again to the laird.
“Onything ye like, I tell ye, laddie! I’m growin’ curious mysel’,”
he answered.
“I’m feart for makin’ ower muckle din, father.”
“Nae fear, nae fear! I haena a sair heid. The Lord be praist,
that’s a thing I’m seldom triblet wi’. Gang an’ get ye what tools
ye want, an’ gang at it, an’ dinna spare. Gien the hole sud lat in
the win’, ye’ll mar nae mair, I’m thinkin’, nor ye’ll be able to
mak again. What timmer is ’t o’?”
“Only deal, sae far as I can judge.”
Cosmo went and fetched his tool-basket, and set to work. The
partition was strong, of good sound pine, neither rotten nor
worm-eaten--inch-boards matched with groove and tongue, not quite
easy to break through. But having, with a centre-bit and brace,
bored several holes near each other, he knocked out the pieces
between, and introducing a saw, soon made an opening large enough
to creep through. A cold air met him, as if from a cellar, and on
the other side he seemed in another climate.
Feeling with his hands, for there was scarcely any light, he
discovered that the space he had entered was not a closet, inasmuch
as there was no shelf, or anything in it, whatever. It was
certainly most like the end of a deserted passage. His feet told
him the floor was of wood, and his hands that the walls were of
rough stone without plaster, cold and damp. With outstretched arms
he could easily touch both at once. Advancing thus a few paces, he
struck his head against wood, felt panels, and concluded a door.
There was a lock, but the handle was gone. He went back a little,
and threw himself against it. Lock and hinges too gave way, and it
fell right out before him. He went staggering on, and was brought
up by a bed, half-falling across it. He was in the spare room, the
gruesome centre of legend, the dwelling of ghostly awe. Not yet
apparently had its numen forsaken it, for through him passed a
thrill at the discovery. From his father’s familiar room to this,
was like some marvellous transition in a fairy-tale; the one was
home, a place of use and daily custom; the other a hollow in the
far-away past, an ancient cave of Time, full of withering history.
Its windows being all to the north and long unopened, it was
lustreless, dark, and musty with decay.
Cosmo stood motionless a while, gazing about him as if, from being
wide awake, he suddenly found himself in a dream. Then he turned as
if to see how he had got into it. There lay the door, and there was
the open passage! He lifted the door: the other side of it was
covered with the same paper as the wall, from which it had brought
with it several ragged pieces. He went back, crept through, and
rejoined his father.
In eager excitement, he told him the discovery he had made.
“I heard the noise of the falling door,” said his father quietly.
“I should not wonder now,” he added, “if we discovered a way
through to the third block.”
“Oh, father,” said Cosmo with a sigh, “what a comfort this door
would have so often been! and now, just as we are like to leave the
house forever, we first discover it!”
“How well we have got on without it!” returned his father.
“But what could have made grandfather close it up?”
“There was, I believe, some foolish ghost-story connected with
it--perhaps the same old Grannie told you.”
“I wonder grandmamma never spoke of it!”
“My impression is she never cared to refer to it.”
“I daursay she believed it.”
“Weel, I daursay! I wadna won’er!”
“What for did ye ca’ ’t foolish, father?”
“Jist for thouchtlessness, I doobt. But wha could hae imagined to
kep a ghaist by paperin’ ower a door, whan, gien there be ony
trowth i’ sic tales, the ghaist gangs throu’ a stane wa’ jist as
easy ’s open air! But surely o’ a’ fules a ghaist maun be the warst
o’ things on aboot a place!”
“Maybe it’s to haud away frae a waur. The queer thing, father, to
me wad be ’at the ghaist, frae bein’ a fule a’ his life, sud grow a
wise man the minute he was deid! Michtna it be a pairt o’ his
punishment to be garred see hoo things gang on efter he’s deid!
What could be sairer, for instance, upon a miser, nor to see his
heir gang to the deevil by scatterin’ what he gaed to the deevil by
gatherin’?”
“’Deed ye’re richt eneuch, there, my son!” answered the old man.
Then after a pause he resumed. “It’s aye siller or banes ’at fesses
them back. I can weel un’erstan’ a great reluctance to tak their
last leave o’ the siller, but for the banes--eh, but I’ll be unco
pleased to be rid o’ mine!”
“But whaur banes are concernt, hasna there aye been fause play?”
suggested Cosmo.
“Wad it be revenge, than, think ye?”
“It micht be: maist o’ the stories o’ that kin’ en’ wi’ bringin’
the murderer an’ justice acquant. But the human bein’ seems in a’
ages to hae a grit dislike to the thoucht o’ his banes bein’ left
lyin’ aboot. I hae h’ard gran’mamma say the dirtiest servan’ was
aye clean twa days o’ her time--the day she cam an’ the day she
gaed.”
“Ye hae thoucht mair aboot it nor me, laddie! But what ye say wadna
haud wi’ the Parsees, ’at lay oot their deid to be devoored by the
birds o’ the air.”
“They swipe up their banes at the last. An’, though the livin’
expose the deid, the deid mayna like it.”
“I daursay. Ony gait it maun be a fine thing to lea’ as little dirt
as possible ahin’ ye, an’ tak nane wi’ ye. I wad fain gang clean
an’ lea’ clean!”
“Gien onybody gang clean an’ lea’ clean, father, ye wull.”
“I luik to the Lord, my son.--But noo, whan a body thinks o’ ’t,”
he went on after a pause, “there wad seem something curious i’ thae
tales concernin’ the auld captain! Sometime we’ll tak Grizzie intil
oor coonsel, an’ see hoo mony we can gaither, an’ what we can mak
o’ them whan we lay them a’ thegither. Gien the Lord hae ’t in his
min’ to keep ’s i’ this place, yon passage may turn oot a great
convanience.”
“Ye dinna think it wad be worth while openin’ ’t up direc’ly?”
“I wad bide for warmer weather. I think the room’s jist some caller
now by rizzon o’ ’t.”
“I’ll close ’t up at ance,” said Cosmo.
In a few minutes he had screwed a box-lid over the hole in the
partition, and shut the door of the closet.
“Noo,” he said, “I’ll gang an’ set up the door on the ither side.”
Before he went however, he told his father what he had been
thinking of, saying, if he approved and was well enough, he should
like to go the next day.
“It’s no an ill idea,” said the laird; “but we’ll see what the morn
may be like.”
When Cosmo entered the great bedroom of the house from the other
side, he stood for a moment staring at the open passage and
prostrate door as if he saw them for the first time, then proceeded
to examine the hinges. They were broken; the half of each remained
fast to the door-post, the other half to the door. New hinges were
necessary; in the meantime he must prop it up. This he did; and
before he left the room, as it was much in want of fresh air, he
opened all the windows.
His father continuing better through that day, he went to bed early
that he might start at sunrise.
CHAPTER LIV.
A GREATER DISCOVERY.
In the middle of the night he was wakened by a loud noise. Its
nature he had been too sound asleep to recognize; he only knew it
had waked him. He sprang out of bed, was glad to find his father
undisturbed, and stood for a few moments wondering. All at once he
remembered that he had left the windows of the best bedroom open;
the wind had risen, and was now blowing what sailors would call a
gale: probably something had been blown down! He would go and see.
Taking a scrap of candle, all he had, he crept down the stair and
out to the great door.
As he approached that of the room he sought, the faint horror he
felt of it when a boy suddenly returned upon him as fresh as ever,
and for a moment he hesitated, almost doubting whether he were not
dreaming: was he actually there in the middle of the night? But,
with an effort he dismissed the folly, was himself again, entering
the room, if not with indifference yet with composure. There was
just light enough to see the curtains of the terrible bed waving
wide in the stream of wind that followed the opening of the door.
He shut the windows, lighted his candle, and then saw the door he
had set up so carefully flat on the floor: the chair he had put
against it for a buttress, he thought, had not proved high enough,
and it had fallen down over the top of it. He placed his candle
beside it, and proceeded once more to raise it. But, casting his
eyes up to mark the direction, he caught a sight which made him lay
it down again and rise without it. The candle on the floor shone
halfway into the passage, lighting up a part of one wall of it, and
showing plainly the rough gray stones of which it was built.
Something in the shapes and arrangement of the stones drew and
fixed Cosmo’s attention. He took the candle, examined the wall,
came from the passage with his eyes shining, and his lips firmly
closed, left the room, and went up a story higher to that over it,
still called his. There he took from his old secretary the
unintelligible drawing hid in the handle of the bamboo, and with
beating heart unfolded it. Certainly its lines did, more or less,
correspond with the shapes of those stones! He must bring them face
to face!
Down the stair he went again. It was the dead of the night, but
every remnant of childhood’s awe was gone in the excitement of the
hoped discovery. He stood once more in the passage, the candle in
one hand, the paper in the other, and his eyes going and coming
steadily between it and the wall, as if reading the rough stones by
some hieroglyphic key. The lines on the paper and the joints of the
stones corresponded with almost absolute accuracy.
But another thing had caught his eye--a thing yet more promising,
though he delayed examining it until fully satisfied of the
correspondence he sought to establish: on one of the stones, one
remarkable neither by position nor shape, he spied what seemed the
rude drawing of a horse, but as it was higher than his head, and
the candle cast up shadows from the rough surfaces, he could not
see it well. Now he got a chair, and, standing on it, saw that it
was plainly enough a horse, like one a child might have made who,
with a gift for drawing, had had no instruction. It was scratched
on the stone. Beneath it, legible enough to one who knew them so
well, were the lines--
catch your Nag, & pull his Tail
in his hind Hele caw a Nail
rug his Lugs frae ane anither
stand up, & ca’ the King yer Brither
How these directions were to be followed with such a horse
as the one on the flat before him would be scanned! Probably the wall
must be broken into at that spot. In the meantime he would set up
the door again, and go to bed.
For he was alarmed at the turmoil the sight of these signs caused
in him. He dreaded _possession_ by any spirit but the one. Whatever
he did now he must do calmly. Therefore to bed he went. But before
he gave himself up to sleep, he prayed God to watch him, lest the
commotion in his heart and the giddiness of hope should make
something rise that would come between him and the light eternal.
The man in whom any earthly hope dims the heavenly presence and
weakens the mastery of himself, is on the by-way through the meadow
to the castle of Giant Despair.
In the morning he rose early, and went to see what might be
attempted for the removing of the stone. He found it, as he had
feared, so close-jointed with its neighbours that none of his tools
would serve. He went to Grizzie and got from her a thin old knife;
but the mortar had got so hard since those noises the servants used
to hear in the old captain’s room, that he could not make much
impression upon it, and the job was likely to be a long one. He
said to himself it might be the breaking through of the wall of his
father’s prison and his own, and wrought eagerly.
As soon as his father had had his breakfast, he told him what he
had discovered during the dark hours. The laird listened with the
light of a smile, not the smile itself, upon his face, and made no
answer; but Cosmo could see by the all but imperceptible motion of
his lips that he was praying.
“I wish I were able to help you,” he said at length.
“There is na room for mair nor ane at a time, father,” answered
Cosmo; “an’ I houp to get the stane oot afore I’m tired. You can be
Moses praying, while I am Joshua fighting.”
“An’ prayin’ again’ waur enemies nor ever Joshua warstled wi’,”
returned his father; “for whan I think o’ the rebound o’ the
spirit, even in this my auld age, that cudna but follow the mere
liftin’ o’ the weicht o’ debt, I feel as gien my sowl wad be
tum’led aboot like a bledder, an’ its auld wings tak to lang slow
flaggin’ strokes i’ the ower thin aether o’ joy. The great God
protec’ ’s frae his ain gifts! Wi’oot him they’re ten times waur
nor ony wiles o’ the deevil’s ain. But I’ll pray, Cosmo; I’ll
pray.”
The real might of temptation is in the lower and seemingly nearer
loveliness as against the higher and seemingly farther.
Cosmo went back to his work. But he got tired of the old knife--it
was not tool enough, and had to fashion on the grindstone a
screw-driver to a special implement. With that he got on better.
The stone,--whether by the old captain’s own hands, his ghost best
knew--was both well fitted and fixed, but after Cosmo had worked at
it for about three hours, his tool suddenly went through. It was
then easy to knock away from the edge gained, and on the first
attempt to prize it out, it yielded so far that he got a hold with
his fingers, and the rest was soon done. It disclosed a cavity in
the wall, but the light was not enough to let him see into it, and
he went to get a candle.
Now Grizzie had a curious dislike to any admission of the poverty
of the house even to those most interested, and having but one
small candle-end left, was unwilling both to yield it, and to
confess it her last.
“Them ’at burns daylicht, sune they’ll hae nae licht!” she said.
“What wad ye want wi’ a can’le? I’ll haud a fir-can’le to ye, gien
ye like.”
“Grizzie,” repeated Cosmo, “I want a can’le.”
She went grumbling, and brought him the miserable end.
“Hoot, Grizzie!” he expostulated, “dinna be sae near. Ye wadna,
gien ye kenned what I was aboot.”
“Eh! what are ye aboot, sir?”
“I’m no gaein’ to tell ye yet. Ye maun hae patience, an’ I maun hae
a can’le.”
“Ye maun tak what’s offert ye.”
“Grizzie, I’m in earnest.”
“’Deed an’ sae am I! Ye s’ hae nae mair nor that--no gien it was to
scrape the girnel--an’ that’s dune lang syne, an’ twise ower!”
“Grizzie, I’m feart ye’ll anger me.”
“Ye s’ get nae mair!”
Cosmo burst out laughing.
“Grizzie,” he said, “I dinna believe ye hae an’ inch mair can’le i’
the hoose!”
“It needs na a Warlock to tell that! Gien I had it, what for sud na
ye hae ’t ’at has the best richt?”
Cosmo took his candle, and was as sparing of it as Grizzie herself
could have wished.
CHAPTER LV.
A GREAT DISCOVERY.
The instant the rays of the candle-end were thrown into the cavity,
he saw what, expectant as he was, made him utter a cry. He seemed
to be looking through a small window into a toy-stable--a large one
for a toy. Immediately before him was a stall, in which stood a horse,
with his tail towards the window. He put in his hand and
felt it over. For a toy it would have been of the largest size
below a rocking horse. It was covered with a hairy skin. So far all
was satisfactory, but alas! more stones must be removed ere it
could be taken from its prison stall, where, like the horses of
Charlemagne, it had been buried so many years. He extinguished the
precious candle-end, and set to work once more with a will and what
light the day afforded. Nor was the task much easier than before.
Every one of the stones was partly imbedded in the solid of the
wall, projecting but a portion of its bulk over the hollow of the
stable. The old captain must indeed have worked hard! for assuredly
he was not the man to call for help where he desired
secrecy--though doubtless it was his sudden death, and the nature
of it, which prevented him from making disclosure concerning the
matter before he left the world: the rime, the drawing, the
scratches on the stone, all indicated the intention. Cosmo took
pleasure in thinking that, if indeed his ghost did “walk,” as
Grannie and others had affirmed, it must be more from desire to
reveal where his money was hid, than from any gloating over the
imagined possession of it.
But it was now dinner-time, and he must rest, for he was tired as
well as hungry--and no wonder, the work having been so awkward as
well as continuous! He locked the door of the room, went first to
tell his father what he had further found, and then made haste over
his meal, for the night was coming, and there were no candles.
Persistently he laboured; “the toil-drops fell from his brow like
rain;” and at last he laid hold of the patient animal by the hind
legs, with purpose to draw it gently from the stall. A little way
it came, then no farther, and he had to light the candle. Peeping
into the stall he perceived a chain stretching from its head to
where the manger might be. This he dared not try to break, lest he
might injure the mechanism he hoped to find in it. But clearly the
horse could not have been so fastened as the stall then stood. The
stall must have been completed after the horse was thus secured.
More than ever he now needed a candle--and indeed one held for him;
but he was not prepared either to take Grizzie into his confidence,
or to hurt her by perferring Agnes. He therefore examined the two
stones forming the sides of the stall, and led by the appearance of
one of them, proceeded to attempt its removal almost in the dark,
compelled indeed now and then to feel for the proper spot where to
set his tool before he struck it. For some time he seemed to make,
little or no progress; but who would be discouraged with the end in
sight!
The stone at length moved, and in a minute he had it out. For the
last time he lighted his candle, and there was just enough of it
left to show him how the chain was fastened. With a pair of pincers
he detached it from the wall--and I may mention that his life after
he wore it at his watch.
And now he had the horse in his arms and would have borne it
straight to his father, in whose presence it must be searched, but
that, unwilling to carry it through the kitchen, he must first go
to the other end of the passage and open that way.
The laird was seated by the fire when Cosmo went through, and
returning with the horse, placed it on a chair beside him. They
looked it all over, wondering whether the old captain could have
made it himself, and Cosmo thought his father prolonged the inquiry
from a wish to still his son’s impatience. But at length he said,
“Noo, Cosmo, i’ the name o’ God, the giver o’ ilka guid an’ perfec’
gift, see gien ye can win at the entrails o’ the animal. It canna be
fu’ o’ men like the Trojan horse, or they maun be enchantit sma’,
like the deevils whan they war ower mony for the cooncil ha’; but
what’s intil ’t may carry a heap waur danger to you an’ me nor ony
nummer o’ airmit men!”
“Ye min’ the rime, father?” asked Cosmo.
“No sae weel as the twenty-third psalm,” replied the laird with a
smile.
“Weel, the first line o’ ’t is, ‘Catch yer naig, an’ pu’ his tail.’
Wi’ muckle diffeeclety we hae catcht him, an’ noo for the tail o’
’im!--There! that’s dune!--though there’s no muckle to shaw for ’t.
The neist direction is--‘In his hin’ heel caw a nail:’ we s’ turn
up a’ his fower feet thegither, ’cause they’re cooperant; an’ noo
lat ’s see the proper spot whaur to caw the said nail!”
The horse’s shoes were large, and the hole where a nail was missing
had not to be sought. Cosmo took a fine bradawl, and pushed it
gently into the hoof. A loud, whirring noise followed, but with no
visible result.
“The next direction,” said Cosmo, “is--‘Rug his lugs frae ane
anither.’ Noo, father, God be wi’ ’s! an’ gien it please him we be
disap’intit, may he gie ’s grace to beir ’t as he wad hae ’s beir
’t.’
“I pray the same,” said the laird.
Cosmo pulled the two ears of the animal in opposite directions. The
back began to open, slowly, as if through the long years the cleft
had begun to grow together. He sprang from his seat. The laird
looked after him with a gentle surprise. But it was not to rush
from the room, nor yet to perform a frantic dance with the horse
for a partner.
One of the windows looked westward into the court, and at this
season of the year, the setting sun looked in at that window. He
was looking in now; his rays made a glowing pool of light in the
middle of the ancient carpet. Beside this pool Cosmo dropped on the
floor like a child with his toy, and pulled lustily at its ears.
All at once into the pool of light began to tumble a cataract as of
shattered rainbows, only brighter, flashing all the colours visible
to human eye. It ceased. Cosmo turned the horse upside down, and a
few stray drops followed. He shook it, and tapped it, like Grizzie
when she emptied the basin of meal into the porridge-pot, then
flung it from him. But the cataract had not vanished. There it lay
heaped and spread, a storm of conflicting yet harmonious hues, with
a foamy spray of spiky flashes, and spots that ate into the eyes
with their fierce colour. In every direction shot the rays from it,
blinding; for it was a mound of stones of all the shapes into which
diamonds are fashioned. It makes my heart beat but to imagine the
glorious show of deep-hued burning, flashing, stinging light! The
heaviest of its hues was borne light as those of a foam-bubble on
the strength of its triumphing radiance. There pulsed the mystic
glowing red, heart and lord of colour; there the jubilant yellow,
light-glorified to ethereal gold; there the loveliest blue, the
truth unfathomable, profounder yet than the human red; there the
green, that haunts the brain with Nature’s soundless secrets! all
together striving, yet atoning, fighting and fleeing and following,
parting and blending, with illimitable play of infinite force and
endlessly delicate gradation. Scattered here and there were a few
of all the coloured gems--sapphires, emeralds, and rubies; but they
were scarce of note in the mass of ever new-born, ever dying colour
that gushed from the fountains of the light-dividing diamonds.
Cosmo rose, left the glory where it lay, and returning to his
father, sat down beside him. For a few moments they regarded in
silence the shining mound, where, like an altar of sacrifice, it
smoked with light and colour. The eyes of the old man as he looked
seemed at once to sparkle with pleasure, and quail with some kind
of fear. He turned to Cosmo and said,
“Cosmo, are they what they luik?”
“What luik they, father?” asked Cosmo.
“Bonny bits o’ glaiss they luik,” answered the old man. “But,” he
went on, “I canna but believe them something better, they come
til ’s in sic a time o’ sair need. But, be they this or be they
that, the Lord’s wull be dune--noo an’ for ever, be it, I say, what
it like!”
“I wuss it, father!” rejoined Cosmo. “But I ken something aboot
sic-like things, frae bein’ sae muckle in Mr. Burns’s shop, an’
hauding a heap o’ conference wi’ im about them; an’ I tell ye, sir,
they’re maistly a’ di’mon’s; an’ the nummer o’ thoosan’ poun’ they
maun be worth gien they be worth a saxpence, I daurna guess!”
“They’ll be eneuch to pey oor debts ony gait, ye think, Cosmo?”
“Ay, that wull they--an’ mony a hun’er times ower. They’re maistly
a guid size, an’ no a feow o’ them lairge.”
“Cosmo, we’re ower lang ohn thankit. Come here, my son; gang doon
upo’ yer knees, an lat’s say to the Lord what we’re thinkin’.”
Cosmo obeyed, and knelt at his father’s knee, and his father laid
his hand upon his head that so they might pray more in one.
“Lord,” he said, “though naething a man can tak in his han’s can
ever be his ain, no bein’ o’ his nature, that is, made i’ thy
eemage, yet, O Lord, the thing ’at’s thine, made by thee efter thy
holy wull an’ pleesur, man may touch an’ no be defiled. Yea, he may
tak pleesur baith in itsel’ an’ in its use, sae lang as he han’les
’t i’ the how o’ thy han’, no grippin’ at it an’ ca’in’ ’t his ain,
an’ lik a rouch bairn seekin’ to snap it awa’ ’at he may hae his
fule wull o’ ’t. O God, they’re bonny stanes an’ fu’ o’ licht:
forbid ’at their licht sud breed darkness i’ the hert o’ Cosmo an’
me. O God, raither nor we sud du or feel ae thing i’ consequence o’
this thy gift, that thoo wadna hae us do or feel, we wad hae thee
tak again the gift; an’ gien i’ thy mercy, for it’s a’ mercy wi’
thee, it sud turn oot, efter a’, ’at they’re no stanes o’ thy
makin’, but coonterfeit o’ glaiss, the produc’ o’ airt an’ man’s
device, we’ll lay them a’ thegither, an’ keep them safe, an’ luik
upon them as a token o’ what thoo wad hae dune for ’s gien it hadna
been ’at we warna yet to be trustit wi’ sae muckle, an’ that for
the safety an’ clean-throuness o’ oor sowls. O God, latna the
sunshiny Mammon creep intil my Cosmo’s hert an’ mak a’ mirk; latna
the licht that is in him turn to darkness. God hae mercy on his wee
bairns, an’ no lat the play ocks he gies them tak their e’en aff o’
the giein’ han’! May the licht noo streamin’ frae the hert o’ the
bonny stanes be the bodily presence o’ thy speerit, as ance was the
doo ’at descendit upo’ the maister, an’ the buss ’at burned wi’
fire an’ wasna consumed. Thoo art the father o’ lichts, an’ a’
licht is thine. Gar oor herts burn like them--a’ licht an’ nae reek!
An’ gien ony o’ them cam in at a wrang door, may they a’ gang oot
at a richt ane. Thy wull be dune, which is the purifyin’ fire o’ a’
thing, an’ a’ sowl! Amen.”
He ceased, and was silent, praying still. Nor did Cosmo yet rise
from his knees: the joy, and yet more the relief at his heart
filled him afresh with fear, lest, no longer spurred by the same
sense of need, he should the less run after him from whom help had
come so plentifully. Alas! how is it with our hearts that in
trouble they cry, and in joy forget! that we think it hard of God
not to hear, and when he has answered abundantly, turn away as if
we wanted him no more!
When Cosmo rose from his knees, he looked his father in the face
with wet eyes.
“Oh, father!” he said, “how the fear and oppression of ages are
gone like a cloud swallowed up of space. Oh, father! are not all
human ills doomed thus to vanish at last in the eternal fire of the
love-burning God?--An’ noo, father, what’ll we du neist?” resumed
Cosmo after a pause, turning his eyes again on the heap of jewels.
The sunrays had now left them, and they lay cold and almost
colourless, though bright still: even in the dark some of them
would shine! “It pleases me, father,” he went on, “to see nane o’
them set. It pruvs naething, but maks ’t jist a wheen mair likly he
got them first han’ like. Eh, the queer things! sae hard, an’ yet
’maist bodiless! naething but skinfu’s o’ licht!”
“Hooever they war gotten,” rejoined the laird, “there can be no
question but the only w’y o’ cleansin’ them is to put them to the
best use we possibly can.”
“An’ what wad ye ca’ the best use, father?”
“Whatever maks o’ a man a neebour. A true life efter God’s notion
is the sairest bash to Sawtan. To gie yer siller to ither fowk to
spread is to jink the wark laid oot for ye. I’ the meantime hadna
ye better beery yer deid again? They maun lie i’ the dark, like
human sowls, till they’re broucht to du the deeds o’ licht.”
“Dinna ye think,” said Cosmo, “I micht set oot the morn efter a’,
though on a different eeran’, an’ gang straucht to Mr. Burns? He’ll
sune put ’s i’ the w’y to turn them til accoont. They’re o’ sma’
avail as they lie there.”
“Ye canna du better, my son,” answered the old man.
So Cosmo gathered the gems together into the horse, lifting them in
handfuls. But, peeping first into the hollow of the animal, to make
sure he had found all that was in it, he caught sight of a bit of
paper that had got stuck, and found it a Bank of England note for
five hundred pounds. This in itself would have been riches an hour
ago--now it was only a convenience.
“It’s queer to think,” said Cosmo, “’at though we hae a’ this
siller, I maun tramp it the morn like ony caird. Wha is there in
Muir o’ Warlock could change ’t, an’ wha wad I gang til wi’ ’t gien
he could?”
His father replied with a smile,
“It brings to my min’ the words o’ the apostle--‘Noo I say, that
the heir, sae lang as he’s but a bairn, differeth naething frae a
servan’, though he be lord o’ a’.’ Eh, Cosmo, but the word admits
o’ curious illustration!”
Cosmo set the horse, as soon as he had done giving him his supper
of diamonds, again in his old stall, and replaced the stones that
had shut him in as well as he could. Then he wedged up the door,
and having nothing to make paste, glued the paper again to the wall
which it had carried with it. He next sought the kitchen and
Grizzie.
CHAPTER LVI.
MR. BURNS.
“Grizzie,” he said, “I’m gaein’ a lang tramp the morn, an’ I’ll
need a great poochfu’ o’ cakes.”
“Eh, sirs! An’ what’s takin’ ye frae hame this time, sir?” returned
Grizzie.
“I’m no gaein’ to tell ye the nicht, Grizzie. It’s my turn to hae a
secret noo! But ye ken weel it’s lang sin’ there’s been onything to
be gotten by bidin’ at hame.”
“Eh, but, sir! ye’re never gaein’ to lea’ the laird! Bide an’ dee
wi’ him, sir.”
“God bless ye, Grizzie! Hae ye ony baubees?”
“Ay; what for no! I hae sax shillin’s, fower pennies, an’ a
baubee fardin’!” answered Grizzie, in the tone of a millionaire.
“Weel, ye maun jist len’ me half a croon o’ ’t.”
“Half a croon!” echoed Grizzie, staggered at the largeness of the
demand. “Haith, sir, ye’re no blate (_bashful_)!”
“I dinna think it’s ower muckle,” said Cosmo, “seein’ I hae to
tramp five an’ thirty mile the morn. But bake ye plenty o’ breid,
an’ that’ll haud doon the expence. Only, gien he can help it, a
body sudna be wantin’ a baubee in ’s pooch. Gien ye had nane to gie
me, I wad set oot bare. But jist as ye like, Grizzie! I cud beg to
be sure--noo ye hae shawn the gait,” he added, taking the old woman
by the arm with a laugh, that she might not be hurt, “but whan ye
ken ye sudna speir, an’ whan ye hae, ye hae no richt to beg.”
“Weel, I’ll gie ye auchteen pence, an’ considerin’ a’ ’at’s to be
dune wi’ what’s left, ye’ll hae to grant it’s no an oonfair
portion.”
“Weel, weel, Grizzie! I’m thinkin’ I’ll hae to be content.”
“’Deed, an’ ye wull, sir! Ye s’ hae nae mair.”
That night the old laird slept soundly, but Cosmo, ever on the
brink of unconsciousness, was blown back by a fresh gust of
gladness. The morning came golden and brave, and his father was
well enough to admit of his leaving him. So he set out, and in the
strength of his relief walked all the way without spending a
half-penny of Grizzie’s eighteen pence: two days before, he would
consult his friend how to avoid the bitterest dregs of poverty; now
he must find from him how to make his riches best available!
He did not tell Mr. Burns, however, what his final object was--only
begged him, for the sake of friendship and old times, to go with
him for a day or two to his father’s.
“But, Mr. Warlock,” objected the jeweller, “that would be taking
the play, and we’ve got to be diligent in business.”
“The thing I want you for is business,” replied Cosmo.
“But what’s to be done with the shop? I have no assistant I can
trust.”
“Then shut it up, and give your men a holiday. You can put up a
notice informing the great public when you will be back.”
“Such a thing was never heard of!”
“It is quite time it should be heard of then. Why, sir, your
business is not like a doctor’s, or even a baker’s. People can live
without diamonds!”
“Don’t speak disrespectfully of diamonds, Mr. Warlock. If you knew
them as I do, you would know they had a thing or two to say.”
“Speak of them disrespectfully you never heard me, Mr. Burns.”
“Never, I confess. I was only talking from the diamond side. Like
all things else, they give us according to what we have. To him
that hath shall be given. The fine lady may see in her fine
diamonds only victory over a rival; the philosopher may read
embodied in them law inexorably beautiful; and the Christian
poet--oh, I have read my Spenser, Mr. Warlock!--will choose the
diamond for its many qualities, as the best and only substance
wherein to represent the shield of the faith that overcometh the
world. Like the gospel itself, diamonds are a savour of life unto
life, or a savour of death unto death, according to the character
of them that look on them.”
“That is true enough. Every gift of God is good that is received
with faith and thanksgiving, and whatsoever is not of faith is sin.
But will you come?”
Mr. Burns did at length actually consent to close his shop for
three days, and go with Cosmo.
“It will not be a bad beginning,” he said, as if in justification
of himself to himself, “towards retiring from business
altogether--which I might have done long ago,” he added, “but for
you, sir!”
“It is very well for me you did not,” rejoined Cosmo, but declined
to explain. This piqued Mr. Burns’s curiosity, and he set about his
preparations at once.
In the mean time things went well at Castle Warlock, with--shall I
say?--one exception: Grizzie had a severe fit of repentance,
mourning bitterly that she had sent away the youth she worshipped
with only eighteen pence in his pocket.
“He’s sure to come to grief for the want o’ jist that ae shillin’
mair!” she said over and over to herself; “an’ it’ll be a’ an’ only
my wite! What gien we never see ’im again! Eh, sirs! it’s a
terrible thing to be made sae contrairy! What’ll come o’ me in the
neist warl’, it wad be hard for onybody to say!”
On the evening of the second day, however, while she was “washing
up” in the gloomiest frame of mind, in walked Cosmo, and a
gentleman after him.
“Hoo’s my father, Grizzie?” asked Cosmo.
“Won’erfu’ weel, sir,” answered Grizzie, with a little more show
of respect than usual.
“This is Grizzie, Mr. Burns,” said Cosmo. “I have told you about
Grizzie that takes care of us all!”
“How do you do, Grizzie?” said Mr. Burns, and shook hands with her.
“I am glad to make your acquaintance.”
“Here, Grizzie!” said Cosmo; “here’s the auchteen pence ye gae me
for expences: say ye’re pleased I haena waured it.--Jist a word wi’
ye, Grizzie!--Luik here--only dinna tell!”
He had drawn her aside to the corner where stood the meal-chest,
and now showed her a bunch of banknotes. So many she had never
seen--not to say in a bunch, but scattered over all her life! He
took from the bunch ten pounds and gave her.
“Mr. Burns,” he said aloud, “will be staying over to-morrow, I
hope.”
Grizzie _glowered_ at the money as if such a sum could not be canny,
but the next moment, like one suddenly raised to dignity and power,
she began to order Aggie about as if she were her mistress, and an
imperious one. Within ten minutes she had her bonnet on, and was
setting out for Muir o’ Warlock to make purchases.
But oh the pride and victory that rose and towered and sank weary,
only to rise and tower again in Grizzie’s mind, as she walked to
the village with all that money in her pocket! The dignity of the
house of Warlock had rushed aloft like a sudden tidal wave, and on
its very crest Grizzie was borne triumphing heavenwards. From one
who begged at strange doors for the daily bread of a decayed
family, all at once she was the housekeeper of the most ancient and
honourable castle in all Scotland, steering the great ship of its
fortunes! With a reserve and a dignity as impressive as provoking
to the gossips of the village, from one shop to another she went,
buying carefully but freely, rousing endless curiosity by her look
of mystery, and her evident consciousness of infinite resource. But
when at last she went to the Warlock Arms, and bought a half dozen
of port at the incredible price of six shillings a bottle, there
was not a doubt left in the Muir that “the auld laird” had at last
and somehow come in for a great fortune. Grizzie returned laden
herself, and driving before her two boys carrying a large basket
between them. Now she was equal to the proper entertainment of the
visitor, for whom, while she was away, Aggie, obedient to her
orders, was preparing the state bedroom--thinking all the time of
that night long ago when she and Cosmo got it ready for Lord
Mergwain.
Cosmo and Mr. Burns found the laird seated by the fire in his room;
and there Cosmo recounted the whole story of the finding of the
gems, beginning far back with the tales concerning the old captain,
as they had come to his knowledge, just touching on the acquisition
of the bamboo, and the discovery of its contents, and so descending
to the revelations of the previous two days. But all the time he
never gave the jeweller a hint of what was coming. In relating the
nearer events, he led him from place to place, acting his part in
them, and forestalling nothing, never once mentioning stone or gem,
then suddenly poured out the diamonds on the rug in the firelight.
Leaving the result to the imagination of my reader, I will now tell
him a thing that took place while Cosmo was away.
CHAPTER LVII.
TOO SURE COMES TOO LATE.
The same day Cosmo left, Lord Lick-my-loof sent to the castle the
message that he wanted to see young Mr. Warlock. The laird returned
the answer that Cosmo was from home, and would not be back till the
day following.
In the afternoon came his lordship, desiring an interview with the
laird; which, not a little against his liking, the laird granted.
“Set ye doon, my lord,” said Grizzie, “an’ rist yer shins. The ro’d
atween this an’ the ludge, maun be slithery.”
His lordship yielded and took the chair she offered, for he would
rather propitiate than annoy her, seeing he was more afraid of
Grizzie than aught in creation except dogs. And Grizzie,
appreciating his behaviour, had compassion upon him and spared him.
“His lairdship,” she said, “maunna be hurried puttin’ on his
dressin’-goon. He’s no used to see onybody sae ear’. I s’ gang an’
see gien I can help him; he never wad hae a man aboot ’im ’cep’ the
yoong laird himsel’.”
Relieved by her departure, his lordship began to look about the
kitchen, and seeing Aggie, asked after her father. She replied that
he was but poorly.
“Getting old!”
“Surely, my lord. He’s makin’ ready to gang.”
“Poor old man!”
“What wad yer lordship hae? Ye wadna gang on i’ this warl’ for
ever?”
“’Deed and I would have no objection--so long as there were pretty
girls like you in it.”
“Suppose the lasses had a ch’ice tu, my lord?”
“What would they do?”
“Gang, I’m thinkin’.”
“What makes you so spiteful, Aggie? I never did you any harm that I
know of.”
“Ye ken the story o’ the guid Samaritan, my lord?” said Aggie.
“I read my Bible, I hope.”
“Weel, I’ll tell ye a bit mair o’ ’t nor ye’ll get there. The
Levite an’ the Pharisee--naebody ever said yer lordship was like
aither o’ them--”
“No, thank God! nobody could.”
“--they gaed by o’ the ither side, an’ loot him lie. But there was
ane cam up, an’ tuik ’im by the legs, ’cause he lay upo’ his lan’,
an’ wad hae pu’d him aff. But jist i’ the nick o’ time by cam the
guid Samaritan, an’ set him rinnin’. Sae it was sune a sma’ maitter
to onybody but the ill neebour, wha couldna weel gang straucht to
Paradise. Abraham wad hae a fine time o’ ’t wi’ sic a bairn in ’s
bosom!”
“Damn the women! Young and old they’re too many for me!” said his
lordship to himself,--and just then Grizzie returning invited him
to walk up to the laird’s room, where he made haste to set forth
the object of his visit.
“I said to your son, Glenwarlock, when he came to me the other
morning, that I would not buy.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I have however, lawyer though I be, changed my mind, and am come
to renew my offer.”
“In the meantime, however, we have changed our minds, my lord, and
will not sell.”
“That’s very foolish of you.”
“It may seem so, my lord; but you must allow us to do the best with
what modicum of judgment we possess.”
“What can have induced you to come to such a fatal resolution! I am
thoroughly acquainted with the value of the land all about here,
and am convinced you will not get such a price from another, be he
who he may.”
“You may be right, my lord, but we do not want to sell.”
“Nobody, I repeat, will make you a better--I mean an equal offer.”
“I could well believe it might not be worth more to anyone else--so
long, that is, as your lordship’s property shuts it in on every
side; but to your lordship--”
“That is my affair; what it is worth to you is the question.”
“It is worth more to us than you can calculate.”
“I daresay, where sentiment sends prices up! But that is not in the
market. Take my advice and a good offer. You can’t go on like this,
you know. You will lose your position entirely. Why, what are you
thinking of!”
“I am thinking, my lord, that you have scarcely been such a
neighbour as to induce us to confide our plans to you. I have said
we will not sell--and as I am something of an invalid--”
Lord Lick-my-loof rose, feeling fooled--and annoyed with himself
and everybody in “the cursed place.”
“Good morning, Glenwarlock,” he said. “You will live to repent this
morning.”
“I hope not, my lord. I have lived nearly long enough. Good
morning!”
His lordship went softly down the stair, hurried through the
kitchen, and walked slowly home, thinking whether it might not be
worth his while to buy up Glenwarlock’s few remaining debts.
CHAPTER LVIII.
A LITTLE LIFE WELL ROUNDED.
“Pirate or not, the old gentleman was a good judge of diamonds!”
said Mr. Burns, laying down one of the largest. “Not an inferior
one in all I have gone over! Your uncle was a knowing man, sir:
diamonds are worth much more now than when he brought them home.
These rough ones will, I trust, turn out well: we cannot be so sure
of them.”
“How much suffering the earlier possession of them would have
prevented!” said the laird. “And now they are ten times more
welcome that we have the good of that first.”
“Sapphires and all of the finest quality!” continued Mr. Burns, in
no mood for reflection. “I’ll tell you what you must do, Mr. Cosmo:
you must get a few sheets of tissue paper, and wrap every stone up
separately--a long job, but the better worth doing! There must be a
thousand of them!”
“How can they hurt, being the hardest things in the world?” said
Cosmo.
“Put them in any other company you please--wheel them to the
equator in a barrowful of gravel, or line their box with
sand-paper, and you may leave them naked as they were born! But,
bless thy five wits! did you never hear the proverb, ‘Diamond cut
diamond’? They’re all of a sort, you see! I’d as soon shut up a
thousand game-cocks in the same cellar. If they don’t scratch each
other, they may, or they might, or they could, or they would, or at
any rate they should scratch each other. It was all very well so
long as they lay in the wall of this your old diamond-mine. But now
you’ll be for ever playing with them! No, no! wrap each one up by
itself, I say.”
“We’re so far from likely to keep fingering them, Mr. Burns,” said
Cosmo, “that our chief reason for wishing you to see them was that
you might, if you would oblige us, take them away, and dispose of
them for us!”
“A-ah!” rejoined Mr. Burns, “I fear I am getting too old for a
transaction of such extent! I should have to go to London--to
Paris--to Amsterdam--who knows where?--that is, to make the best of
them--perhaps to America! And here was I thinking of retiring!”
“Then let this be your last business-transaction. It will not be a
bad one to finish up with. You can make it a good thing for
yourself as well as for us.”
“If I undertake it, it shall be at a fixed percentage.”
“Ten?” suggested Cosmo.
“No; there is no risk, only labour in this. When I took ten for
that other diamond, I paid you the money for it, you will remember:
that makes a difference. I wish you would come with me; I could
help you to see a little of the world.”
“I should like it greatly, but I could not leave my father.”
Mr. Burns was a little nervous about the safety of the portmanteau
that held such a number of tiny parcels in silver paper, and would
not go inside the coach although it rained, but took a place in
sight of his luggage. I will not say what the diamonds brought. I
would not have my book bristle with pounds like a French novel with
francs. They more than answered even Mr. Burns’s expectations.
When he was gone, and all hope for this world vanished in the
fruition of assured solvency, the laird began to fail. While Cosmo
was yet on the way with Mr. Burns and the portmanteau to meet the
coach, he said to his faithful old friend,
“I’m tired, Grizzie; I’ll gang to my bed, I think. Gien ye’ll gie
me a han’, I winna bide for Cosmo.”
“Eh, sir, what for sud ye be in sic a hurry to sleep awa’ the bonny
daylicht?” remonstrated Grizzie, shot through with sudden fear, nor
daring allow to herself she was afraid. “Bide till the yoong laird
comes back wi’ the news: he winna be lang.”
“Gien ye haena time, Grizzie, I can manage for mysel’. Gang yer
wy’s, lass. Ye hae been a richt guid freen’ to yer auld mistress!
Ye hae dune yer best for him ’at she left!”
“Eh, sir! dinna speyk like that. It’s terrible to hearken til!--I’
the verra face o’ the providence ’at’s been takin’ sic pains to mak
up to ye for a’ ye hae gang throu’--noo whan a’ ’s weel, an’ like to
be weel, to turn roon’ like this, an’ speyk o’ gaein’ to yer bed!
It’s no worthy o’ ye, laird!”
He was so amused with her expostulation that he laughed heartily,
brightened up, and did not go to bed before Cosmo came--kept up,
indeed, a good part of the day, and retired with the sun shining in
at his western window.
The next day, however, he did not rise. But he had no suffering to
speak of, and his face was serene as the gathering of the sunrays
to go down together; a perfect yet deepening peace was upon it.
Cosmo scarcely left him, but watched and waited, with a cold spot
at his heart, which kept growing bigger and bigger, as he saw his
father slowly drifting out on the ebb-tide of this earthly life.
Cosmo had now to go through that most painful experience of
all--when the loved seem gradually withdrawing from human contact
and human desires, their cares parting slowly farther and farther
from the cares of those they leave--a gulf ever widening between,
already impassable as lapsing ages can make it. But when final
departure had left the mind free to work for the heart, Cosmo said
to himself--“What if the dying who seem thus divided from us, are
but looking over the tops of insignificant earthly things? What if
the heart within them is lying content in a closer contact with
ours than our dull fears and too level outlook will allow us to
share? One thing their apparent withdrawal means--that we must go
over to them; they cannot retrace, for that would be to retrograde.
They have already begun to learn the language and ways of the old
world, begun to be children there afresh, while we remain still the
slaves of new, low-bred habits of unbelief and self-preservation,
which already to them look as unwise as unlovely. But our turn will
come, and we shall go after, and be taught of them. In the meantime
let us so live that it may be the easier for us in dying to let the
loved ones know that we are loving them all the time.”
The laird ceased to eat, and spoke seldom, but would often
smile--only there was in his smile too that far-off something which
troubled his son. One word he often murmured--_peace_. Two or three
times there came as it were a check in the drift seaward, and he
spoke plainly. This is very near what he said on one of these
occasions:
“Peace! peace! Cosmo, my son, ye dinna ken hoo strong it can be!
Naebody can ken what it’s like till it comes. I hae been troubled
a’ my life, an’ noo the verra peace is ’maist ower muckle for me!
It’s like as gien the sun wad put oot the fire. I jist seem whiles
to be lyin’ here waitin’ for ye to come intil my peace, an’ be ane
wi’ me! But ye hae a lang this warl’s life afore ye yet. Eh! winna
it be gran’ whan it’s weel ower, an’ ye come! You an’ me an’ yer
mother an’ God an’ a’! But somehoo I dinna seem to be lea’in’ ye
aither--no half sae muckle as whan ye gaed awa’ to the college, an’
that although ye’re ten times mair to me noo than ye war than.
Deith canna weel be muckle like onything we think aboot it; but
there maun surely be a heap o’ fowk unco dreary an’ fusionless i’
the warl’ deith taks us til; an’ the mair I think aboot it, the
mair likly it seems we’ll hae a heap to du wi’ them--a sair wark
tryin’ to lat them ken what they are, an’ whaur they cam frae, an’
hoo they maun gang to win hame--for deith can no more be yer hame
nor a sair fa’ upo’ the ro’d be yer bed. There may be mony ane
there we ca’d auld here, ’at we’ll hae to tak like a bairn upo’ oor
knees an’ bring up. I see na anither w’y o’ ’t. The Lord may ken a’
better, but I think he’s shawn me this. For them ’at are Christ’s
maun hae wark like his to du, an’ what for no the personal
ministrations o’ redemption to them ’at are deid, that they may
come alive by kennin’ him? Auld bairns as weel as yoong hae to be
fed wi’ the spune.”
The day before that on which he went, he seemed to wake up
suddenly, and said,--
“Cosmo, I’m no inclined to mak a promise wi’ regaird to ony
possible communication wi’ ye frae the ither warl’, nor do I
the least expec’ to appear or speyk to ye. But ye needna for that
conclude me awa’ frae ye a’ thegither. Fowk may hae a hantle o’
communication ohn aither o’ them kent it at the time, I’m thinkin’.
Min’ this ony gait: God’s oor hame, an’ gien ye be at hame an’ I be
at hame, we canna be far sun’ert!”
As the sun was going down, closing a lovely day of promise, the
boat of sleep, with a gentle wind of life and birth filling its
sail, bore, softly gliding, the old pilgrim across the faint border
between this and that. It may be that then, for a time, like a babe
new-born, he needed careful hands and gentle nursing; and if so,
there was his wife, who must surely by now have had time to grow
strong. Cosmo wept and was lonely, but not broken-hearted; for he
was a live man with a mighty hope and great duties, each of them
ready to become a great joy. Such a man I do not think even
diamonds could hurt, although, where breathes no wind of life,
those very crystals of light are amongst the worst in Beelzebub’s
army to fly-blow a soul into a thing of hate and horror.
CHAPTER LIX.
A BREAKING UP.
Things in the castle went on in the same quiet way as before for
some time. Cosmo settled himself in his father’s room, and read and
wrote, and pondered and aspired. The household led the same homely
simple life, only fared better. The housekeeping was in Grizzie’s
hands, and she was a liberal soul--a true _bread-giver_.
James Gracie did not linger long behind his friend. His last words
were, “I won’er gien I hae a chance o’ winnin’ up wi’ the laird!”
On the morning that followed his funeral, as soon as breakfast was
over, Aggie sought Cosmo, where he sat in the garden with a book in
his hand.
“Whaur are ye gaein’, Aggie?” he said, as she approached prepared
for walking.
“_My_ hoor’s come,” she answered. “It’s time I was awa’.”
“I dinna un’erstan’ ye, Aggie,” he returned.
“Hoo sud ye, sir? Ilka body kens, or sud ken, what lies to their
ain han’. It lies to mine to gang. I’m no wantit langer. Ye wadna
hae me ait the breid o’ idleness?”
“But, Aggie,” remonstrated Cosmo, “ye’re ane o’ the faimily! I wad
as sune think o’ seein’ my ain sister, gien I had ane, gang frae
hame for sic a nae rizzon at a’!”
The tears rose in her eyes, and her voice trembled:
“It canna be helpit; I maun gang,” she said.
Cosmo was dumb for many moments; he had never thought of such a
possibility; and Aggie stood silent before him.
“What hae ye i’ yer heid, Aggie? What thoucht ye o’ duin’ wi’
yersel’?” he asked at length, his heart swelling so that he could
scarcely bring out the words.
“I’m gaein’ to luik for a place.”
“But, Aggie, gien it canna be helpit; and gang ye maun, _ye_ ken I’m
rich, an’ _I_ ken there’s naebody i’ the warl’ wi’ a better richt
to share in what I hae: wadna ye like to gang til a ladies’ school,
an’ learn a heap o’ things?”
“Na, I wadna. It’s hard wark I need, to haud me i’ the richt ro’d. I
can aye learn what I hunger for, an’ what ye dinna desire ye’ll
never learn. Thanks to yersel’ an’ Maister Simon, ye hae putten me
i’ the w’y o’ that! It’s no kennin’ things--it’s kennin’ things
upo’ the ro’d ye gang, ’at’s o’ consequence to ye. The lave I mak
naething o’.”
“But a time micht come whan ye wad want mony a thing ye micht hae
learnt afore.”
“Whan that time comes, I’ll learn them than, wi’ half the trouble,
an’ in half the time,--no to mention the pleesur o’ learnin’ them.
Noo, they wad but tak me frae the things I can an’ maun mak use o’.
Na, Cosmo, I’m b’un’ to du something wi’ what I hae, an’ no bide
till I get mair. I’ll be aye gettin’.”
“Weel, Aggie, I daurna temp’ ye to bide gien ye oucht to gang; an’
ye wad but despise me gien I was fule eneuch to try ’t. But ye
canna refuse to share wi’ me. That wadna be like ane ’at had the
same father an’ the same maister. Tak a thoosan’ poun’ to begin
wi’, an’ gang an’--an’ du onything ye like, only dinna work yersel’
to deith wi’ rouch wark. I canna bide to think o’ ’t.”
“A thoosan’ poun’! No ae baubee! Cosmo, I wad hae thoucht ye had
mair sense! What wad baudrins (_pussy-cat_) there du wi’ a silk goon?
Ye can gie me the twa poun’ ten I gae to Grizzie to help haud the
life in ’s a’. A body maun hae something i’ their pooch gien they
can, an’ gien they canna, they maun du wi’ naething. It’s won’erfu’
hoo little’s railly wantit!”
Cosmo felt miserable.
“Ye winna surely gang ohn seein’ Maister Simon!”
“I tried to see him last nicht, but auld Dorty wadna lat me near
him. I _wad_ fain say fareweel til him.”
“Weel, put aff gaein’ awa’ till the morn, an’ we’ll gang thegither
the nicht an’ see him. Dorty winna haud _me_ oot.”
Aggie hesitated, thought, and consented. Leaving Cosmo more
distressed than she knew, she went to the kitchen, took off her
bonnet, and telling Grizzie she was not going till the morrow, sat
down, and proceeded to pare the potatoes.
“Ance mair,” said Grizzie, resuming an unclosed difference, “what
for ye sud gang’s clean ’ayont me. It’s true the auld men are awa’,
but here’s the auld wife left, an’ she’ll be a mither to ye, as
weel ’s she kens hoo, an’ a lass o’ your sense is easy to mither. I’
the name o’ God I say ’t, the warl’ micht as weel objec’ to twa
angels bidin’ i’ h’aven thegither as you an’ the yoong laird in ae
hoose! Say ’at they like, ye’re but a servan’ lass, an’ here am I
ower ye! Aggie, I’m grouin’ auld, an’ railly no fit to mak a bed my
lane--no to mention scoorin’ the flure! It’s no considerate o’ ye,
Aggie!--jist ’cause yer father--hoots, he was but yer gran’father!
--’s deid o’ a guid auld age, an’ gaithert til _his_ fathers, to gang
an’ lea’ me my lane! Whaur am I to get a body I cud bide to hae i’
my sicht, an’ you awa’--you ’at’s been like bane o’ my bane to me!
It’s no guid o’ ye, Aggie! There maun be temper intil ’t! I’m sure
I ken no cause ever I gae ye.”
Aggie said not a word; she had said all she could say, over and
over; so now she pared her potatoes, and was silent. Her heart was
sore, but her mind was clear, and her will strong.
Up and down the little garden Cosmo walked, revolving many things.
“What is this world and its ways,” he said, “but a dream that
dreams itself out and is gone!”
The majority of men, whether they think or not, worship solidity
and fact: to such Cosmo’s conclusion must seem both foolish and
dangerous--though a dream may be filled with truth, and a fact be a
mere shred for the winds of the limbo of vanities. Everything that
_can_ pass belongs to the same category with the dream. The question
is whether the passing body leaves a live soul; whether the dream
has been dreamed, the life lived aright. For there is a reality
beyond all facts of suns and systems; solidity itself is but the
shadow of a divine necessity; and there may be more truth in a
fable than in a whole biography. Where life and truth are one,
there is no passing, no dreaming more. To that waking, all dreams
truly dreamed are guiding the dreamer. But the last thing--and this
was the conclusion of Cosmo’s meditation--any dreamer needs regard,
is the judgment of other dreamers upon his dreams. The
all-pervading, ill-odoured phantom called Society is but the ghost
of a false God. The fear of man, the trust in man, the deference to
the opinion of man, is the merest worship of a rag-stuffed idol.
The man who _seeks_ the judgment of God can well smile at the
unsolicited approval or condemnation of self-styled Society. There
_is_ a true society--quite another thing. Doubtless the judgment of
the world is of even moral value to those capable of regarding it.
To deprive a thief of the restraining influence of the code of
thieves’ honour, would be to do him irreparable wrong; so with the
tradesman whose law is the custom of the trade; but God demands an
honesty, a dignity, a beauty of being, altogether different from
that demanded by man of his fellow; and he who is taught of God is
set out of sight above such law as that of thieves’ honour,
trade-custom, or social recognition--all of the same
quality--subjected instead to a law which obeyed is liberty,
disobeyed is a hell deeper than Society’s attendant slums.
“Here is a woman,” said Cosmo to himself, “who, with her earnings
and her labour both, ministered to the very bodily life of my
father and myself! She has been in the house the angel of God--the
noblest, truest of women! She has ten times as much genuine
education as most men who have been to college! Her brain is second
only to her heart!--If it had but pleased God to make her my
sister! But there is a way of pulling out the tongue of Slander!”
The evening was Mr. Simon’s best time, and they therefore let the
sun go down before they left the castle to visit him. On their way
they had a right pleasant talk about old things, now the one now
the other bringing some half faded event from the store-closet of
memory.
“I doobt ye winna min’ me takin’ ye oot o’ the Warlock ae day there
was a gey bit o’ a spait on?” said Agnes at length, looking up in
Cosmo’s face.
“Eh, I never h’ard o’ that, Aggie!” replied Cosmo.
“I canna think to this day hoo it was ye fell in,” she went on: “I
had the chairge o’ ye at the time. Ye maun hae run oot o’ the
hoose, an’ me efter ye. I was verra near taen awa’ wi’ ye. Hoo we
wan oot o’ the watter I canna un’erstan’. A’ ’at I ken is ’at whan
I cam to mysel’, we war lyin’ grippit til ane anither upon a laich
bit o’ the bank.”
“But hoo was ’t ’at naebody ever said a word aboot it efterhin’?”
asked Cosmo.
“I never tellt onybody, an’ ye wasna auld eneuch no to
forget a’ aboot it.”
“What for didna ye tell?”
“I was feart they wad think it my wite, an’ no lat me tak chairge
o’ ye ony mair, whauras I kent ye was safer wi’ me nor wi’ ony
ither aboot the place. Gien it had been my wite, I cudna hae hauden
my tongue; but as it was, I didna see I was b’un’ to tell.”
“Hoo did ye hide it?”
“I ran wi’ ye hame to oor ain hoose. There was naebody there. I
tuik aff yer weet claes, an’ pat ye intil my bed till I got them
dry.”
“An’ hoo did ye wi’ yer ain?”
“By the time yours was dry, mine was dry tu.”
When they arrived at the cottage, Dorty demurred, but her master
heard Cosmo’s voice and rang his bell.
“I little thought your father would have gone before me,” said Mr.
Simon. “I think I was aware of his death. I saw nothing, heard
nothing, neither was I thinking about him at the moment; but he
seemed to come to me, and I said to myself, ‘He is on his way home.
I shall have a talk with him by and by.’”
Agnes told him she had come to bid him good-bye; she was going
after a place.
“Well,” he answered, after a thoughtful pause, “so long as we obey
the light in us, and that light is not darkness, we can’t go wrong.
If we should mistake, he will turn things round for us; and if we
be to blame, he will let us see it.”
He was weak, and they did not stay long.
“Don’t judge my heart by my words, my dear scholars,” he said. “My
heart is right toward you, but I am too weary to show it. God bless
you both. I may not see you again, Agnes, but I shall think of you
there, and if I can do anything for you, be sure I will.”
When they left the cottage, the twilight was halfway towards the
night, and a vague softness in the east prophesied the moon. Cosmo
led Agnes through the fields to the little hollow where she had so
often gone to seek him. There they sat down in the grass, and
waited for the moon. Cosmo pointed out the exact spot where she
rose that night she looked at him through the legs of the cow.
“Ye min’ Grizzie’s rime,” he said:
“‘Whan the coo loups ower the mune,
The reid gowd rains intil men’s shune’?
I believe Grizzie took the queer sicht for a guid omen. It’s unco
strange hoo fowk’ll mix up God an’ chance, seein’ there could
hardly be twa mair contradictory ideas! I min’ ance hearin’ a man
say, ‘It’s almost a providence!’”
“I doobt wi’ maist fowk,” said Aggie, “it’s only ‘There’s almost a
God.’ For my pairt I see nae room atween no believin’ in him at a’,
an’ believin’ in him a’ thegither an’ lattin him du what he likes
wi’ ’s.”
“I’m o’ your min’ there, Aggie, oot an’ oot,” responded Cosmo.
As he spoke the moon came peering up, and, turning to Agnes to
share the sight with her, he saw the yellow light reflected from
tears. “Aggie! Aggie!” he said, in much concern, “what are ye
greitin’ for?”
She made no answer, but wiped away her tears, and tried to smile.
After a little pause,
“Ony body wad think, Cosmo,” she said, “’at gien I believed in a
God, he maun be a sma’ ane! What for sud onybody greit ’at has but
a far awa’ notion o’ sic a God as you an’ the laird an’ Maister
Simon believes in!”
“Ye may weel say that, Aggie!” rejoined Cosmo--yet sighed as he
said it, for he thought of Lady Joan. A long pause followed, and
then he spoke again.
“Aggie,” he said, “there canna weel be twa i’ this warl’ ’at ken
ane anither better nor you an’ me. We hae been bairns thegither; we
hae been to the schuil thegither; we hae had the same maister; we
hae come throu’ dour times thegither--I doobt we hae been hungry
thegither, though ye saidna a word; we hae warstlet wi’ poverty,
an’ maybe wi’ unbelief; we loe the same fowk best; an’ abune a’ we
set the wull o’ God. It wad be sair upo’ baith o’ ’s to pairt--an’
to me a vex forby ’at the first thing w’alth did for me sud be to
tak you awa’. It wad ’maist brak my hert to think ’at her ’at cam
throu’ the lan’ o’ drowth wi’ me--ay, tuik me throu’ ’t, for,
wantin’ her, I wad hae fa’en to rise nae mair, sud gang on climmin’
the dry hill-ro’d, an’ me lyin’ i’ the bonny meadow-gerse at the
fut o’ ’t. It canna be rizzon, Aggie! What for sud ye gang? Merry
me, Aggie, an’ bide--bide an’ ca’ the castel yer ain.”
“Hoots! wad ye merry yer mither!” cried Agnes, and to Cosmo’s fresh
dismay burst into laughter and tears together. I believe it was the
sole time in her life she ever gave way to discordant emotion.
Cosmo stared speechless. It was as if an angel had made a poor
human joke! He was much too bewildered to feel hurt, especially as
he was aware of no committed absurdity.
But Aggie was not pleased with herself. She choked her tears,
crushed down her laughter, and conquered. She took his hand in
hers.
“I beg yer pardon, Cosmo,” she said; “I shouldna hae lauchen.
Lauchin’, I’m sure, ’s far eneuch frae my hert! I kenna hoo I cam to
du ’t. But ye’re sic a bairn, Cosmo! Ye dinna ken what ye wad hae!
An’ bein’ a kin’ o’ a mither to ye a’ yer life, I maun lat ye see
what ye’re aboot--I wadna insist ower sair upo’ the years atween ’s,
though that’s no a sma’ maitter, but surely ye haena to be tellt at
this time o’ day, ’at for fowk to merry ’at dinna loe ane anither,
is little gien it be onything short o’ a sin.”
“_I_ hae aye loed _you_, Aggie,” said Cosmo, with some reproach in
his tone.
“Weel du I ken that. An ill hert wad be mine gien it didna tell me
that! But, Cosmo, whan ye said the word, didna _your_ hert tell ye ye
meant by ’t something no jist the verra same as ye inten’ it me to
un’erstan’ by ’t?”
“Aggie, Aggie!” sighed Cosmo, “I wad aye loe ye better an’ better.”
“Ay, ye wad, gien ye cud, Cosmo. But ye’re ower honest to see
throu’ yersel’; an’ I’m no sae honest but I can see throu’ you. Ye
wad merry me ’cause ye’re no wullin’ to pairt wi’ me, likin’ me
better nor ony but ane, an’ her ye canna get! Gien I was a leddy,
Cosmo, maybe I michtna be ower prood to tak ye upo’ thae terms, but
no bein’ what I am. It wad need love as roon ’s a sphere for that.
Eh, but there micht come a time o’ sair repentance! Ance merried
upo’ you, gien I war to tak it intil my heid ’at I was ae hair i’
yer gait, or ’at ye was ae hair freer like wi me oot o’ yer sicht,
I wad be like to rin to the verra back-wa’ o’ creation! Na; it was
weel eneuch as we hae been, but _merried_! Ye wad be guid to me aye, I
ken that, but I wad be aye wantin’ to be deid, ’at ye micht loe me
a wee better. I say naething o’ what the warl’ wad say to the laird
o’ Glenwarlock merryin’ his servan’ lass; for ye care as little for
the warl’ as I du, an’ we’re baith some wiser nor it. But efter a’,
Cosmo, I wad be some oot o’ my place--wadna I noo? The hen-birds
nae doobt are aye the soberer to luik at, an’ haena the gran’
colours nor the gran’ w’ys wi’ them ’at the cocks hae; but still
there’s a measur in a’ thing: it wad ill set a common hen to hae a
peacock for her man. My sowl, I ken, wad gang han’ in han’, in a
heumble w’y, wi’ yours, for I un’erstan’ ye, Cosmo; an’ the day may
come whan I’ll luik fitter for yer company nor I can the noo; but
wha like me could help a sense o’ unfitness, gien it war but gaein’
to the kirk side by side wi’ you? Luik at the twa o’ ’s noo i’ the
munelicht thegither! Dinna ye see ’at we dinna match?”
“A’ that wad be naething gien ye loed me, Aggie.”
“Gien _ye_ loed _me_, say, Cosmo--loed me eneuch to be prood o’ me! But
that ye dinna. Exem’ yer ain hert, an’ ye’ll see ’at ye dinna.--An’
what for sud ye!”
Here Aggie broke down. A burst of silent weeping, like that of one
desiring no comfort, followed. Suddenly she ceased and rose, and
they walked home without a word.
When Cosmo came down in the morning, Aggie was gone.
CHAPTER LX.
REPOSE.
Cosmo had no need of a very searching examination of his heart to
know that it was mainly the wish to make her some poor return for
her devotion, conjoined with the sincere desire to retain her
company, that had influenced him in the offer she had been too wise
and too genuinely loving to accept. He did not fall into any depths
of self-blame, for, whatever its kind, his love was of quality pure
and good. The only bitterness his offer bore was its justification
of Agnes’s departure.
But Grizzie saw no justification of it anywhere.
“What I’m to du wantin’ her, I div not ken. _No becomin’_, quo’ he,
_for a lass like her to bide wi’ a bachelor like himsel’!_
“H’ard ever onybody sic styte! As gien she had been a lady
forsooth! I micht wi’ jist as muckle sense objec’ to bidin’ wi’ him
mysel’! But I s’ du what I like, an’ lat fowk say ’at they like, sae
lang as I’m na fule i’ my ain e’en!
I’m ower white, Mr. Gled, for you.
Ow na! ye’re no that, bonny doo.”
But by degrees Cosmo grew gently ashamed of himself that he had so
addressed Agnes. He saw in the thing a failure in respect, a wrong
to her dignity. That she had taken it so sweetly did not alter its
character. Seeming at the time to himself to be going against the
judgment of the world, and treating it with the contempt it always
more or less deserves, he had in reality been acting in no small
measure according to it! For had there not been in him a vague
condescension operant all the time? Had he not been all but
conscious of the feeling that his position made up for any want in
his love? Had she been conventionally a lady, instead of an angel
in peasant form, would he have been so ready to return her kindness
with an offer of marriage? There was little conceit in supposing
that some, even of higher position than his own, would have
accepted the offer on lower terms; but knowing Aggie as he did, he
ought not to have made it to her: she was too large and too fine
for such an experiment. This he now fully understood; and had he
not been brought up with her from childhood as with an elder
sister, she might even now have begun to be a formidable rival to
the sweet memories of Joan’s ladyhood. For he saw in her that which
is at the root, not only of all virtue, but of all beauty, of all
grandeur, of all growth, of all attraction. Every charm--in its
essence, in its development, in its embodiment, is a flower of the
tree of life, whose root is the truth. I see the smile of the
shallow philosopher, thinking of a certain lady to him full of
charm, who has no more love for the truth than a mole for the
light. But that lady’s charm does not spring out of her; it has
been put upon her, and she will soon destroy it. It comes of truth
otherwhere, and will one day leave her naked and not lovely. The
truth was in Agnes merely supreme. To have asked such a one to
marry him for reasons lower than the highest was good ground for
shame. Not therefore even then was he _painfully_ ashamed, for he
felt safe with Agnes, as with the elder sister that pardons
everything.
It was some little time before they had any news of her; but they
heard at last that she had rented Grannie’s cottage from her
grand-daughter, her own aunt, and was going to have a school there
for young children. Cosmo was greatly pleased, for the work would
give scope to some of her highest gifts and best qualities, while
it would keep her within reach of possible service. Nothing however
can part those who are of the true mind towards the things that
_are_.
Cosmo betook himself heartily to study, and not only read but wrote
regularly every day--no more with the design of printing, but in
the hope of shaping more thoroughly and so testing more truly his
contemplations and conclusions. I scorn the idea that a man cannot
think without words, but Cosmo thus improved his thinking, and
learned to utter accurately, that is, to say the thing he meant,
and keep from saying the thing he did not mean.
The room over the kitchen, which had first in his memory been his
grandmother’s, then became his own, and returned to his disposal
when James Gracie died, he made his study; and from it to the
drawing-room, with the assistance of a village mason, excavated a
passage--for it was little less than excavation--in the wall
connecting the two blocks, under the passage in which had lain the
treasure.
The main issue Grizzie’s new command of money found was in a
torrent of cleaning. If she could have had her way, I think she
would have put up scaffolds all over the outside of the house, and
scrubbed it down from chimneys to foundations.
On the opposite side of the Warlock river, the laird rented a
meadow, and there Grizzie had the long disused satisfaction of
seeing two cows she could call hers, the finest cows in the
country, feeding with a vague satisfaction in the general order of
things. The stable housed a horse after Cosmo’s own heart, on which
he made excursions into the country round, partly in the hope of
coming upon some place not too far off where there was land to be
bought.
All that was known of the change in his circumstances was that he
had come into a large fortune by the death--date not mentioned--of
a relative with whom his father had not for years had
communication, and Cosmo never any. Lord Lick-my-loof, after
repeated endeavours to get some information about this relative,
was perplexed, and vaguely suspicious.
How the spending of the money thus committed to him was to change
the earthly issues of his life, Cosmo had not yet learned, and was
waiting for light on the matter. For a man is not bound to walk in
the dark, neither must, for the sake of doing something, run the
risk of doing wrong. He that believeth shall not make haste; and he
that believeth not shall come no speed. He had nothing of the
common mammonistic feeling of the enormous importance of money,
neither felt that it laid upon him a heavier weight of duty than
any other of the gifts of God. And if a poet is not bound to rush
into the world with his poem, surely a rich man is not bound to
rush into the world with his money. Rather set a herd of wild
horses loose in a city! A man must know first how to _use_ his money,
before he begin to spend it. And the way to use money is not so
easily discovered as some would think, for it is not one of God’s
ready means of doing good. The rich man as such has no reason to
look upon himself as specially favoured. He has reason to think
himself specially tried. Jesus, loving a certain youth, did him the
greatest kindness he had in his power, telling him to give his
wealth to the poor, and follow him in poverty. The first question
is not how to do good with money, but how to keep from doing harm
with it. Whether rich or poor, a man must first of all do justice,
love mercy, and walk humbly with his God; then, if he be rich, God
will let him know how to spend. There must be ways in which, even
now, a man may give the half, or even the whole of his goods to the
poor, without helping the devil. Cosmo, I repeat, was in no haste:
it is not because of God’s poverty that the world is so slowly
redeemed. Not the most righteous expenditure of money will save it,
but that of life and soul and spirit--it may be, to that of nerve
and muscle, blood and brain. All these our Lord spent--but no
money. Therefore I say, that of all means for saving the world, or
doing good, as it is called, money comes last in order, and far
behind.
Out of the loneliness in which his father left him, grew a great
peace and new strength. More real than ever was the other world to
him now. His father could not have vanished like a sea-bubble on
the sand! To have known a great man--perhaps I do not mean such a
man as my reader may be thinking of--is to have some assurance of
immortality. One of the best of men said to me once that he did not
feel any longing after immortality, but, when he thought of certain
persons, he could not for a moment believe they had ceased. He had
beheld the lovely, believed therefore in the endless.
Castle Warlock was scarcely altered in appearance. In its worst
poverty it had always looked dignified. There was more life about
it and freedom, but not so much happiness. The diamonds had come,
but his father was gone, Aggie was gone, Mr. Simon was going, and
Joan would not come! Cosmo had scarce a hope for this world; yet
not the less did he await the will of The Will. What that was, time
would show, for God works in time.
CHAPTER LXI.
THE THIRD HARVEST.
As the days went by, Cosmo saw his engagement to Mr. Henderson
drawing near, nor had the smallest inclination to back out of it.
The farmer would have let him off at once, no doubt, but he felt,
without thinking, that it would be undignified, morally speaking,
to avoid, because he was now in plenty, the engagement granted by
friendship to his need. Nor was this all, for, so doing, he would
seem to allow that, driven by necessity, he had undertaken a thing
unworthy, or degrading; for Cosmo would never have allowed that any
degree of hunger could justify a poor man in doing a thing
disgraceful to a rich man. No true man will ever ask of fellow
creature, man or woman, on terms however extravagant, the doing of
a thing he could not do himself without a sense of degradation.
There is no leveller like Christianity--but it levels by lifting to
a lofty table-land, accessible only to humility. He only who is
humble can rise, and rising lift.
In thus holding to what he had undertaken, a man of lower nature
might have had respect to the example he would so give: Cosmo
thought only of honourable and grateful fulfilment of his contract.
Not only would it have been a poor return for Mr. Henderson’s
kindness to treat his service as something beneath him now, but,
worst of all, it would have been to accept ennoblement at the hands
of Mammon, as of a power able to alter his station in God’s world.
To change the spirit of one’s ways because of money, is to confess
onesself a born slave, a thing of outsides, a knight of Riches,
with a maggot for his crest.
When the time came, therefore, Cosmo presented himself. With a look
of astonishment shadowed by disappointment, the worthy farmer held
out his hand.
“Laird,” he said, “I didna expec’ _you_!”
“What for no?” returned Cosmo. “Haena I been yer fee’d man for
months!”
“Ye put me in a kin’ o’ a painfu’ doobt, laird. Fowk tellt me ye
had fa’en heir til a sicht o’ siller!”
“But allooin’, hoo sud that affec’ my bargain wi’ you, Mr.
Henderson? Siller i’ the pooch canna tak obligation frae the back.”
“Drivin’ things to the wa’, nae doobt!” returned the farmer. “I
micht certainly hae ta’en the law o’ ye, failin’ yer appearance.
But amo’ freen’s, that cudna be; an’ ’deed, Mr. Warlock, gien a
body wad be captious, michtna he say it wad hae been mair freen’ly
to beg aff?”
“A bargain’s a bargain,” answered Cosmo; “an’ to beg aff o’ ane
’cause I was nae langer i’ the same necessity as whan I made it,
wad hae been a mere shame. Gien my father hed been wi’ me, an’ no
weel eneuch to like me oot o’ ’s sicht, I wad hae beggit aff fest
eneuch, but wi’ no rizzon, it wad hae been ill-mainnert, no to say
dishonest an’ oongratefu’. Gien ye hae spoken to ony ither i’ my
place, he s’ hae the fee, an’ I s’ hae the wark. Lat things stan’,
Mr. Henderson.”
“Laird!” answered the farmer, not a little moved, “there’s no a man
I wad raither see at my wark nor yersel’. A’ o’ them, men an’
women, work the better whan ye’re amo’ them. They wad be affrontit
no to haud up wi’ a gentleman! Sae come awa’ an’ walcome!--ye’ll
tak something afore we fa’ tu?”
Cosmo accepted a jug of milk, half cream, from the hand of Elsie.
The girl was much improved, having partially unlearned a good deal
of the nonsense gathered at school, and come to take a fair share
with her sisters in the work of the house and farm--enlightened
thereto doubtless by her admiration for Cosmo. It is not from those
they marry people always learn most.
When Cosmo reached the end of the first bout, and stood to sharpen
his scythe, he was startled to see, a little way off, gathering
after one of the scythes, a form he could not mistake. _She_ had
known he would keep his troth! She did not look up, but he knew her
figure and every motion of it too well to take her for another than
Aggie.
That she thus exposed herself to misrepresentation, Aggie was well
enough aware, but with the knowledge of how things stood between
her and Cosmo, she was far above heeding the danger. Those who do
the truth are raised even above defying the world. Defiance betrays
a latent respect, but Aggie gave herself no more trouble about the
opinion of the world than that of a lower animal. Those who are of
the world may defy, but they cannot ignore it.
She had declined being a party to Cosmo’s marrying his mother, but
was not therefore prepared to expose him undefended to any one
whatever who might wish to take him, even should she be of age
unobjectionable; and she knew one who would at least be hampered by
no scruples arising from conscious unfitness. Agnes might well have
thought it better he should marry the cottar’s than the farmer’s
daughter! Anyhow she was resolved to keep an eye on the young woman
so long as Cosmo was within her swoop. He was chivalrous and
credulous, and who could tell what Elsie might not dare! Her
refusal to be his wife did not deprive her of antecedent rights.
And there she was, gathering behind Cosmo, as two years ago!
The instant she was free, Aggie set out for home, not having
exchanged a word with Cosmo, but intending to linger on the way in
the hope of his overtaking her. The Hendersons would have had him
stay the night, but he had given his man orders to wait him with
his horse at a certain point on the road; and Aggie had not gone
far before he got up with her.
Whatever was or had been the state of her feelings towards Cosmo,
she had never mistaken his towards her; neither had she failed to
see that his heart was nowise wounded by her refusal of his offer:
it would have been a little comfort to her, having to be severe
with herself, to see some sign of suffering in him, but she had got
over much, and now was nowise annoyed at the cheery unembarrassed
tone in which he called out when he saw her, and turning greeted
him with the same absence of constraint.
“An’ sae ye’re gaein’ to tak the bairnies un’er yer wing, Aggie!”
said Cosmo, as they walked along. “They’re lucky little things
’at’ll gang to your schuil! What pat it i’ yer heid?”
“Mr. Simon advised it,” answered Aggie; “but I believe I pat it in
his heid first, sayin’ hoo little was dune for the bairnies jist at
the time they war easiest to guide. Rouch wark maks the han’s
rouch, and rouch words maks the hert rouch.”
“The haill country-side ’ill be gratefu’ to ye, Aggie.--Ye’ll lat
me come an’ see ye whiles?”
“Nane sae welcome,” answered Aggie. “But wull ye be bidin’ on, noo
’at ye haena him ’at’s gane? Winna ye be gaein’ awa’, to write
buiks, an’ gar fowk fin’ oot what’s the maitter wi’ them?”
“I dinna ken what I’m gaein’ to du,” answered Cosmo. “But for
writin’ buiks, I could do that better at hame nor ony ither gait,
wi’ a’ thing min’in’ me o’ my father, an’ you nearhan’ to gie me
coonsel.”
“I hae aye been yours to comman’, Cosmo,” replied Aggie, looking
down for one moment, then immediately up again in his face.
“An’ ye’re no angert wi’ me, Aggie?”
“_Angert!_” repeated Aggie, and looked at him with a glow angelic in
her honest, handsome face, and her eyes as true as the heavens. “It
was only ’at ye didna ken what ye war aboot, an’ bein’ sae muckle
yoonger nor mysel’, I was b’un’ to tak care o’ ye; for a wuman as
weel ’s a man maun be her brither’s keeper. Ye see yersel’ I was
richt!”
“Ay was ye, Aggie,” answered Cosmo, ashamed and almost vexed at
having to make the confession.
He did not see the heave of Aggie’s bosom, nor how she held back
and broke into nothing the sigh that would have followed.
“But,” she resumed, after a moment’s pause, “a’ lasses michtna ken
sae weel what was fittin’ them, nor care sae muckle what was guid
for you; naebody livin’ can ken ye as I du! an’ gien ye war to lat
a lass think ye cared aboot her--it micht be but as a freen’, but
she micht be sae ta’en’ wi’ ye--’at--’at maybe she micht gar ye
think ’at hoo she cudna live wantin’ ye--an’ syne, what ye du than,
Cosmo?”
It was a situation in which Cosmo had never imagined himself, and
he looked at Aggie a little surprised.
“I dinna freely un’erstan’ ye,” he said.
“Na, I reckon no! Hoo sud ye! Ye’re jist ower semple for this
warl’, Cosmo! But I’ll put it plainer:--what wad ye du gien a lass
was to fa’ a greitin’, an’ a wailin’, an’ fling hersel’ i’ yer
airms, an’ mak as gien she wad dee?--what wad ye du wi’ her,
Cosmo?”
“’Deed I dinna ken,” replied Cosmo with some embarrassment. “What
wad ye hae me du, Aggie?”
“I wad hae ye set her doon whaur ye stude, gien upo’ the ro’d, than
upo’ the dyke, gien i’ the hoose, than upo’ the nearest chair, and
tak to yer legs an’ rin. Bide na to tak yer bonnet, but rin an’ rin
till ye’re better nor sure she can never win up wi’ ye. An’
specially gien the name o’ the lass sud begin wi’ an’ _E_ an’ gang on
till an _l_, I wad hae ye rin as gien the auld captain was efter ye.”
“I hae had sma’ occasion,” said Cosmo, “to rin fra _him_.”
And therewith, partly to change the subject, for he now understood
Aggie, and did not feel it right to talk about any girl as if she
could behave in the manner supposed, partly because he had long
desired an opportunity of telling her, he began, and gave her the
whole history of the discovery of the diamonds, omitting nothing,
even where the tale concerned Lady Joan. Before he got to the end
of it, they were at the place where the man was waiting with his
horse, and as that was the place where Aggie had to turn off to go
to Muir o’ Warlock, there they parted.
CHAPTER LXII.
A DUET, TRIO, AND QUARTET.
The next day things went much the same, only that Elsie was not in
the field. Cosmo, who had been thinking much over what Aggie had
said, and was not flattered that she should take him for the goose
he did not know himself to be, could hardly wait for the evening to
have another talk with her.
“Aggie,” he said, as he overtook her in a hollow not many yards
from the verge of the farm, “I dinna like ye to think me sic a
gowk! What gars ye suppose a lass could hae her wull o’ me in sic a
w’y ’s you? No ’at I believe ony lass wad behave like that! It’s no
like yersel’ to fancy sae ill o’ yer ain kin’! I’m sure ye didna
discover thae things i’ yer ain hert! There’s nae sic a lass.”
“What maitter whether there be sic a lass or no, sae lang as gien
there was ane, she wad be ower muckle for ye?”
“That’s ower again what I’m compleenin’ o’! an’ gien it war onybody
but yersel’ ’at has a richt, I wad be angry, Aggie.”
“Cosmo,” said Agnes solemnly, “ye’re ower saft-hertit to the
women-fowk. I do believe--an’ I tell ye ’t again in as mony
words--ye wad merry ony lass raither nor see her in trible on your
accoont.”
“Ance mair, Aggie, what gies ye a richt to think sae ill o’ me?”
demanded Cosmo.
“Jist the w’y ye behaved to mysel’.”
“_Ye_ never tellt me ye couldna du wantin’ me!”
“I houp no, for it wadna hae been true. I can du wantin’ ye weel
eneuch. But ye allooed ye wasna richt!”
“Ay--it was a presumption.”
“Ay! but what made it a presumption?”
Cosmo could not bear to say plainly to the girl he loved so much,
that he had not loved her so as to have a right to ask her to marry
him. He hesitated.
“Ye didna loe me eneuch,” said Aggie, looking up in his face.
“Aggie,” returned Cosmo, “I’m ready to merry ye the morn gien ye’ll
hae me!”
“There noo!” exclaimed Aggie, in a sort of provoked triumph, “didna
I tell ye! There ye are, duin’ ’t a’ ower again! Wasna I richt?
Ye’re fit to tak care o’ onybody but yersel’--an’ the lass ’at wad
fain hae ye! Eh, but sair ye need a sensible mitherly body like
mysel’ to luik efter ye!”
“Tak me, than, an’ luik efter me at yer wull, Aggie; I mean what I
say!” persisted Cosmo, bewildered with embarrassment and a
momentary stupidity.
“Ance mair, Cosmo, dinna be a gowk,” said Agnes with severity. “Ye
loe _me_ ower little, an’ I loe _you_ ower muckle for that.”
“Ye’re no angry at me, Aggie?” said Cosmo, almost timidly.
“Angry at ye, my bonny lad!” cried Aggie, and looking up with a
world of tenderness in her eyes, and a divine glow of affection,
for hers was the love so sure of itself that it maketh not ashamed,
she threw her two strong, shapely honest arms round his neck; he
bent his head, she kissed him heartily on the mouth, and burst into
tears. Surely but for that other love that lay patient and hopeless
in the depth of Cosmo’s heart, he would now have loved Aggie in a
way to satisfy her, and to justify him in saying he loved her! And
to that it might have come in time, but where is the use of saying
what might have been, when all things are ever moving towards the
highest and best for the individual as well as for the universe!
--not the less that hell may be the only path to it for some--the
hell of an absolute self-loathing.
Just at that moment, who should appear on the top of a broken mound
of the moorland, where she stood in the light of the setting sun,
but Elsie, neatly dressed, glowing and handsome! A moment she
stood, then descended, a dark scorn shadowing in her eyes, and a
smile on her mouth showing the whitest of teeth.
“Mr. Warlock,” she said, and took no notice of his humble
companion, “my father sent me after you in a hurry as you may see,”
--and she heaved a deep breath--“to say he doesn’t think the bear
o’ the Gowan Brae ’ill be fit for cutting this two days, an’
they’ll gang to the corn upo’ the heuch instead. He was going to
tell you himsel’, but ye was in such a hurry!”
“I’m muckle obleeged to ye, Miss Elsie,” replied Cosmo. “It’ll save
me a half-mile i’ the mornin’.”
“An’ my father says,” resumed Elsie, addressing Agnes, “yer wark’s
no worth yer wages.”
Aggie turned upon her with flashing eyes and glowing face.
“I dinna believe ye, Miss Elsie,” she said. “I dinna believe yer
father said ever sic a word. He kens my wark’s worth my wages
whatever he likes to set me til. Mair by token he wad hae tellt me
himsel’! I s’ jist gang straucht back an’ speir.”
She turned, evidently in thorough earnest, and set off at a rapid
pace back towards the house. Cosmo glanced at Elsie. She had turned
white--with the whiteness of fear, not of wrath. She had not
expected such action on the part of Aggie. She would be at once
found out! Her father was a man terrible in his anger, and her
conscience told her he would be angry indeed, angrier than she had
ever seen him! She stood like a statue, her eyes fixed on the
retreating form of the indignant Agnes, who reached the top of the
rising ground, and was beginning to disappear, before the spell of
her terror gave way. She turned with clasped hands to Cosmo, and
murmured, her white lips hardly able to fashion the words,
“Mr. Warlock, for God’s sake, cry her back. Dinna lat her gang to
my father.”
“Was the thing ye said no true?” asked Cosmo.
“Weel,” faltered Elsie, searching inside for some escape from
admission, “maybe he didna jist say the verra words,--”
“Aggie maun gang,” interrupted Cosmo. “She maunna lat it pass.”
“It was a lee! It was a lee!” gasped Elsie.
Cosmo ran, and from the top of the rise called aloud,
“Aggie! Aggie! come back.”
Beyond her he saw another country girl approaching, but took little
heed of her. Aggie turned at his call, and came to him quickly.
“She confesses it’s a lee, Aggie,” he said.
“She wadna, gien she hadna seen I was gaein’ straucht til her
father!” returned Agnes.
“I daursay; but God only kens hoo to mak the true differ ’atween
what we du o’ oorsel’s, an’ what we’re gart. We maun hae mercy, an’
i’ the meantime she’s ashamed eneuch. At least she has the luik o’
’t.”
“It’s ae thing to be ashamed ’cause ye hae dune wrang, an’ anither
to be ashamed ’cause ye’re f’un’ oot!”
“Ay; but there compassion comes in to fill up; an’ whan ye treat a
body wi’ generosity, the hert wauks up to be worthy o’ ’t.”
“Cosmo, ye ken maist aboot the guid in fowk, an’ I ken maist aboot
the ill,” said Aggie.
Here the young woman who had been nearing them scarce observed
while they talked, came up, and they turning to go back to Elsie,
where she still stood motionless, followed them at her own pace
behind.
“I beg yer pardon, Aggie,” said Elsie, holding out her hand. “I was
ill-natert, an’ said the thing wasna true. My father says there
isna a better gatherer i’ the countryside nor yersel’.” Aggie took
her offered hand and said,
“Lat by-ganes be by-ganes. Be true to me an’ I’ll be true to you.
An’ I winna lee whether or no.”
Here the stranger joined them. She was a young woman in the garb of
a peasant, but with something about her not belonging to the
peasant. To the first glance she was more like a superior servant
out for a holiday, but a second glance was bewildering. She stopped
with a half timid but quiet look, then dropped her eyes with a
flush.
“Will you please tell me if I am on the way to Castle Warlock?” she
said, with a quiver about her mouth which made her like a child
trying not to smile.
Cosmo had been gazing at her: she reminded him very strangely of
Joan; but the moment he heard her voice, which was as different
from that of a Scotch peasant as Tennyson’s verse is from that of
Burns, he gave a cry, and was on his knees before her.
“Joan!” he gasped, and seizing her hand, drew it to his lips, and
held it there.
She made no sound or movement. Her colour went and came. Her head
drooped. She would have fallen, but Cosmo received her, and rising
with her, as one might with a child in his arms, turned, and began
to walk swiftly homeward.
Aggie had a short fierce struggle with her rising heart, then
turned to Elsie, and said quietly,
“Ye see we’re no wantit!”
“I see,” returned Elsie. “But eh! she’s a puir cratur.”
“No sae puir!” answered Aggie. “Wad _ye_ dress up like a gran’ leddy
to gang efter yer yoong man?”
“Ay wad I--fest eneuch!” answered Elsie with scorn.
Aggie saw her mistake.
“Did ye tak notice o’ her han’s?” she said.
“No, I didna.”
“Ye never saw sic han’s! Did ye tak notice o’ her feet?”
“No, I didna.”
“Ye never saw sic feet! Yon’s ane ’at canna gather, nor stock, nor
bin’, but she’s bonny a’ throu’, an’ her v’ice is a sang, an’
she’ll gang throu’ fire an’ watter ohn blinkit for her love’s sake.
Yon’s the lass for oor laird! The like o’ you an’ me sudna trible
heid nor hert aboot the likes o’ _him_.”
“Speyk for yersel’, lass,” said Elsie.
“I tellt ye,” returned Aggie, quietly but with something like scorn,
“’at gien ye wad be true to me, I wad be true to you; but gie yersel’
airs, an’ I say guid nicht, an’ gang efter my fowk.”
She turned and departed, leaving Elsie more annoyed than repentant:
it may take a whole life to render a person capable of shame, not
to say sorrow, for the meanest thing of many he has done.
And now, Aggie’s heart lying stone-like within her as she followed
Cosmo with his treasure, her brain was alive and active for his
sake. Joan was herself again, Cosmo had set her down, and they were
walking side by side. “What are they going to do?” thought Aggie.
“Are they going straight home together? Why does she come now the
old laird is gone?” Such and many other questions she kept asking
herself in her carefulness over Cosmo.
They passed the turning Aggie would have taken to go home; she
passed it too, following them steadily.--That old Grizzie was no
good! She must go home with them herself! If the reason for which
she left the castle was a wise one, she must now, for the same
reason, go back to it! Those two must not be there with nobody to
make them feel comfortable and taken care of! They must not be left
to feel awkward together! She must be a human atmosphere about
them, to shield them, and make home for them! Love itself may be
too lonely. It needs some reflection of its too lavish radiation.
--This was practically though not altogether in form what Agnes
thought.
In the meantime, the first whelming joy-wave having retired, and
life and thought resumed their operations, they had begun to talk.
“Where have you come from?” asked Cosmo.
“From Cairntod, the place I came from that wild winter night,”
answered Joan.
“But you are.... when were you.... how long.... have
you been married?”
“_Married!_” echoed Joan. “Cosmo, how could you!”
She looked up in his face wild and frightened.
“Well, you never wrote! and--”
“It was you never wrote!”
“_I_ did not, but my father did, and got no answer.”
“I wrote again and again, and _begged_ for an answer, but none came.
If it hadn’t been for the way I dreamed about you, I don’t know
what would have become of me!”
“The devil has been at old tricks, Joan!”
“Doubtless--and I fear I have hardly to discover his agent.”
“And Mr. Jermyn?” said Cosmo, with a look half shy, half fearful,
as if after all some bolt must be about to fall.
“I can tell you very little about him. I have scarcely seen him
since he brought me the money.”
“Then he didn’t.... ?”
“Well, what didn’t he?”
“I have no right to ask.”
“Ask me _anything_.”
“Didn’t he ask you to marry him?”
Joan laughed.
“I had begun to be afraid he had something of the kind in his head,
when all at once I saw no more of him.”
“How was that?”
“I can only guess: he may have spoken to my brother, and that was
enough.”
“Didn’t you miss him?”
“Life _was_ a little duller.”
“If he _had_ asked you to marry him, Joan?”
“Well?”
“Would you?”
“Cosmo!”
“You told me I might ask you anything!”
She stood, turned to the roadside, and sat down on the low
earth-dyke. Her face was white.
“Joan! Joan!” cried Cosmo, darting to her side; “what is it, Joan?”
“Nothing; only a little faintness. I have walked a long way and am
getting tired.”
“What a brute I am!” said Cosmo, “to let you walk! I will carry you
again.”
“Indeed you will not!” she answered, moving a little from him.
“Do you think you could ride on a man’s saddle?”
“I think so. I could well enough if I were not tired. But let me be
quiet a little.”
They were very near the place where Cosmo’s horse must be waiting
him. He ran to take him and send the groom home with a message.
To Joan it was a terrible moment. Had she, most frightful of
thoughts! been acting on a holy faith that yet had no foundation?
She had come to a man who asked her whether she would not have
married his friend! She had taken so much for understood that had
not been understood!
When Joan sat down Agnes stopped--a good way off: till the moment
of service arrived she would be nothing. Several times she started
to run to her, for she feared something had gone wrong, but checked
herself lest she should cause more mischief by interfering. When
she saw her sink sideways on the dyke, she did run, but seeing
Cosmo hurrying back to her, stopped again.
Before Cosmo reached her Joan had sat up. The same faith, or
perhaps rather hope, which had taken shape in her dreams, now woke
to meet the necessity of the hour. She rose as Cosmo came near,
saying she felt better now, and let him put her on the horse.
But now Joan was determined to face the worst, to learn her
position and know what she must do.
“Has the day not come yet, Cosmo?” she said. “Cannot you now tell
me why you left me so suddenly?”
“It may come with your answer to the question I put to you,”
replied Cosmo.
“You are cruel, Cosmo!”
“Am I? How? I do not understand.”
This was worse and worse, and Joan grew rather more than almost
angry. It is so horrid when the man you love _will_ be stupid! She
turned her face away, and was silent. A man must sometimes take his
life in his hand, and at the risk of even unpardonable presumption,
suppose a thing yielded, that he may know whether it be or not. But
Cosmo was something of the innocent Aggie took him for.
“Joan, I don’t see how I am wrong, after the permission you gave
me,” persisted he, too modest. “Agnes would have answered me
straight out.”
He forgot.
“How do you know that? What have you ever asked her?”
Joan, for one who refused an answer, was tolerably exacting in her
questions. And as she spoke she moved involuntarily a step farther
from him.
“I asked her to marry me,” replied Cosmo.
“_You asked her to marry you!_”
“Yes, but she wouldn’t.”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
Joan’s face was now red as fire, and she was biting her lip hard.
“She had more reasons against it than one. Oh, Joan, she _is_ so
good!”
“And you are going to marry her?”
Instead of answering her question, Cosmo turned and called to
Agnes, some thirty yards behind them:
“Come here, Aggie.”
Agnes came quickly.
“Tell Lady Joan,” he said, “what for ye wadna merry me.”
“’Deed, my lady,” said Agnes, her face also like a setting sun, “ye
may believe onything he tells ye, jist as gien it war gospel. He
disna ken hoo to mak a lee.”
“I know that as well as you,” replied Lady Joan.
“Na, ye canna du that, ’cause ye haena kent him sae lang.”
“Will you tell me why you would not marry him?”
“For ae thing, ’cause he likit you better nor me, only he thoucht ye
was merried, an’ he didna like lattin’ me gang frae the hoose.”
“Thank you, Agnes,” said Joan, with a smile nothing less than
heavenly. “He was so obstinate!”
And with that she slipped from the saddle, threw her arms round
Aggie’s neck, and kissed her.
Aggie returned her embrace with simple truth, then drawing gently
away, said, putting her hand before her eyes as if she found the
sun too strong, “It’s verra weel for you, my lady; but it’s some
sair upo’ me; for I tellt him he sudna merry his mither, an’ ye’re
full as auld as I am.”
Joan gave a sigh.
“I am a year older, I believe,” she answered, “but I cannot help
it. Nor would I if I could, for three years ago I was still less
worthy of him than I am now; and after all it is but a trifle.”
“Na, my leddy, it’s no a trifle, only some fowk carry their years
better nor ithers.”
Here Cosmo set Joan up again, and a full explanation followed
between them, neither thinking of suppression because of Aggie’s
presence. She would indeed have fallen behind again, but Joan would
not let her, so she walked side by side with them, and amongst the
rest of the story heard Cosmo tell how he had yielded Joan because
poor Jermyn loved her. Agnes both laughed and cried as she
listened, and when Cosmo ceased, threw her arms once more around
him, saying, “Cosmo, ye’re worth it a’!” then releasing him, turned
to Joan and said,
“My lady, I dinna grudge him to ye a bit. Noo ’at he’s yours, an’
a’ ’s come roon’ as it sud, I’ll be mysel’ again--an’ that ye’ll
see! But ye’ll mak allooance, my lady; for ye hae a true hert, an’
maun ken ’at whan a wuman sees a man beirin’ a’ thing as gien it was
naething, ’maist like a God, no kennin’ he’s duin’ onything by
or’nar’, she can no more help loein’ him nor the mither ’at bore
her, or the God ’at made her. An’ mair, my lady, I mean to loe him
yet; but, as them ’at God has j’ined man nor wuman maunna sun’er, I
winna pairt ye even in my min’; whan I think o’ the tane, it’ll be
to think o’ the tither, an’ the love ’at gangs to him ’ill aye rin
ower upo’ you--forby what I beir ye on yer ain accoont. Noo ye’ll
gang on thegither again, an’ I’ll come ahin’.”
It was now to Aggie as if they were all dead and in the blessed
world together, only she had brought with her an ache which it
would need time to tune. All pain is discord.
“Ye see, my lady,” she said, as she turned aside and sat down on
the bordering turf, “I hae been a mither til ’im!”
Who will care to hear further explanation!--how Joan went to visit
distant relatives who had all at once begun to take notice of her;
how she had come with them, more gladly than they knew, on a visit
to Cairntod; and how such a longing seized her there that, careless
of consequences, she donned a peasant’s dress and set out for
Castle Warlock; how she had lost her way, and was growing very
uneasy when suddenly she saw Cosmo before her!
“But what am I to do now, Cosmo?” she said. “What account of myself
can I give my people?”
“You can tell them you met an old lover, and finding him now a rich
man, like a prudent woman, consented at once to marry him.”
“I must not tell a story.”
“Pray who asks you to tell a story?”
“You do, telling me to say I have a rich lover.”
“I do not. I am rich.”
“Not in money?”
“Yes, in money.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I forgot. How could I think of riches with you filling up all the
thinking-place!”
“But what am I to do to-night?”
“To-night?--oh!--I hadn’t thought of that!--We’ll ask Aggie.”
So Aggie was once more called, and consulted. She thought for a
minute, then said,--
“Cosmo, as sune’s ye’re hame, ye’ll sen’ yer man straucht awa’ upo’ the
horse to lat my lady’s fowk ken. She better write them a bit
letter, an’ tell them she’s fa’en in wi’ an auld acquaintance, a
lass ca’d Agnes Gracie, a dacent yoong wuman, an’ haein’ lost her
ro’d an’ bein’ unco tired, she’s gaein’ hame wi’ her to sleep; an’
the laird o’ Glenwarlock was sae kin’ ’s to sen’ his man upo’ his
horse to cairry the letter. That w’y there’ll be nae lees tellt,
an’ no ower muckle o’ the trowth.”
Cosmo began to criticise, but Joan insisted it should be as Aggie
said.
When they arrived at the castle, Grizzie was not a little
scandalized to see her young master with a country lass on his
horse, and making so much of her. But when she came to understand
who she was, and that she had dressed up to get the easier to
Castle Warlock she was filled with approbation even to delight.
“Eh, but ye’re a lass to mak a man prood! I cudna hae dune better
mysef’ gien I had been a gran’ lady wi’ a’ the wits o’ a puir wife!
Sit ye doon, my lady, an’ be richt walcome! Eh, but ye’re bonny, as
ever was ony! an’ eh, but ye’re steady as never was leddy! May the
Lord bless ye, an’ the laird kiss ye!”
This outbreak of benediction rather confused Cosmo, but Joan
laughed merrily, being happy as a child. Aggie turned her face to
Grizzie in dread of more; but the true improviser seldom, I fancy,
utters more than six lines. They had supper, and then a cart came
rumbling to the door, half full of straw, into which Joan got with
Aggie. A few things the latter had borrowed of Grizzie to help make
the former comfortable, were handed in and they set out for Muir o’
Warlock. In the morning Lady Joan declared she had never slept
better than in old Grannie’s box-bed.
They were married almost immediately, and nobody’s leave asked.
Cosmo wrote to acquaint Lord Mergwain with the event, and had in
return, from his lordship’s secretary, an acknowledgment of the
receipt of his letter.
Of what they had to tell each other, of the way they lived, of how
blessed they were even when not altogether happy--of these matters
I say nothing, leaving them to the imagination of him who has any,
while for him who has none I grudge the labour, thinking too he
would very likely rather hear how much Cosmo got for his diamonds,
and whether, if Lord Mergwain should not marry, Cairncarque will
come to Lady Joan. But such things even he is capable of employing
his fancy upon, and it would be a pity to prevent him from doing
what he can.
I will close my book with a little poem that Cosmo wrote--not that
night, but soon after. The poet may, in the height of joy, give out
an extempore flash or two, but he writes no poem then. The joy must
have begun to be garnered, before the soul can sing about it. How
we shall sing when we absolutely believe that _our life is hid with
Christ in God_!
Here is my spiritual colophon.
All things are shadows of thee, Lord;
The sun himself is but a shade;
My soul is but the shadow of thy word,
A candle sun-bedayed!
Diamonds are shadows of the sun;
They drink his rays and show a spark:
My soul some gleams of thy great shine hath won,
And round me slays the dark.
All knowledge is but broken shades--
In gulfs of dark a wandering horde:
Together rush the parted glory-grades--
And lo, thy garment, Lord!
My soul, the shadow, still is light,
Because the shadow falls from thee;
I turn, dull candle, to the centre bright,
And home flit shadowy.
Shine, shine; make me thy shadow still--
The brighter still the more thy shade;
My motion be thy lovely moveless will!
My darkness, light delayed!
(THE END.)