed a new man almost, so much better did I feel.
It was a wind of God, and had been blowing all about me as I slept,
renewing me! It was so strange, and so delightful! Where I dreaded
evil, there had come good! So, perchance, it will be when the time
which the flesh dreads is drawing nigh: we shall see the pale damps
of the grave approaching, but they will never reach us; we shall
hear ghastly winds issuing from the mouth of the tomb, but when
they blow upon us they shall be sweet--the waving of the wings of
the angels that sit in the antechamber of the hall of life, once
the sepulchre of our Lord. And when we die, instead of finding we
are dead, we shall have waked better!”
It was an experience that would have been nothing to most men
beyond its relief, but to Peter Simon it was a word from the
eternal heart, which, in every true and quiet mood, speaks into the
hearts of men. When we cease listening to the cries of self-seeking
and self-care, then the voice that was there all the time enters
into our ears. It is the voice of the Father speaking to his child,
never known for what it is until the child begins to obey it. To
him who has not ears to hear, God will not reveal himself: it would
be to slay him with terror.
Cosmo sat a long time talking with his friend, for now there seemed
no danger of hurting him, so much better was he. It was late
therefore when he rose to return.
CHAPTER XLIX.
DEFIANCE.
Aggie was in the kitchen when he entered. She was making the
porridge.
“What’s come o’ Grizzie?” asked Cosmo.
“Ye dinna like my parritch sae weel as hers!” returned Agnes.
“Jist as weel, Aggie,” answered Cosmo.
“Dinna ye tell Grizzie that.”
“What for no?”
“She wad be angert first, an’ syne her hert wad be like to brak.”
“There’s nae occasion to say ’t,” conceded Cosmo. “But what’s come
o’ her the nicht?” he went on. “It’s some dark, an’ I doobt
she’ll----”
“The ro’d atween this an’ the Muir’s no easy to lowse,” said Aggie.
But the same instant her face flushed hotter than ever fire or
cooking made it; what she had said was in itself true, but what she
had not said, yet meant him to understand, was not true, for
Grizzie had gone nowhere near Muir o’ Warlock. Aggie had never told
a lie in her life, and almost before the words were out of her
mouth, she felt as if the solid earth were sinking from under her
feet. She left the _spurtle_ sticking in the porridge, and dropped
into the laird’s chair.
“What’s the maitter wi’ ye, Aggie?” said Cosmo, hastening to her in
alarm, for her face was now white, and her head was hanging down.
“This is no to be borne!” she cried, and started to her feet.
“--Cosmo, I tellt ye a lee.”
“Aggie!” cried Cosmo, dismayed, “ye never tellt me a lee i’ yer
life.”
“Never afore,” she answered; “but I hae tellt ye ane noo--no to
live through! Grizzie’s no gane to Muir o’ Warlock.”
“What care I whaur Grizzie’s gane!” rejoined Cosmo. “Tell me or no
tell me as ye like.”
Aggie burst into tears.
“Haud yer tongue, Aggie,” said Cosmo, trying to soothe her, himself
troubled with her trouble, for he too was sorry she should _almost_
have told him a lie, and his heart was sore for her misery. Well he
knew how she must suffer, having done a thing so foreign to her
nature! “It _could_ be little mair at the warst,” he went on, “than a
slip o’ the wull, seein’ ye made sic haste to set it richt again.
For mysel’, I s’ bainish the thoucht o’ the thing.”
“I thank ye, Cosmo. Ye wad aye du like the Lord himsel’. But
there’s mair intil ’t. I dinna ken what to du or say. It’s a sair
thing to stan’ ’atween twa, an’ no ken what to du ohn dune
mischeef--maybe wrang!--There’s something it ’maist seems to me ye
hae a richt to ken, but I canna be sure; an yet----”
She was interrupted by the hurried opening of the door. Grizzie
came staggering in, with a face of terror.
“Tu wi’ the door!” she cried, almost speechless, and sank in her
turn upon a chair, gasping for breath, and dropping at her feet a
canvas bag, about the size of a pillow-case.
Cosmo closed the door as she requested, and Aggie made haste to get
her some water, which she drank eagerly. After a time of panting
and sighing, she seemed to come to herself, and rose, saying, as if
nothing had happened,
“I maun see to the supper.”
Cosmo stooped and would have taken up the bag, but she pounced upon
it, and carried it with her to the corner of the fire, where she
placed it beyond her. In the meantime the porridge had begun to
burn.
“Eh, sirs!” she cried, “the parritch’ll be a’ sung--no to mention
the waste o’ guid meal! Aggie, hoo cud ye be sae careless!”
“It was eneuch to gar onybody forget the pot to see ye come in like
that, Grizzie!” said Cosmo.
“An’ what’ll ye say to the tale I bring ye!” rejoined Grizzie, as
she turned the porridge into a dish, careful not to scrape too hard
on the bottom of the pot.
“Tell ’s a’ aboot it, Grizzie, an’ bena lang aither, for I maun gang
to my father.”
“Gang til ’im. Here’s naebody wad keep ye frae ’im!”
Cosmo was surprised at her tone, for although she took abundant
liberty with the young laird, he had not since boyhood known her
rude to him.
“No till I hear yer tale, Grizzie,” he answered.
“An’ I wad fain ken what ye’ll say til ’t, for ye never wad alloo o’
kelpies; an’ there’s me been followed by a sure ane, this last
half-hoor--or it may be less!”
“Hoo kenned ye it was a kelpie--it’s maist as dark ’s pick?”
“Kenned! quo’ he? Didna I hear the deevil ahin’ me--the tramp o’ a’
the fower feet o’ ’im, as gien they had been fower an’ twinty!”
“I won’er he didna win up wi’ ye than, Grizzie!” suggested Cosmo.
“Guid kens hoo he didna; I won’er mysel’. But I trow I ran; an’ I
tak ye to witness I garred ye steik the door.”
“But they say,” objected Cosmo, who could not fail to perceive from
what Aggie said that there was something going on which it behooved
him to know, “that the kelpie wons aye by some watter-side.”
“Weel, cam I no by the tarn o’ the tap o’ Stieve Know?”
“What on earth was ye duin’ there efter dark, Grizzie?”
“What was I duin’? I saidna I was there efter dark, but the cratur
micht hae seen me pass weel eneuch. Wasna I ower the hill to my ain
fowk i’ the How o’ Hap? An’ didna I come hame by Luck’s Lift? Mair
by token, wadna the guidman o’ that same hae me du what I haena
dune this twa year, or maybe twenty--tak a dram? An’ didna I tak
it? An’ was I no in need o’ ’t? An’ didna I come hame a’ the better
for ’t?”
“An’ get a sicht o’ the kelpy intil the bargain--eh, Grizzie?”
suggested Cosmo.
“Hoots! gang awa up to the laird, an’ lea’ me to get my breath an’
your supper thegither,” said Grizzie, who saw to what she had
exposed herself. “An’ I wuss ye may see the neist kelpy yersel’!
Only whatever ye du, Cosmo, dinna m’unt upo’ the back o’ ’im, for
he’ll cairry ye straucht hame til ’s maister; an’ we a’ ken wha _he_
is.”
“I’m no gaein’,” said Cosmo, as soon as the torrent of her speech
allowed him room to answer, “till I ken what ye hae i’ that pock o’
yours.”
“Hoot!” cried Grizzie, and snatching up the bag, held it behind her
back, “ye wad never mint at luikin’ intil an auld wife’s pock! What
ken ye what she michtna hae there?”
“It luiks to me naither mair nor less nor a meal-pock,” said
Cosmo.
“Meal-pock!” returned Grizzie with contempt: “what neist!”
He made another movement to seize the bag, but she caught the
spurtle from the empty porridge-pot and showed fight with it, in
genuine earnest beyond a doubt for the defence of her pock.
Whatever the secret was, it looked as if the pock were somehow
connected with it. Cosmo began to grow very uncomfortable. So
strange were his nascent suspicions that he dared not for a time
allow them to take shape in his brain lest they should thereby
start at once into the life of fact. His mind had, for the last few
days, been much occupied with the question of miracles. Why, he
thought with himself, should one believing there is in very truth a
live, thinking, perfect Power at the heart and head of affairs,
count it impossible that, in their great and manifest need, their
meal-chest should be supplied like that of the widow of Zarephath?
If he could believe the thing was done then, there could be nothing
absurd in hoping the thing might be done now. If it was possible
once, it was possible in the same circumstances always. It was
impossible, however, for him or any human being to determine
concerning any circumstances whether they were or were not the
same. Wherever the thing was not done, did it not follow that the
circumstances could not be the same? One thing he was able to
see--that, in the altered relations of man’s mind to the facts of
Nature, a larger faith is necessary to believe in the constantly
present and ordering will of the Father of men, than in the unusual
phenomenon of a miracle. In the meantime it was a fact that they
had all hitherto had their daily bread.
But now this strange behaviour of Grizzie set him thinking of
something very different. And why did not the jeweller make some
reply to his request concerning the things he had sent him? He said
to himself for the hundredth time that he must have found it
impossible to do anything with them, and have delayed writing from
unwillingness to cause him disappointment, but he could not help a
growing soreness that his friend should take no notice of the
straits he had confessed himself in. The conclusion of the whole
matter was, that it must be the design of Providence to make him
part with the last clog that fettered him; he was to have no ease
in life until he had yielded the castle! If it were so, then the
longer he delayed the greater would be the loss. To sell everything
in it first would but put off the evil day, preparing for them so
much the more poverty when it should come; whereas if he were to
part with the house at once, and take his father where he could
find work, they would be able to have some of the old things about
them still, to tincture strangeness with home. The more he thought
the more it seemed his duty to put a stop to the hopeless struggle
by consenting in full and without reserve to the social degradation
and heart-sorrow to which it seemed the will of God to bring them.
Then with new courage he might commence a new endeavour, no more on
the slippery slope of descent, but with the firm ground of the
Valley of Humiliation under their feet. Long they could not go on
as now, and he was ready to do whatever was required of him, only
he wished God would make it plain. The part of discipline he liked
least--a part of which doubtless we do not yet at all understand
the good or necessity--was uncertainty of duty, the uncertainty of
what it was God’s will he should do. But on the other hand, perhaps
the cause of that uncertainty was the lack of perfect readiness;
perhaps all that was wanted to make duty plain was absolute will to
do it.
These and other such thoughts went flowing and ebbing for hours in
his mind that night, until at last he bethought himself that his
immediate duty was plain enough--namely, to go to sleep. He yielded
his consciousness therefore to him from whom it came, and did
sleep.
CHAPTER L.
DISCOVERY AND CONFESSION.
In the morning he woke wondering whether God would that day let him
know what he had to do. He was certain he would not have him leave
his father; anything else in the way of trouble he could believe
possible.
The season was now approaching the nominal commencement of summer,
but the morning was very cold. He went to the window. Air and earth
had the look of a black frost--the most ungenial, the most killing
of weathers. Alas! that was his father’s breathing: his bronchitis
was worse! He made haste to fetch fuel and light the fire, then
leaving him still asleep, went down stairs. He was earlier than
usual, and Grizzie was later; only Aggie was in the kitchen. Her
grandfather was worse also. Everything pointed to severer
straitening and stronger necessity: this must be how God was
letting him know what he had to do!
He sat down and suddenly, for a moment, felt as if he were sitting
on the opposite bank of the Warlock river, looking up at the house
where he was born and had spent his days--now the property of
another, and closed to him forever! Within those walls he could not
order the removal of a straw! could not chop a stick to warm his
father! “The will of God be done!” he said, and the vision was
gone.
Aggie was busy getting his porridge ready--which Cosmo had by this
time learned to eat without any accompaniment--and he bethought
himself that here was a chance of questioning her before Grizzie
should appear.
“Come, Aggie,” he said abruptly, “I want to ken what for Grizzie
was in sic a terror aboot her pock last nicht. I’m thinkin’ I hae a
richt to ken.”
“I wish ye wadna speir,” returned Aggie, after but a moment’s
pause.
“Aggie,” said Cosmo, “gien ye tell me it’s nane o’ my business, I
winna speir again.”
“Ye _are_ guid, Cosmo, efter the w’y I behaved to ye last nicht,” she
answered, with a tremble in her voice.
“Dinna think o’ ’t nae mair, Aggie. To me it is as gien it had
never been. My hert’s the same to ye as afore--an’ justly. I
believe I un’erstan’ ye whiles ’maist as weel as ye du yersel’.”
“I houp whiles ye un’erstan’ me better,” answered Aggie. “Sair do I
m’urn ’at the shaidow o’ that lee ever crossed my min’.”
“It was but a shaidow,” said Cosmo.
“But what wad ye think o’ yersel’, gien it had been you ’at sae
near--na, I winna nibble at the trowth ony mair--gien it had been
you, I wull say ’t, ’at lee’d that lee--sic an’ ane as it was?”
“I wad say to mysel’ ’at wi’ God’s help I was the less lik’ly ever
to tell a lee again; for that noo I un’erstude better hoo a
temptation micht come upon a body a’ at ance, ohn gien ’im time to
reflec’--an’ sae my responsibility was the greater.”
“Thank ye, Cosmo,” said Aggie humbly, and was silent.
“But,” resumed Cosmo, “ye haena tellt me yet ’at it’s nane o’ my
business what Grizzie had in her pock last nicht.”
“Na, I cudna tell ye that, ’cause it wadna be true. It is yer
business.”
“What was i’ the pock than?”
“Weel, Cosmo, ye put me in a great diffeeculty; for though I never
said to Grizzie I wadna tell, I made nae objection--though at the
time I didna like it--whan she tellt me what she was gaein’ to du;
an’ sae I canna help fearin’ it may be fause to her to tell ye.
Besides, I hae latten ’t gang sae lang ohn said a word, ’at the guid
auld body cud never jaloose I wad turn upon her noo an’ tell!”
“You are dreadfully mysterious, Aggie,” said Cosmo, “and in truth
you make me more than a little uncomfortable. What can it be that
has been going on so long, and had better not be told me! Have I a
right to know or have I not?”
“Ye hae a richt to ken, I do believe, else I wadna tell ye,”
answered Aggie. “I was terrified, frae the first, to think what ye
wad say til ’t! But ye see, what was there left? You, an’ the
laird, an’ my father was a’ laid up thegither, heaps o’ things
wantit, the meal dune, an’ life depen’in’ upo’ fowk haein’ what
they cud ait an’ drink!”
As she spoke, shadowy horror was deepening to monster presence; the
incredible was gradually assuming shape and fact; the hair of
Cosmo’s head seemed rising up. He asked no more questions, but sat
waiting the worst.
“Dinna be ower hard upo’ Grizzie an’ me, Cosmo,” Aggie went on. “It
wasna for oorsel’s we wad hae dune sic a thing; an’ maybe there was
nane but them we did it for ’at we wad hae been able to du ’t for.
But I hae no richt to say _we_. Blame, gien there be ony, I hae my
share o’; but praise, gien there be ony, she has ’t a’; for, that
the warst michtna come to the warst, at the last she tuik the
meal-pock,” said Aggie, and burst into tears as she said it, “an’
gaed oot wi’ ’t.”
“Good God!” cried Cosmo, and for some moments was dumb. “Lassie!”
he said at length, in a voice that was not like his own, “didna ye
ken i’ yer ain sowl we wad raither hae dee’d?”
“There ’tis! That’s jist what for Grizzie wadna hae ye tellt! But
dinna think she gaed to ony place whaur she was kent,” sobbed
Agnes, “or appeart to ony to be ither than a puir auld body ’at
gaed aboot for hersel’. Dinna think aither ’at ever she tellt a
lee, or said a word to gar fowk pity her. She had aye afore her the
possibility o’ bein’ ca’d til accoont some day. But I’m thinkin’
gien ye had applyt to her an’ no to me, ye wad hae h’ard anither
mak o’ a defence frae mine! Ae thing ye may be sure o’--there’s no
a body a hair the wiser.”
“What difference does that make?” cried Cosmo. “The fact remains.”
“Hoot, Cosmo!” said Agnes, with a revival of old authority, “ye’re
takin’ the thing in a fashion no worthy o’ a philosopher--no to say
a Christian. Ye tak it as gien there was shame intil ’t! An’ gien
there wasna shame, I daur ye to priv there can be ony disgrace!
Gien ye come to that wi’ ’t, hoo was the Lord o’ a’ himself
supportit whan he gaed aboot cleanin’ oot the warl’? Wasna it the
women ’at gaed wi’ ’im ’at providit a’ thing?”
“True; but that was very different! They knew him, all of them, and
loved him--knew that he was doing what no money could pay for; that
he was working himself to death for them and for their people--that
he was earning the whole world. Or at least they had a far off
notion that he was doing as never man did, for they knew he spake
as never man spake. Besides there was no begging there. He never
asked them for anything.”--Here Aggie shook her head in unbelief,
but Cosmo went on.--“And those women, some of them anyhow, were
rich, and proud to do what they did for the best and grandest of
men. But what have we done for the world that we should dare look
to it to help us?”
“For that maitter, Cosmo, are na we a’ brithers an’ sisters? A’
body ’s brithers an’ sisters wi’ a’ body. It’s but a kin’ o’ a some
mean pride ’at wadna be obleeged to yer ain fowk, efter ye hae dune
yer best. Cosmo! ilka han’fu’ o’ meal gi’en i’ this or ony hoose by
them ’at wadna in like need accep’ the same, is an affront frae
brither to brither. Them ’at wadna tak, I say, has no richt to
gie.”
“But nobody knew the truth of where their handful of meal was
going. They thought they were giving it to a poor old woman, when
they were in fact giving it to men with a great house over their
heads. It’s a disgrace, an’ hard to beir, Aggie!”
“’Deed the thing’s hard upon ’s a’! but whaur the disgrace is, I
will not condescen’ to see. Men in a muckle hoose! Twa o’ them
auld, an’ a’ three i’ their beds no fit to muv! Div ye think
there’s ane o’ them ’at gied to Grizzie, ’at wad hae gi’en
less--though what less nor the han’fu’ o’ meal, which was a’ she
ever got, it wad be hard to imaigine--had they kent it was for the
life o’ auld Glenwarlock--a name respeckit, an’ mair nor respeckit,
whaurever it’s h’ard?--or for the life o’ the yoong laird, vroucht
to deith wi’ labourers’ wark, an’ syne ’maist smoored i’ storm?--or
for auld Jeames Gracie, ’at’s led a God-fearin’ life till he’s
’maist ower auld to live ony langer? I say naething aboot Grizzie
an’ me, wha cud aye tak care o’ oorsel’s gien we hadna three dowie
men to luik efter. We did oor best, but whan a’ oor ain siller was
awa’ efter the lave, we cudna win awa’ oorsel’s to win mair. Gien
you three cud hae dune for yersel’s, we wad hae been sen’in’ ye
hame something.”
“You tell me,” said Cosmo, as if in a painful dream, through which
flashed lovely lights, “that you and Grizzie spent all your own
money upon us, and then Grizzie went out and begged for us?”
“’Deed there’s no anither word for ’t--nor was there ae thing ither
to be dune!” Aggie drew herself up, and went on with solemnity.
“Div ye think, Cosmo, whaur heid or hert or fit or han’ cud du
onything to waur aff want or tribble frae you or the laird, ’at
Grizzie or mysel’ wad be wantin’ that day? I beg o’ yer grace ye
winna lay to oor chairge what we war driven til. As Grizzie says,
we war jist at ane mair wi’ desperation.”
Cosmo’s heart was full. He dared not speak. He came to Aggie, and
taking her hand, looked her in the face with eyes full of tears.
She had been pale as sun-browned could be, but now she grew red as
a misty dawn. Her eyes fell, and she began to pull at the hem of
her apron. Grizzie’s step was on the stair, and Cosmo, not quite
prepared to meet her, walked out.
The morning was neither so black nor so cold as he had imagined it.
He went into the garden, to the nook between the two blocks, there
sat down, and tried to think. The sun was not far above the
horizon, and he was in the cold shade of the _kitchen-tower_, but he
felt nothing, and sat there motionless. The sun came southward,
looked round the corner, and found him there. He brought with him a
lovely fresh day. The leaves were struggling out, and the birds had
begun to sing. Ah! what a day was here, had the hope of the boy
been still swelling in his bosom! But the decree had gone forth! no
doubt remained! no refuge of uncertainty was left! The house must
follow the land! Castle Warlock and the last foothold of soil must
go, that wrong should not follow ruin! Were those divine women to
spend money, time, and labour, that he and his father should hold
what they had no longer any right to hold? Or in beggary, were they
to hide themselves in the yet lower depth of begging by proxy, in
their grim stronghold, living upon unacknowledged charity, as their
ancestors on plunder! He dared not tell his father what he had
discovered until he had taken at least the first step towards
putting an end to the whole falsehood. To delay due action was of
all things what Cosmo dreaded; and as the loss mainly affected
himself, the yielding of the castle must primarily be his deed and
not his father’s. He rose at once to do it.
The same moment the incubus of Grizzie’s meal-pock was lifted from
his bosom. The shame was, if shame was any, that they should have
been living in such a house while the thing was done. When the
house was sold, let people say what they would! In proportion as a
man cares to do what he ought, he ceases to care how it may be
judged. Of all things why should a true man heed the unjust
judgment?
“If there be any stain upon us,” he said to himself, “God will see
that we have the chance of wiping it out!”
With that he got over gate and wall, and took his way along
Grizzie’s path, once more, for the time at least, an undisputed
possession of the people.
But while he was thinking in the garden, Grizzie, who knew from
Aggie that her secret was such no more, was in dire distress in the
kitchen, fearing she had offended the young laird beyond remedy. In
great anxiety she kept going every minute to the door, to see if he
were not coming in to have his breakfast. But the first she saw of
him was his back, as he leaped from the top of the wall. She ran
after him to the gate.
“Sir! sir!” she cried, “come back; come back, an’ I’ll gang doon
upo’ my auld knees to beg yer pardon.”
Cosmo turned the moment he heard her, and went back.
When he reached the wall, over the top of the gate he saw Grizzie
on her knees upon the round paving stones of the yard, stretching
up her old hands to him, as if he were some heavenly messenger just
descended, whose wrath she deprecated. He jumped over wall and
gate, ran to her, and lifted her to her feet, saying,
“Grizzie, wuman, what are ye aboot! Bless ye, Grizzie, I wad ’maist
as sune strive wi’ my ain mither whaur she shines i’ glory, as wi’
you!”
Grizzie’s face began to work like that of a child in an agony
between pride and tears, just ere he breaks into a howl. She
gripped his arm hard with both hands, and at length faltered out,
gathering composure as she proceeded,
“Cosmo, ye’re like an angel o’ God to a’ ’at hae to du wi’ ye! Eh,
sic an accoont o’ ye as I’ll hae to gie to the mither o’ ye whan I
win to see her! For surely they’ll lat me see her, though they may
weel no think me guid eneuch to bide wi’ her up there, for as lang
as we was thegither doon here! Tell me, sir, what wad ye hae me du.
But jist ae thing I maun say:--gien I hadna dune as I did du, I do
not see hoo we cud hae won throu’ the winter.”
“Grizzie,” said Cosmo, “I ken ye did a’ for the best, an’ maybe it
was the best. The day may come, Grizzie, whan we’ll gang thegither
to ca’ upo’ them ’at pat the meal i’ yer pock, an’ return them
thanks for their kin’ness.”
“Eh, na, sir! That wad never du! What for sud they ken onything
aboot it! They war jist kin’-like at lairge, an’ to naebody in
partic’lar, like the man wi’ his sweirin’. They gae to me jist as
they wad to ony unco beggar wife. It was to me they gae ’t, no to
you. Lat it a’ lie upo’ me.”
“That canna be, Grizzie,” said Cosmo. “Ye see ye’re ane o’ the
faimily, an’ whatever ye du, I maun haud my face til.”
“God bless ye, sir!” exclaimed Grizzie, and turned towards the
house, entirely relieved and satisfied.
“But eh, sir!” she cried, turning again, “ye haena broken yer fast
the day!”
“I’ll be back in a feow minutes, an’ mak a brakfast o’ ’t by
or’nar’,” answered Cosmo, and hastened away up the hill.
CHAPTER LI.
IT IS NAUGHT, SAITH THE BUYER.
When Cosmo reached the gate of his lordship’s _policy_, he found it
closed, and although he rang the bell, and called lustily to the
gate-keeper, no one appeared. He put a hand on the top of the gate,
and lightly vaulted over it. But just as he lighted, who should
come round a bend in the drive a few yards off, but Lord
Lick-my-loof himself, out for his morning walk! His irritable
cantankerous nature would have been annoyed at sight of anyone
treating his gate with such disrespect, but when he saw who it was
that thus made nothing of it--clearing it with as much contempt as
a lawyer would a quibble not his own--his displeasure grew to
indignation and anger.
“I beg your pardon, my lord,” said Cosmo, taking the first word
that apology might be immediate, “I could make no one hear me, and
therefore took the liberty of describing a parabola over your
gate.”
“A verra ill fashiont parabola in my judgment, Mr. Warlock! I fear
you have been learning of late to think too little of the rights of
property.”
“If I had put my foot on your new paint, my lord, I should have
been to blame; but I vaulted clean over, and touched nothing more
than if the gate had been opened to me.”
“I’ll have an iron gate!”
“Not on my account, my lord, I hope; for I have come to ask you to
put it out of my power to offend any more, by enabling me to leave
Glenwarlock.”
“Well?” returned his lordship, and waited.
“I find myself compelled at last,” said Cosmo, not without some
tremor in his voice, which he did his best to quench, “to give you
the refusal, according to your request, of the remainder of my
father’s property.”
“House and all?”
“Everything except the furniture.”
“Which I do not want.”
A silence followed.
“May I ask if your lordship is prepared to make me an offer?--or
will you call on my father when you have made up your mind?”
“I will give two hundred pounds for the lot.”
“Two hundred pounds!” repeated Cosmo, who had not expected a large
offer, but was unprepared for one so small; “why, my lord, the bare
building material would be worth more than that!”
“Not to take it down. I might as well blast it fresh from the
quarry. I know the sort of thing those walls of yours are!
Vitrified with age, by George! But I don’t want to build, and
standing, the place is of no use to me. I should but let it crumble
away at its leisure!”
Cosmo’s dream rose again before his mind’s eye; but it was no more
with pain; for if the dear old place was to pass from their hands,
what other end could be desired for it!
“But the sum you mention, my lord, would not, after paying the
little we owe, leave us enough to take us from the place!”
“That I should be sorry for; but as to paying, many a better man
has never done that. You have my offer: take it or leave it. You’ll
not get half as much if it come to the hammer. To whom else would
it be worth anything, bedded in my property? If I say I don’t want
it, see if anybody will!”
Cosmo’s heart sank afresh. He dared not part with the place off
hand on such terms, but must consult his father: his power of
action was for the time exhausted; he could do no more alone--not
even to spare his father.
“I must speak to the laird,” he said. “I doubt if he will accept
your offer.”
“As he pleases. But I do not promise to let the offer stand. I make
it now--not to-morrow, or an hour hence.”
“I must run the risk,” answered Cosmo. “Will you allow me to jump
the gate?”
But his lordship had a key, and preferred opening it.
When Cosmo reached his father’s room, he found him not yet thinking
of getting up, and sat down and told him all--to what straits they
were reduced; what Grizzie had felt herself compelled to do in his
illness; how his mind and heart and conscience had been exercised
concerning the castle; how all his life, for so it seemed now, the
love of it had held him to the dust; where and on what errand he
had been that morning, with the result of his interview with Lord
Lick-my-loof. He had fought hard, he said, and through the grace of
God had overcome his weakness--so far at least that it should no
more influence his action; but now he could go no further without
his father. He was equal to no more.
“I would not willingly be left out of your troubles, my son,” said
the old man, cheerfully. “Leave me alone a little. There is one,
you know, who is nearer to each of us than we are to each other: I
must talk to him--your father and my father, in whom you and I are
brothers.”
Cosmo bowed in reverence, and withdrew.
After the space of nearly half an hour, he heard the signal with
which his father was in the habit of calling him, and hastened to
him.
The laird held out his old hand to him.
“Come, my son,” he said, “and let us talk together as two of the
heirs of all things. It’s unco easy for me to regaird wi’
equanimity the loss o’ a place I am on the point o’ leavin’ for the
hame o’ a’ hames--the dwellin’ o’ a’ the loves, withoot the dim
memory or foresicht o’ which--I’m thinkin’ they maun be aboot the
same thing--we could never hae lo’ed this auld place as we du, an’
whaur, ance I’m in, a’ thing doon here maun dwindle ootworthied by
reason o’ the glory that excelleth--I dinna mean the glory o’
pearls an’ gowd, or even o’ licht, but the glory o’ love an’
trowth. But gien I’ve ever had onything to ca’ an ambition, Cosmo,
it has been that my son should be ane o’ the wise, wi’ faith to
believe what his father had learned afore him, an’ sae start
farther on upo’ the narrow way than his father had startit. My
ambition has been that my endeavours and my experience should in
such measure avail for my boy, as that he should begin to make his
own endeavours and gather his own experience a little nearer that
perfection o’ life efer which oor divine nature groans an’ cries,
even while unable to know what it wants. Blessed be the voice that
tells us we maun forsake all, and take up our cross, and follow
him, losing our life that we may find it! For whaur wad he hae us
follow him but til his ain hame, to the verra bosom o’ his God an’
oor God, there to be ane wi’ the Love essential!”
Such a son as Cosmo could not listen to such a father saying such
things, and not drop the world as if it were no better than the
burnt out cinder of the moon.
“When men desire great things, then is God ready to hear them,” he
said; “and so it is, I think, father, that he has granted your
desires for me: I desire nothing but to fulfil my calling.”
“Then ye can pairt wi’ the auld hoose ohn grutten?”
“As easy, father, as wi’ a piece whan I wasna hungry. I do not say
that another mood may not come, for you know the flesh lusteth
against the spirit as well as the spirit against the flesh; but in
my present mood of light and peace, I rejoice to part with the
house as a victory of the spirit. Shall I go to his lordship at
once and accept his offer? I am ready.”
“Do, my son. I think I have not long to live, and the money, though
little, is large in this, that it will enable me to pay the last of
my debts, and die in the knowledge that I leave you a free man. You
will easily provide for yourself when I am gone, and I know you
will not forget Grizzie. For Jeames Gracie, he maun hae his share
o’ the siller because o’ the croft: we maun calculate it fairly.
He’ll no want muckle mair i’ this warl’. Aggie ’ill be as safe ’s an
angel ony gait. An’, Cosmo, whatever God may mean to du wi’ you i’
this warl’, ye’ll hae an abundant entrance ministered to ye intil
the kingdom’ o’ oor Lord an’ Saviour. Wha daur luik for a better
fate nor that o’ the Lord himsel’! But there was them ’at by faith
obtained kingdoms, as weel as them wha by faith were sawn asunder:
they war baith martyrdoms; an’ whatever God sen’s, we s’ tak.”
“Then you accept the two hundred for croft and all, father?”
“Dinna ettle at a penny more; he micht gang back upo’ ’t. Regaird
it as his final offer.”
Cosmo rose and went, strong-hearted, and without a single thought
that pulled back from the sacrifice. There was even a certain
pleasure in doing the thing just because in another and lower mood
it would have torn his heart: the spirit was rejoicing against the
flesh. To be rid of the castle would be to feel, far off, as the
young man would have felt had he given all to the poor and followed
the master. With the strength of a young giant he strode along.
When he reached the gate, there was my lord leaning over it.
“I thought you would be back soon! I knew the old cock would have
more sense than the young one; and I didn’t want my gate scrambled
over again,” he said, but without moving to open it.
“My father will take your lordship’s offer,” said Cosmo.
“I was on the point of making a fool of myself, and adding another
fifty to be certain of getting rid of you; but I came to the
conclusion it was a piece of cowardice, and that, as I had so long
stood the dirty hovel at my gate because I couldn’t help it, I
might just as well let you find your own way out of the parish.”
“I am sure from your lordship’s point of view you were right,” said
Cosmo. “We shall content ourselves, anyhow, with the two hundred.”
“Indeed you will not! Did I not tell you I would not be bound by
the offer? I have changed my mind, and mean to wait for the sale.”
“I beg your pardon. I did not quite understand your lordship.”
“You do now, I trust!”
“Perfectly, my lord,” replied Cosmo, and turning away left his
lordship grinning over the gate. But he had a curious look, almost
as if he were a little ashamed of himself--as if he had only been
teasing the young fellow, and thought perhaps he had gone too far.
For Cosmo, in such peace was his heart, that he was not even angry
with the man.
On his way home, the hope awoke, and began once more to whisper
itself, that they might not be able to sell the place at all; that
some other way would be provided for their leaving it; and that,
when he was an old man, he would be allowed to return to die in it.
But up started his conscience, jealously watchful lest hope should
undermine submission, or weaken resolve. God _might_ indeed intend
they should not be driven from the old house! but he kept Abraham
going from place to place, and never let him own a foot of land,
except so much as was needful to bury his dead. And there was our
Lord: he had not a place to lay his head, and had to go out of
doors to pray to his father in secret! The only things to be
anxious about were, that God’s will should be done, and that it
should not be modified by any want of faith or obedience or
submission on his part. Then it would be God’s very own will that
was done, and not something composite, in part rendered necessary
by his opposition. If God’s pure will was done, he must equally
rejoice whether that will took or gave the castle!
And so he returned to his father.
When he told him the result of his visit, the laird expressed no
surprise.
“He maketh the wrath o’ man to praise him,” he said. “This will be
for our good.”
The whole day after, there was not between them another allusion to
the matter. Cosmo read to his father a ballad he had just written.
The old man was pleased with it; for what most would have counted a
great defect in Cosmo’s imagination was none to him--this namely,
that he never could get room for it in this world; to his way of
feeling, the end of things never came here; what end, or seeming
end came, was not worth setting before his art as a goal for which
to make; in its very nature it was no _finis_ at all, only the merest
close of a chapter.
This was the ballad, in great part the result of a certain talk
with Mr. Simon.
The miser he lay on his lonely bed,
Life’s candle was burning dim,
His heart in his iron chest was hid,
Under heaps of gold and a well locked lid,
And whether it were alive or dead,
It never troubled him.
Slowly out of his body he crept,
Said he, “I am all the same!
Only I want my heart in my breast;
I will go and fetch it out of the chest.”
Swift to the place of his gold he stept--
He was dead but had no shame!
He opened the lid--oh, hell and night!
For a ghost can see no gold;
Empty and swept--not a coin was there!
His heart lay alone in the chest so bare!
He felt with his hands, but they had no might
To finger or clasp or hold!
At his heart in the bottom he made a clutch--
A heart or a puff-ball of sin?
Eaten with moths, and fretted with rust,
He grasped but a handful of dry-rotted dust:
It was a horrible thing to touch,
But he hid it his breast within.
And now there are some that see him sit
In the charnel house alone,
Counting what seems to him shining gold,
Heap upon heap, a sum ne’er told:
Alas, the dead, how they lack of wit!
They are not even bits of bone!
Another miser has got his chest,
And his painfully hoarded store;
Like ferrets his hands go in and out,
Burrowing, tossing the gold about;
And his heart too is out of his breast,
Hid in the yellow ore.
Which is the better--the ghost that sits
Counting shadowy coin all day,
Or the man that puts his hope and trust
In a thing whose value is only his lust?
Nothing he has when out he flits
But a heart all eaten away.
That night, as he lay thinking, Cosmo resolved to set out on the
morrow for the city, on foot, and begging his way if necessary.
There he would acquaint Mr. Burns with the straits they were in,
and require of him his best advice how to make a living for himself
and his father and Grizzie. As for James and Agnes, they might stay
at the castle, where he would do his best to help them. As soon as
his father had had his breakfast, he would let him know his
resolve, and with his assent, would depart at once. His spirits
rose as he brooded. What a happy thing it was that Lord
Lick-my-loof had not accepted their offer! all the time they saw
themselves in a poor lodging in a noisy street, they would know
they had their own strong silent castle waiting to receive them, as
soon as they should be able to return to it! Then the words came to
him: “Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.”
The special discipline for some people would seem to be that they
shall never settle down, or feel as if they were at home, until
they are at home in very fact.
“Anyhow,” said Cosmo to himself, “such a castle we have!”
To be lord of space, a man must be free of all bonds to place. To
be heir of all things, his heart must have no _things_ in it. He must
be like him who makes things, not like one who would put everything
in his pocket. He must stand on the upper, not the lower side of
them. He must be as the man who makes poems, not the man who
gathers books of verse. God, having made a sunset, lets it pass,
and makes such a sunset no more. He has no picture-gallery, no
library. What if in heaven men shall be so busy growing, that they
have not time to write or to read!
How blessed Cosmo would live, with his father and Grizzie and his
books, in the great city--in some such place as he had occupied
when at the university! The one sad thing was that he could not be
with his father all day; but so much the happier would be the
home-coming at night! Thus imagining, he fell fast asleep.
He dreamed that he had a barrow of oranges, with which he had been
going about the streets all day, trying in vain to sell them. He
was now returning home, the barrow piled, as when he set out in the
morning, with the golden fruit. He consoled himself however with
the thought, that his father was fond of oranges, and now might
have as many as he pleased. But as he wheeled the barrow along, it
seemed to grow heavier and heavier, and he feared his strength was
failing him, and he would never get back to his father. Heavier and
heavier it grew, until at last, although he had it on the
pavement--for it was now the dead of the night--he could but just
push it along. At last he reached the door, and having laboriously
wheeled it into a shed, proceeded to pick from it a few of the best
oranges to take up to his father. But when he came to lift one from
the heap, lo, it was a lump of gold! He tried another and another:
every one of them was a lump of solid gold. It was a dream-version
of the golden horse. Then all at once he said to himself, nor knew
why, “My father is dead!” and woke in misery. It was many moments
before he quite persuaded himself that he had but dreamed. He rose,
went to his father’s bed-side, found him sleeping peacefully, and
lay down comforted, nor that night dreamed any more.
“What,” he said to himself, “would money be to me without my
father!”
Some of us shrink from making plans because experience has shown us
how seldom they are realized. Not the less are the plans we do make
just as subject to overthrow as the plans of the most prolific and
minute of projectors. It was long since Cosmo had made any, and the
resolve with which he now fell asleep was as modest as wise man
could well cherish; the morning nevertheless went differently from
his intent and expectation.
CHAPTER LII.
AN OLD STORY.
He was roused before sunrise by his father’s cough. After a bad
fit, he was very weary and restless. Now, in such a condition,
Cosmo could almost always put him to sleep by reading to him, and
he therefore got a short story, and began to read. At first it had
the desired effect, but in a little while he woke, and asked him to
go on. The story was of a king’s ship so disguising herself that a
pirate took her for a merchant-man; and Cosmo, to whom it naturally
recalled the Old Captain, made some remark about him.
“You mustn’t believe,” said his father, “all they told you when a
boy about that uncle of ours. No doubt he was a rough sailor
fellow, but I do not believe there was any ground for calling him a
pirate. I don’t suppose he was anything worse than a privateer,
which, God knows, is bad enough. I fancy, however, for the most of
his sea-life he was captain of an East Indiaman, probably trading
on his own account at the same time. That he made money I do not
doubt, but very likely he lost it all before he came home, and was
too cunning, in view of his probable reception, to confess it.”
“I remember your once telling me an amusing story of an
adventure--let me see--yes, that was in an East Indiaman: was he
the captain of that one?”
“No--a very different man--a cousin of your mother’s that was. I
was thinking of it a minute ago; it has certain points, if not of
resemblance, then of contrast with the story you have just been
reading.”
“I should like much to hear it again, when you are able to tell
it.”
“I have got it all in writing. It was amongst my Marion’s papers.
You will find, in the bureau in the book-closet, in the pigeon-hole
farthest to the left, a packet tied with red tape: bring that, and
I will find it for you.”
Cosmo brought the bundle of papers, and his father handed him one
of them, saying, “This narrative was written by a brother of your
mother’s. The Captain Macintosh who is the hero of the story, was a
cousin of her mother, and at the time of the event related must
have been somewhat advanced in years, for he had now returned to
his former profession after having lost largely in an attempt to
establish a brewery on the island of St. Helena!”
Cosmo unfolded the manuscript, and read as follows:
“‘An incident occurring on the voyage to India when my brother went
out, exhibits Captain Macintosh’s character very practically, and
not a little to his professional credit.
“‘On a fine evening some days after rounding the cape of Good Hope,
sailing with a light breeze and smooth water, a strange sail of
large size hove in sight, and apparently bearing down direct upon
the “Union,” Captain Macintosh’s ship; evidently a ship of war, but
showing _no colours_--a very suspicious fact. All English ships at
that time trading to and from India, by admiralty rules, were
obliged to carry armaments proportioned to their tonnage, and crew
sufficient to man and work the guns carried. The strange sail was
_nearing_ them, or “the big stranger,” as the seamen immediately
named her. My brother, many years afterwards, more than once told
me, that the change, or rather the _transformation_, which Captain
Macintosh _under_went, was one of the most remarkable facts he had
ever witnessed; more bordering on the _marvellous_, than anything
else. When he had carefully and deliberately viewed the “big
stranger,” and deliberately laying down his glass, his eyes seemed
to have catched _fire_! and his whole countenance lighted up; a new
spirit seemed to possess him, while he preserved the utmost
coolness: advancing deliberately to what is called the poop
railing, and steadily looking forward--“Boatswain! Pipe to
quarters.” Muster roll called.--“Now, my men, we shall _fight_! I
know you will do it well!--Clear ship for action!” I have certainly
but my brother’s word and judgment upon the fact, who had never
been _under fire_; but his opinion was, that no British ship of war
could have been more speedily, or more completely cleared for
action, both in rigging, decks, and guns,--guns _double shotted_ and
run out into position. “The big stranger” was now _nearing_,--no
ports opened, and no colours shewn--_all_ increased cause of
suspicion that there was some ill intent in the wind--and it was
very evident, from the _size_ of “the big stranger”--nearly _thrice_
the size of the little “Union,”--that, one broad side from the
former, might send the latter at once to the bottom:--the whole
crew, my brother related, were in the highest spirits, more as if
preparing for a _dance_, than for work of life and death. Suddenly,
the captain gives the command,--“Boarders,--Prepare to board!
--Lower away, boarding Boats”--and no sooner said than done. The
stranger was now at musket-shot. It was worthy the courage of a
_Nelson_ or a _Cochrane_, to think of boarding at such odds;--a mere
handful of men, to a full complement of a heavy Frigate’s crew! The
idea was altogether in keeping with the best naval tactics and
skill. Foreseeing that one broadside from such an enemy would sink
him, he must _anticipate_ such a crisis. Boarding would at least
divert the enemy from their _guns_; and he knew what British seamen
could do, in clearing an enemy’s decks! _There was_ British spirit in
those days. Let us hope it shall again appear, should the occasion
arise. The captain himself was the first in the foremost Boarding
Boat--and the first in the enemy’s main chains, and to set his foot
on the enemy’s main deck! when a most magic-like scene saluted the
Boarders; but did not _yet_ allay suspicion:--not a single enemy on
deck!--Here, a characteristic act of a British _tar_--the Union’s
Boatswain,--must not be omitted--an old man of war’s man:--no
sooner had his foot touched the _enemy’s_ deck, than _rushing aft_--(or
towards the ship’s _stern_)--to the _wheel_,--the _only man on deck_
being he at the wheel,--a big, lubberly looking man,--the Union’s
boatswain in less than a _moment_ had his hands to the steersman’s
throat,--and with one _fell shove_, sent him spinning, heels over
head--all the full length of the ship’s quarter-deck, to land on
the main deck;--one may suppose rather _astonished_! The manly
boatswain himself was the only man _hurt_ in the affair--his boarding
pistol, by some untoward accident, went off,--its double shot
running up his fore-arm, and lodging in the bones of his elbow.
Amputation became necessary; and the dear old fellow soon
afterwards died.
“‘But what did all this _hullybaloo_ come to? Breathe--and we shall
hear! “The Big Stranger” turned out to be a large, heavy armed
Portuguese Frigate!--Actually the _war-ship solitary_ of the
Portuguese navy then afloat!--a fine specimen of Portuguese naval
discipline, no doubt!--not a _watch_ even on deck!--They had seen
immediately on seeing her, that the “Union” was _English_, and a
merchant ship--which a practised seaman’s eye can do at once; and
they had quietly gone to take their _siesta_, after their country’s
fashion--Portugal, at that time, being one of Britain’s allies, and
not an enemy;--a grievous _disappointment_ to the crew of the “Union.”’
“My uncle seems to have got excited as he went on,” said Cosmo, “to
judge by the number of words he has underlined!”
“He enters into the spirit of the thing pretty well for a
clergyman!” said the laird.
CHAPTER LIII.
A SMALL DISCOVERY.
When they had had a little talk over the narrative, the laird
desired Cosmo to replace the papers, and rising he went to obey. As
he approached the closet, the first beams of the rising sun were
shining upon the door of it. The window through which they entered
was a small one, and the mornings of the year in which they so fell
were not many. When he opened the door, they shot straight to the
back of the closet, lighting with rare illumination the little
place, commonly so dusky that in it one book could hardly be
distinguished from another. It was as if a sudden angel had entered
a dungeon. When the door fell to behind him, as was its custom, the
place felt so dark that he seemed to have lost memory as well as
sight, and not to know where he was. He set it open again, and
having checked it so, proceeded to replace the papers. But the
strangeness of the presence there of such a light took so great a
hold on his imagination, and it was such a rare thing to see what
the musty dingy little closet, which to Cosmo had always been the
treasure-chamber of the house, was like, that he stood for a
moment with his hand on the cover of the bureau, gazing into the
light-invaded corners as if he had suddenly found himself in a
department of Aladdin’s cave. Old to him beyond all memory, it yet
looked new and wonderful, much that had hitherto been scarcely
known but to his hands now suddenly revealed in radiance to his
eyes also. Amongst other facts he discovered that the bureau stood,
not against a rough wall as he had imagined, but against a plain
surface of wood. In mild surprise he tapped it with his knuckles,
and almost started at the hollow sound it returned.
“What can there be ahin’ the bureau, father?” he asked, re-entering
the room.
“I dinna ken o’ onything,” answered the laird. “The desk stan’s
close again’ the wa’, does na ’t?”
“Ay, but the wa’ ’s timmer, an’ soon’s how.”
“It may be but a wainscotin’; an’ gien there was but an inch atween
hit an’ the stane, it wad soon’ like that.”
“I wad like to draw the desk oot a bit, an’ hae a nearer luik. It
fills up a’ the space, ’at I canna weel win at it.”
“Du as ye like, laddie. The hoose is mair yours nor mine. But noo
ye hae putten ’t i’ my heid, I min’ my mother sayin’ ’at there was
ance a passage atween the twa blocks o’ the hoose: could it be
there? I aye thoucht it had been atween the kitchen an’ the dinin’
room. My father, she said, had it closed up.”
Said Cosmo, who had been gazing toward the closet from where he
stood by the bedside,
“It seems to gang farther back nor the thickness o’ the wa’!” He
went and looked out of the western window, then turned again
towards the closet. “I canna think,” he resumed, with something
like annoyance in his tone, “hoo it cud be ’at I never noticed that
afore! A body wad think I had nae heid for what I prided mysel’
upo’--an un’erstan’in’ o’ hoo things are putten thegither,
specially i’ the w’y o’ stane an’ lime! The closet rins richt intil
the great blin’ wa’ atween the twa hooses! I thoucht that wa’ had
been naething but a kin’ o’ a curtain o’ defence, but there may
weel be a passage i’ the thickness o’ ’t!”
So saying he re-entered the closet, and proceeded to move the
bureau. The task was not an easy one. The bureau was large, and so
nearly filled the breadth of the closet, that he could attack it
nowhere but in front, and had to drag it forward, laying hold of it
where he could, over a much-worn oak floor. The sun had long
deserted him before he got behind it.