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CHRISTINE
By AMELIA E. BARR
Christine
Joan
Profit and Loss
Three Score and Ten
The Measure of a Man
The Winning of Lucia
Playing with Fire
All the Days of My Life
D. APPLETON & COMPANY
Publishers New York
[Illustration: When she came to the top of the cliff, she turned and
gazed again at the sea. Page 6]
CHRISTINE
A FIFE FISHER GIRL
BY
AMELIA E. BARR
AUTHOR OF "JOAN", "PROFIT AND LOSS", "THE MEASURE OF A MAN",
"ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE", ETC.
FRONTISPIECE BY STOCKTON MULFORD
"_The sea is His, and He made it_"
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1917
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
I Inscribe This Book To
Rutger Bleecker Jewett
Because He is my Friend, And
Expresses All That Jewel of a
Monosyllable Requires And
Because, Though a Landsman,
He Loves the Sea And
In His Dreams, He is a Sailor.
Amelia E. Barr.
_January 7th, 1917._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Fishers of Culraine 1
II. Christine and the Domine 23
III. Angus Ballister 38
IV. The Fisherman's Fair 61
V. Christine and Angus 86
VI. A Child, Two Lovers, and a Wedding 115
VII. Neil and a Little Child 152
VIII. An Unexpected Marriage 183
IX. A Happy Bit of Writing 212
X. Roberta Interferes 247
XI. Christine Mistress of Ruleson Cottage 280
XII. Neil's Return Home 306
XIII. The Right Mate and the Right Time 339
XIV. After Many Years 362
CHAPTER I
FISHERS OF CULRAINE
The hollow oak our palace is
Our heritage the sea.
Howe'er it be it seems to me
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets
And simple faith than Norman blood.
Friends, who have wandered with me through England, and Scotland, and
old New York, come now to Fife, and I will tell you the story of
Christina Ruleson, who lived in the little fishing village of
Culraine, seventy years ago. You will not find Culraine on the map,
though it is one of that chain of wonderful little towns and villages
which crown, as with a diadem, the forefront and the sea-front of the
ancient kingdom of Fife. Most of these towns have some song or story,
with which they glorify themselves, but Culraine--hidden in the clefts
of her sea-girt rocks--was _in_ the world, but not _of_ the world.
Her people lived between the sea and the sky, between their hard lives
on the sea, and their glorious hopes of a land where there would be
"no more sea."
Seventy years ago every man in Culraine was a fisherman, a mighty,
modest, blue-eyed Goliath, with a serious, inscrutable face; naturally
a silent man, and instinctively a very courteous one. He was exactly
like his great-grandfathers, he had the same fishing ground, the same
phenomena of tides and winds, the same boat of rude construction, and
the same implements for its management. His modes of thought were just
as stationary. It took the majesty of the Free Kirk Movement, and its
host of self-sacrificing clergy, to rouse again that passion of
religious faith, which made him the most thorough and determined of
the followers of John Knox.
The women of these fishermen were in many respects totally unlike the
men. They had a character of their own, and they occupied a far more
prominent position in the village than the men did. They were the
agents through whom all sales were effected, and all the money passed
through their hands. They were talkative, assertive, bustling, and a
marked contrast to their gravely silent husbands.
The Fife fisherman dresses very much like a sailor--though he never
looks like one--but the Fife fisher-wife had then a distinctly foreign
look. She delighted in the widest stripes, and the brightest colors.
Flaunting calicoes and many-colored kerchiefs were her steady fashion.
Her petticoats were very short, her feet trigly shod, and while
unmarried she wore a most picturesque headdress of white muslin or
linen, set a little backward over her always luxuriant hair. Even in
her girlhood she was the epitome of power and self-reliance, and the
husband who could prevent her in womanhood from making the bargains
and handling the money, must have been an extraordinarily clever man.
I find that in representing a certain class of humanity, I have
accurately described, mentally and physically, the father and mother
of my heroine; and it is only necessary to say further that James
Ruleson was a sternly devout man. He trusted God heartily at all
hazards, and submitted himself and all he loved to the Will of God,
with that complete self-abnegation which is perhaps one of the best
fruits of a passionate Calvinism.
For a fisherman he was doubtless well-provided, but no one but his
wife, Margot Ruleson, knew the exact sum of money lying to his credit
in the Bank of Scotland; and Margot kept such knowledge strictly
private. Ruleson owned his boat, and his cottage, and both were a
little better and larger than the ordinary boat and cottage; while
Margot was a woman who could turn a penny ten times over better than
any other woman in the cottages of Culraine. Ruleson also had been
blessed with six sons and one daughter, and with the exception of the
youngest, all the lads had served their time in their father's boat,
and even the one daughter was not excused a single duty that a
fisher-girl ought to do.
Culraine was not a pretty village, though its cottages were all alike
whitewashed outside, and roofed with heather. They had but two rooms
generally--a but and a ben, with no passage between. The majority were
among the sand hills, but many were built on the lofty, sea-lashed
rocks. James Ruleson's stood on a wide shelf, too high up for the
highest waves, though they often washed away the wall of the garden,
where it touched the sandy shore.
The house stood by itself. It had its own sea, and its own sky, and
its own garden, the latter sloping in narrow, giddy paths to the very
beach. Sure feet were needed among its vegetables, and its thickets of
gooseberry and currant bushes, and its straying tangles of blackberry
vines. Round the whole plot there was a low stone wall, covered with
wall-flowers, wild thyme, rosemary, and house-leek.
A few beds around the house held roses and lilies, and other floral
treasures, but these were so exclusively Margot's property, and
Margot's adoration, that I do not think she would like me even to
write about them. Sometimes she put a rosebud in the buttonhole of her
husband's Sunday coat, and sometimes Christina had a similar favor,
but Margot was intimate with her flowers. She knew every one by a
special name, and she counted them every morning. It really hurt her
to cut short their beautiful lives, and her eldest son Norman, after
long experience said: "If Mither cuts a flower, she'll ill to live
wi'. I wouldna tine her good temper for a bit rosebud. It's a poor
bargain."
One afternoon, early in the June of 1849, Christine Ruleson walked
slowly up the narrow, flowery path of this mountain garden. She was
heard before she was seen, for she was singing an east coast ballad,
telling all the world around her, that she
--Cast her line in Largo bay,
And fishes she caught nine;
Three to boil, and three to fry,
And three to bait the line.
So much she sang, and then she turned to the sea. The boat of a
solitary fisherman, and a lustrously white bird, were lying quietly on
the bay, close together, and a large ship with all her sails set was
dropping lazily along to the south. For a few moments she watched
them, and then continued her song.
She was tall and lovely, and browned and bloomed in the fresh salt
winds. Her hair had been loosened by the breeze, and had partially
escaped from her cap. She had a broad, white brow, and the dark blue
eyes that dwelt beneath it were full of soul--not a cloud in them,
only a soft, radiant light, shaded by eyelids deeply fringed, and
almost transparent--eyelids that were eloquent--full of secrets. Her
mouth was beautiful, her lips made for loving words--even little
children wanted to kiss her. And she lived the very life of the sea.
Like it she was subject to ebb and flow. Her love for it was perhaps
prenatal, it might even have driven her into her present incarnation.
When she came to the top of the cliff, she turned and gazed again at
the sea. The sunshine then fell all over her, and her dress came into
notice. It was simple enough, yet very effective--a white fluted cap,
lying well back on her bright, rippling hair, long gold rings in her
ears, and a vivid scarlet kerchief over her shoulders. Her skirt was
of wide blue and gray stripes, but it was hardly noticeable, for
whoever looked in Christine's face cared little about her dress. He
could never tell what she wore.
As she stood in the sunshine, a young man ran out of the house to meet
her--a passing handsome youth, with his heart in his eager face and
outstretched hands.
"Christine! Christine!" he cried. "Where at a' have you keepit
yourself? I hae been watching and waiting for you, these three hours
past."
"Cluny! You are crushing the bonnie flowers i' my hands, and I'm no
thanking you for that."
"And my puir heart! It is atween your twa hands, and it's crushing it
you are, day after day. Christine, it is most broke wi' the cruel grip
o' longing and loving--and not a word o' hope or love to help it haud
together."
"You should learn seasonable times, Cluny. It's few lasses that can be
bothered wi' lovers that come sae early. Women folk hae their hands
full o' wark o' some kind, then."
"Ay, full o' flowers. They canna even find time to gie the grip o'
their hand to the lad that loves them, maist to the death throe."
"I'm not wanting any lad to love me to the death throe, and I'm not
believing them, when they talk such-like nonsense. No indeed! The lad
I love must be full o' life and _forthput_. He must be able to guide
his boat, and throw and draw his nets single-handed--if needs be."
"I love you so! I love you so! I can do nothing else, Christine!"
"_Havers!_ Love sweetens life, but it's a long way from being life
itsel'. Many a man, and many a woman, loses their love, but they dinna
fling their life awa' because o' that misfortune--unless they have no
kindred to love, and no God to fear."
"You can't tell how it is, Christine. You never were i' love, I'm
thinking."
"I'm thankfu' to say I never was; and from all I see, and hear, I am
led to believe that being in love isna a superior state o' life. I'm
just hoping that what you ca' love isna of a catching quality."
"I wish it was! Maybe then, you might catch love from me. Oh
Christine, give me a hope, dear lass. I canna face life without it.
'Deed I can not."
"I might do such a thing. Whiles women-folk are left to themsel's, and
then it goes ill wi' them;" and she sighed and shook her head, as if
she feared such a possibility was within her own fate.
"What is it you mean? I'm seeking one word o' kindness from you,
Christine."
Then she looked at him, and she did not require speech. Cluny dared to
draw closer to her--to put his arm round her waist--to whisper such
alluring words of love and promise, that she smiled and gave him a
flower, and finally thought she might--perhaps--sometime--learn the
lesson he would teach her, for, "This warld is fu' o' maybe's, Cluny,"
she said, "and what's the good o' being young, if we dinna expect
miracles?"
"I'm looking for no miracle, Christine. I'm asking for what a man may
win by a woman's favor. I hae loved you, Christine, since I was a bit
laddie o' seven years auld. I'll love you till men carry me to the
kirk yard. I'd die for your love. I'd live, and suffer a' things for
it. Lassie! Dear, dear lassie, dinna fling love like mine awa'.
There's every gude in it."
She felt his heart throbbing in his words, but ere she could answer
them, her brother Neil called her three times, in a voice that
admitted of no delay. "Good-by, Cluny!" she said hurriedly. "You ken
Neil isna to be put off." Then she was gone, and Cluny, full of
bewildered loving and anxious feelings, rushed at headlong speed down
the steep and narrow garden path, to his grandmother's cottage on the
sands.
Neil stood by a little pine table covered with books and papers. He
was nearly twenty-one years old, and compared with his family was
small in stature, lightly built, and dark in complexion. His hair was
black, his eyes somberly gray, and full of calculation. His nose, lean
and sharp, indicated selfish adherence to the realities of life, and
the narrow nostrils positively accused him of timidity and caution.
His mouth was firm and discreet. Taken as a whole, his face was
handsome, though lean and thoughtful; but his manner was less
pleasant. It was that of a serious snob, who thinks there is a destiny
before him. He had been petted and spoiled all his life long, and his
speech and conduct were full of the unpleasant survivals of this
treatment. It spoiled him, and grated on Christine's temperament, like
grit in a fine salad.
He had never made a shilling in his life, he was the gentleman of the
family, elected by the family to that position. In his boyhood he had
been delicate, and quite unfit for the rough labor of the boats, but
as he had developed an extraordinary love for books and learning, the
minister had advised his dedication to the service of either the Law
or the Gospel. To this proposal the whole household cheerfully, even
proudly, agreed. To have an educated man among the Rulesons pleased
everyone. They spoke together of the great Scotch chancellors, and the
great Scotch clergy, and looked upon Neil Ruleson, by special choice
and election, as destined in the future to stand high among Scotland's
clergy or Scotland's lawyers.
For this end, during eleven years, all had given their share without
stint or holdback. That Neil had finally chosen to become a Lord of
the Law, and to sit on the Bench, rather than stand in the Pulpit, was
a great disappointment to his father, who had stubbornly hoped his son
would get the call no man can innocently refuse to answer. His mother
and brothers were satisfied. Norman Ruleson had once seen the Lords
ride in civic pomp and splendid attire to Edinburgh Parliament House,
and he was never weary of describing the majesty of the judges in
their wigs and gowns, and the ceremonials that attended every step of
the administration of justice.
"And the big salary coming to the judges!" Normany always added--"the
salary, and the visible honors arena to be lightlied, or made
little o'. Compared wi' a minister's stipend, a judge's salary is
stin-pen-dous! And they go wi' the best i' the land, and it isna
anything o' a wonder, when a judge is made a lord. There was Lord
Chancellor Campbell, born in Fife itsel', in the vera county town
o' Cupar. I have seen the house next the Bell Inn where he was
born, and his feyther was the minister o' Cupar. About the year
18----"
"You needna fash either us, or yoursel', Norman, wi' names and dates;
it will be time in plenty, when you can add our lad to the list."
Margot at this hour was inclined to side with her husband. Margot
believed in realities. She saw continually the honorable condition of
the Scotch clergy; Norman's story about the royal state and power of
the judges was like something read out of a book. However, now that
Neil was in his last year of study, and looking forward to the
certificate which would place him among men in such a desirable
condition, she would not darken his hopes, nor damp his ardor.
Neil's classes in the Maraschal college at Aberdeen were just closed,
but he was very busy preparing papers for their opening in September.
This was to be his final term, and he expected to deliver a
valedictory speech. The table in the best room, which he was permitted
to occupy as a study, was covered with notes, which he wished
copied--with books from which he was anxious to recite--with work of
many kinds, which was waiting for Christine's clear brain and fine
penmanship.
It had been waiting an hour and Neil was distinctly angry.
"Mother! Where at all is Christine?" he asked.
"She went to your brither Norman's cottage. His little lad isna as
weel as he should be."
"And my wark has to wait on a sick bairn. I'm not liking it. And I
have no doubt she is wasting my time with Cluny McPherson--no doubt at
all."
"Weel! That circumstance isna likely to be far out o' the way."
"It is very far out of _my_ way. I can tell you that, Mother."
"Weel, lad, there's no way always straight. It's right and left, and
up and down, wi' every way o' life."
"That is so, Mother, but my work is waiting, and it puts me out of the
right way, entirely!"
"Tut! tut! What are you complaining aboot? The lassie has been at your
beck and call the best pairt o' her life. And it's vera seldom she can
please you. If she gave you the whites o' her e'en, you would still
hae a grumble. It's Saturday afternoon. What's your will sae late i'
the week's wark?"
"Ought I not to be at my studies, late and early?"
"That stands to reason."
"Well then, I want Christine's help, and I am going to call her."
"You hae had her help ever sin' you learned your A B C's. She's twa
years younger than you are, but she's twa years ahead o' you in the
ordinary essentials. Do you think I didna tak' notice that when she
was hearing your tasks, she learned them the while you were stumbling
all the way through them. Dod! The lassie knew things if she only
looked in the face o' them twice o'er, and it took you mair than an
hour to get up to her--what you ca' history, and ge-o-graph-y she
learned as if they were just a bairn's bit rhyming, and she was as
quick wi' the slate and figures as you were slow. Are you forgetting
things like these?"
"It is not kind in you to be reminding me of them, Mother. It is not
like you."
"One o' my duties to a' my men-folk, is to keep them in mind o' the
little bits o' kindness they are apt to forget. Your feyther isna to
mind, he ne'er misses the least o' them. Your brother Norman is like
him, the rest o' you arena to lippen to--at a' times."
"I think I have helped Christine as much as she has helped me. She
knows that, she has often said so."
"I'll warrant! It was womanlike! She said it to mak' ye feel
comfortable, when you o'erworked her. Did ye ever say the like to
her?"
"I am going to call her. She is better with me than with Cluny
Macpherson--that I am sure of."
"You and her for it. Settle the matter as it suits ye, but I can tell
ye, I hae been parfectly annoyed, on several occasions, wi' your clear
selfishness--and that is the vera outcome o' all my thoughts on this
subject."
Then Neil went to the door, and called Christine thrice, and the power
of long habit was ill to restrain, so she left her lover hurriedly
and went to him.
"I have been watching and waiting--waiting for you, Christine, the
last three hours."
"Tak' tent o' what you say, Neil. It isna twa hours yet, since we had
dinner."
"You should have told me that you were intending to fritter and fool
your afternoon away."
"My mither bid me go and speir after Norman's little laddie. He had a
sair cold and fever, and----"
"Sit down. Are your hands clean? I want you to copy a very important
paper."
"What aboot?"
"Differences in the English and Scotch Law."
"I don't want to hae anything to do wi' the Law. I canna understand
it, and I'm no wanting to understand it."
"It is not necessary that you should understand it, but you know what
a peculiar writing comes from my pen. I can manage Latin or Greek, but
I cannot write plainly the usual English. Now, you write a clear, firm
hand, and I want you to copy my important papers. I believe I have
lost honors at college, just through my singular writing."
"I wouldn't wonder. It is mair like the marks the robin's wee feet
make on the snow, than the writing o' human hands. I wonder, too, if
the robin kens his ain footmarks, and if they mean anything to him.
Maybe they say, 'It's vera cold this morning--and the ground is
covered wi' snow--and I'm vera hungry--hae ye anything for me this
morning?' The sma footmarks o' the wee birds might mean all o' this,
and mair too, Neil."
"What nonsense you are talking! Run away and wash your hands. They are
stained and soiled with something."
"Wi' the wild thyme, and the rosemary, and the wall-flowers."
"And the rough, tarry hand of Cluny Macpherson. Be quick! I am in a
hurry."
"It is Saturday afternoon, Neil. Feyther and Eneas will be up from the
boats anon. I dinna care to write for you, the now. Mither said I was
to please mysel' what I did, and I'm in the mind to go and see Faith
Balcarry, and hae a long crack wi' her."
Neil looked at her in astonishment. There was a stubborn set to her
lovely mouth, he had never seen there before. It was a feminine
variety of an expression he understood well when he saw it on his
father's lips. Immediately he changed his tactics.
"Your eyes look luck on anything you write, Christine, and you know
how important these last papers are to me--and to all of us."
"Wouldna Monday suit them, just as weel?"
"No. There will be others for Monday. I am trusting to you, Christine.
You always have helped me. You are my Fail-Me-Never!"
She blushed and smiled with the pleasure this acknowledgment gave
her, but she did not relinquish her position. "I am vera sorry, Neil,"
she answered, "but I dinna see how I can break my promise to Faith
Balcarry. You ken weel what a friendless creature she is in this
world. How could I disappoint a lass whose cup is running o'er wi'
sorrow?"
"I will make a bargain with you, Christine. I will wait until Monday,
if you will promise me to keep Cluny Macpherson in his place. He has
no business making love to you, and I will make trouble for him if he
does so."
"What ails you at Cluny? He is in feyther's boat, and like to stay
there. Feyther trusts him, and Eneas never has a word out o' the way
with him, and you ken that Eneas is often gey ill to wark wi', and
vera demanding."
"Cluny Macpherson is all right in the boat, but he is much out of his
place holding your two hands, and making love to you. I saw him doing
it, not ten minutes ago."
"Cluny has made love to me a' his life lang. There is nae harm in his
love."
"There is no good in it. Just as soon as I am one of Her Majesty's
Councilors at Law, I shall take an office in the town, and rent a
small floor, and then I shall require you to keep house for me."
"You are running before you can creep, Neil. How are you going to pay
rents, and buy furnishings? Forbye, I couldna leave Mither her lane.
She hasna been hersel' this year past, and whiles she has sair
attacks that gie us all a fearsome day or twa."
"Mither has had those attacks for years."
"All the more reason for us to be feared o' them. Neil, I canna even
think o' my life, wanting Mither."
"But you love _me_! I am bound to bring all kinds o' good luck to our
family."
"Mither is good luck hersel'. There would be nae luck about the house,
if Mither went awa'."
"Well then, you will give Cluny up?"
"I canna say that I will do anything o' that kind. Every lass wants a
lover, and I have nane but Cluny."
"I have a grand one in view for you."
"Wha may the lad be?"
"My friend at the Maraschal. He is the young Master of Brewster and
Ballister, and as fine a young fellow as walks in shoe leather. The
old Ballister mansion you must have seen every Sabbath, as you went to
the kirk."
"Ay, I hae seen the roof and turrets o' it, among the thick woods; but
naebody has lived there, since I was born."
"You are right, but Ballister is going to open the place, and spend
gold in its plenishing and furnishing. It is a grand estate, and the
young master is worthy of it. I am his friend, and I mean to bring you
two together. You are bonnie, and he is rich; it would be a proper
match. I owe you something, Christine, and I'll pay my debt with a
husband worthy of you."
"And how would I be worthy o' him? I hae neither learning nor siller.
You are talking foolishness, Neil."
"You are not without learning. In my company you must have picked up
much information. You could not hear my lessons and copy my exercises
without acquiring a knowledge of many things."
"Ay, a smattering o' this and that. You wouldna call that an
education, would you?"
"It is a better one than most girls get, that is, in the verities and
the essentials. The overcome is only in the ornamentals, or
accomplishments--piano-playing, singing, dancing, and maybe what you
call a smattering of the French tongue. There is a piano in Ballister,
and you would pick out a Scotch song in no time, for you sing like a
mavis. As for dancing, you foot it like a fairy, and a mouthful of
French words would be at your own desire or pleasure."
"I hae that mouthfu' already. Did you think I wrote book after book
full o' your French exercises, and heard you recite Ollendorf twice
through, and learned naething while I was doing it? Neil, I am awa' to
Faith, I canna possibly break my word to a lass in trouble."
"A moment, Christina----"
"I havna half a moment. I'll do your writing Monday, Neil."
"Christine! Christine!"
She was beyond his call, and before he got over his amazement, she was
out of sight. Then his first impulse was to go to his mother, but he
remembered that she had not been sympathetic when he had before spoken
of Christine and Cluny Macpherson.
"I will be wise, and take my own counsel," he thought, and he had
no fear of wanting his own sympathy; yet when he reviewed his
conversation with Christine, he was annoyed at its freedom.
"I ought not to have told her about Ballister," he thought, "she will
be watching for him at the kirk, and looking at the towers o'
Ballister House as if they were her own. And whatever made me say I
thought of her as my housekeeper? She would be the most imprudent
person. I would have the whole fishing-village at my house door, and
very likely at my fireside; and that would be a constant set-down for
me."
This train of thought was capable of much discreet consideration,
and he pursued it until he heard the stir of presence and conversation
in the large living room. Then he knew that his father and brother
were at home, to keep the preparation for the Sabbath. So he made
himself look as lawyer-like as possible, and joined the family.
Everyone, and everything, had a semi-Sabbath look. Ruleson was in a
blue flannel suit, so was Eneas, and Margot had put on a clean
cap, and thrown over her shoulders a small tartan shawl. The hearth
had been rid up, and the table was covered with a clean white
cloth. In the oven the meat and pudding were cooking, and there was a
not unpleasant sancta-serious air about the people, and the room.
You might have fancied that even the fishing nets hanging against the
wall knew it was Saturday night, and no fishing on hand.
Christine was not there. And as it was only on Saturday and Sunday
nights that James Ruleson could be the priest of his family, these
occasions were precious to him, and he was troubled if any of his
family were absent. Half an hour before Christine returned home, he
was worrying lest she forget the household rite, and when she came in
he asked her, for the future, to bide at home on Saturday and Sabbath
nights, saying he "didna feel all right," unless she was present.
"I was doing your will, Feyther, anent Faith Balcarry."
"Then you were doing right. How is the puir lassie?"
"There's little to be done for her. She hasna a hope left, and when I
spoke to her anent heaven, she said she knew nobody there, and the
thought o' the loneliness she would feel frightened her."
"You see, James," said Margot, "puir Faith never saw her father or
mother, and if all accounts be true, no great loss, and I dinna
believe the lassie ever knew anyone in this warld she would want to
see in heaven. Nae wonder she is sae sad and lonely."
"There is the great multitude of saints there."
"Gudeman, it is our ain folk we will be seeking, and speiring after,
in heaven. Without them, we shall be as lonely as puir Faith, who
knows no one either in this world, or the next, that she's caring to
see. I wouldn't wonder, James, if heaven might not feel lonely to
those who win there, but find no one they know to welcome them."
"We are told we shall be satisfied, Margot."
"I'm sure I hope sae! Come now, and we will hae a gude dinner and eat
it cheerfully."
After dinner there was a pleasant evening during which fishers and
fishers' wives came in, and chatted of the sea, and the boats, and the
herring fishing just at hand; but at ten o'clock the big Bible, bound
round with brass, covered with green baize, and undivested of the
Books of the Apocrypha, was laid before the master. As he was trying
to find the place he wanted, Margot stepped behind him, and looked
over his shoulder:
"Gudeman," she said softly, "you needna be harmering through thae
chapters o' proper names, in the Book o' Chronicles. The trouble is
overganging the profit. Read us one o' King David's psalms or
canticles, then we'll go to our sleep wi' a song in our hearts."
"Your will be it, Margot. Hae you any choice?"
"I was reading the seventy-first this afternoon, and I could gladly
hear it o'er again."
And O how blessed is that sleep into which we fall, hearing through
the darkness and silence, the happy soul recalling itself--"In thee, O
Lord, do I put my trust--Thou art my hope, O Lord God--my trust from
my youth--I will hope continually--and praise Thee--more and more--my
soul which Thou hast--redeemed! Which Thou hast redeemed!" With that
wonderful thought falling off into deep, sweet sleep--it might be into
that mysteriously conscious sleep, informed by prophesying dreams,
which is the walking of God through sleep.