THE RIGHT MATE AND THE RIGHT TIME
For the destiny whereof they were worthy drew them unto this
end.--Wisdom of Solomon, xix, 4.
Mercifully ordain that we may become aged together.--Tobit, viii,
7.
The Bride of Love and Happiness!
Roberta Ruleson was the last person in the world Christine expected to
see. She came in smiling, and with outstretched hand said, "Dear
Christine, tell me that you are glad to see me."
"There's nane living, Roberta, saving your ain husband, I would be
gladder to see."
"I have sent the carriage away, can I stop with you this night?"
"You can stay as long as you want to stay. I will be gey glad o' your
company."
"I have long looked for an opportunity to come to you. At last I
pretended to be very sick with rheumatism, and had a famous physician
to see me. Of course I had looked up the symptoms I had to complain
of, and I succeeded in deceiving him. He was puzzled about my freedom
from fever, but I told him 'it came bad enough every third day,' and
he said he would see me on the third day. My brother and his saucy
wife left for Edinburgh yesterday, and they think I am safe in bed. I
am safe here. I left Glasgow an hour after they did."
"Will you hae a cup of tea and a mouthful o' bread and broiled ham?"
"I am hungry and cold, and shall be very glad of it."
"Then go and tak' off your bonnet and cloak, and come to the fireside.
I'll hae the food ready for you, in ten minutes."
Christine wanted a few minutes to consider. Was it right for her to
tell Roberta all she knew, or must she follow the Domine's plan and be
non-committal. She had not satisfied herself on this subject when
Roberta returned to her, and she then hastily decided to do right and
tell the truth whatever turned up. The tea and ham and bread were
ready and Roberta sat down to them with the pleasant eagerness of a
hungry child. She was, however, much changed. Her face showed plainly
the wear and tear of a troubled, anxious mind, and as soon as she had
taken a long drink of tea, she asked abruptly, "Christine, where is
Neil?"
Then all Christine's hesitation vanished, and she answered frankly,
"Neil is in a little town on the Hudson River, about a two hours'
journey from New York."
"What is he doing?"
"He is bookkeeper in a shop there."
"What is the name of the town? Tell me truly, Christine."
"I will let you read his last letter. It came two days ago."
"Thank you! It would be a great comfort to me."
There was a John Knox teapot on the chimney-piece, and Christine
lifted it down, removed the lid, and took Neil's letter out, and
handed it to Roberta.
The woman's invincible sense of whatever was ridiculous or inconsistent,
with a person or event, was instantly roused by the appearance of John
Knox. She laughed with girlish merriment. "To think of John Knox
interfering in my matrimonial difficulties!" she cried, "it is too
funny! The old scold! How grim and gruff he looks! If he could
speak, how he would rave about the outrageous authority of women. It is
refreshing to know that he had a wife that snubbed him, and didn't
believe in him, and did not honor and obey him, and----"
She had unfolded the letter as she was speaking, and now her eyes were
so busy, that her tongue got no message to deliver, and this was what
she read:--
MY DEAR SISTER CHRISTINE,
I am still here, waiting for the information I asked you to get
me, namely the address of my dear wife. I am unhappy, I may say I
am miserable; and I can never settle anywhere, till I see her. If
she then refuses to hear and believe me, life will be over to me.
But she will believe me, for I will tell her the truth, and she
will see that though I was foolish, I was not criminal. The law
separating these two conditions is far from being clear enough. I
want to know where my wife is! She will believe me! She will trust
me! You do. Mother did. Roberta has been very near and dear to me.
She has been forced to abandon me. It is the injustice of my
treatment that is killing me. If I could only clear myself in her
sight, I could lift life again, and make the best of it. I am not
half content in this place. I cannot believe the people here are
representative Americans, and I dislike small towns. Traders and
dwellers in small towns are generally covetous--they have a
sinister arithmetic--they have no clear notions of right and
wrong, and I think they are capable of every kind of malice known
to man. I want to go to a big city, where big motives move men,
and if you do not send me Roberta's hiding place, I will put out
for California, if I foot it every step of the way. I am stunned,
but not broken.
Your loving brother,
NEIL.
When she had finished this letter, she was crying. "Give it to me!"
she sobbed, "it is all about me, Christine. Give it to me! Poor Neil!
He has been badly used! Oh Christine, what must I do?"
"You ought to go to his side, and help him to mak' a better life. What
prevents ye?"
"Oh the shame of it! The atmosphere of the prison!"
"You promised God to tak' him for better or worse, richer or poorer.
You are breaking your promise every day, and every hour, that you stay
away from him."
"You must not blame me ignorantly, Christine. My brother and I were
left alone in the world, when he was ten years old, and I was eight.
He at once assumed a tender and careful charge of my lonely life. I
cannot tell you how good and thoughtful he was. When I left school he
traveled all over Europe with me, and he guarded my financial
interests as carefully as if they were his own. And I gave him a great
affection, and a very sincere obedience to all his wishes and advice.
At first he seemed to favor my liking for Neil, but he soon grew
furiously jealous, and then all was very unpleasant. Neil complained
to me. He said he did not want me to take my brother's opinion without
saying a few words in his own behalf, and so I soon began to take
Neil's side. Then day by day things grew worse and worse, and partly
because I liked Neil, and partly because I was angry at Reginald, and
weary of his exacting authority, I became Neil's wife."
"That was an engagement for a' the days of your life. You hae broken
it."
"The law excused and encouraged me to do so."
"Were you happy in that course?"
"About as unhappy as I could be. I was sure Neil had been hardly dealt
with, that advantage had been taken of his terror and grief, when he
found himself in prison. I am sure the lawyer he employed was really
seeking Reginald's favor, and practically gave Neil's case away, but I
was angry at Neil's want of spirit and pluck, in his own defense.
Reginald told me that he cried in the dock, and I shed a few
passionate tears over his want of courage and manliness."
"Poor Neil! If you had stood by him, he would have stood by himself.
Remember, Roberta, that he was only just out of his college classes,
and had had neither time nor opportunity to make friends; that his
mither was dying, and that we had no money to defend him; that his
wife had deserted him, and that he is naturally a man of little
courage, and you will judge him very leniently."
"Reginald told me he was saving money in order to run away from me,
and----"
"If he was saving money to run awa' with, he intended to take you with
him. If he was going awa' alone, a few pounds would hae been all he
needed. And it seems to me you were the runaway from love and duty.
But it is little matter now, who was most to blame. Life is all
repenting and beginning again, and that is everything that can be done
in this case."
"I will start for New York tomorrow. Can you get Doctor Trenabie here
for me?"
"Do you know him?"
"He is a distant relative both of the Raths and the Ballisters."
"He never said a word about his relationship, to me."
"It would have been most unlike him had he done so, but I can tell
you, he wrote me before my marriage, and advised me to be very
cautious with Mr. Neil Ruleson."
"I will send for him," said Christine, a little coldly, and then she
drew the conversation towards the Raths and Ballisters. "Were they
closely connected with Doctor Trenabie?" she asked.
"In a distant way," said Roberta, "but they are firm friends, for many
generations."
"The Domine does not talk much about himsel'."
"No. He never did. He vowed himself early in life to chastity and
poverty, for Christ's sake, and he has faithfully kept his vow. Old
Ballister gave him the kirk of Culraine at fifty pounds a year, and
when the death of his father made him a comparatively rich man, he
continued his humble life, and put out all the balance of his money in
loans to poor men in a strait, or in permanent gifts, when such are
necessary. Reginald used to consider him a saint, and many times he
said that if I was married to a good man, he would try and live such a
life as Magnus Trenabie."
"Once I knew Colonel and Angus Ballister."
"I heard Angus lately boasting about his acquaintance with you--that
is since your book has set the whole newspaper world to praising
you."
"He is married. I saw him with his bride."
"A proud, saucy, beautiful Canadian, educated in a tip-top New York
boarding school, in all the pronounced fads of the day. Now, I have
seen New York girls of this progressive kind, and the polish being
natural to them, they were not only dashing and impertinent, they were
fascinating in all their dictatory moods. But this kind of polish is
intolerable when laid over a hard, calculating, really puritanical
Scotch nature. Such a girl has to kill some of her very best
qualities, in order to take it on at all."
"She would be gey hard to live wi'. I wouldn't stay wi' her--not a
day."
"Yet, I can tell you, both English and Scotch men are enslaved easily
by this new kind of girl. She is only the girl of the period and the
place, but they imagine her to be the very latest improvement in
womanly styles. Now, I will astonish you. Reginald married the sister
of Angus Ballister's wife. She is equally beautiful, equally
impertinent and selfish, and she holds Reginald in a leash. She makes
fun of my dowdy dress and ways, and of my antiquated moralities, even
to my brother, in my very presence, and Reggie looks at me critically,
and then at Sabrina--that is the creature's name--and says--'Roberta,
you ought to get Brina to show you how to dress, and how to behave.
You should just see Brina tread our old fogyish social laws under her
feet. She makes a sensation in every room she enters.' And I answer
pointedly--'I have no doubt of it.' She understands my laugh, though
Reggie is far from it. Of course she hates me, and she has quite
changed Reggie. I have no longer any brother. I want to go and see if
my husband cares for me."
"Of course he cares for you, more than for any ither thing. Go to him.
Mak' a man every way of him. Teach him to trust you, and you may trust
him. Now go and sleep until the Domine comes, and he will tak' care of
your further movements."
When the Domine came, he treated Roberta very like a daughter, but he
would not hear her tale of woe over again. He said, "There are faults
on both sides. You cannot strike fire, without both flint and steel."
"I have been so lonely and miserable, Doctor, since I saw you last.
Reggie has quite deserted me for her."
"Well, then, Roberta, walk your lonely room with God, and humbly dare
to tell Him all your heart."
"I never had any suspicion of Neil, until----"
"Roberta, women trust on all points, or are on all points suspicious."
"I trusted Neil, for as you know, he was under great obligations----"
"Obligations! Obligations! That is a terrible word. Love should not
know it."
"If I had never met Neil----"
"You only meet the people in this life, whom you were meant to meet.
Our destiny is human, it must come to us by human hearts and hands.
Marriage brings out the best and the worst a man or woman has. Let
your marriage, Roberta, teach you the height and the depth of a
woman's love. There are faults only a woman can forgive, and go on
trusting and loving. Try and reach that height and depth of love. Then
you can go boldly to God and say, 'Forgive me my trespasses, as I have
forgiven those who trespassed against me.' What do you want me to do
for you?"
"I want you, dear Doctor, to go and take the very earliest passage to
New York that you can get. Any steamer and any line will do. Also I
want you to go to the bank of Scotland, and tell them to transmit all
my cash in their keeping to the bank of New York. Also, there is a
trunk at Madame Bonelle's I want placed on the steamer, as soon as my
passage is taken. It has a carefully chosen wardrobe in it. Brina
thought it was full of dresses to be altered, according to American
styles"--and this explanation of the dress episode she gave to
Christine with a smile so comically illuminating, that the Doctor's
smile perforce caught a gleam from it.
But he was in an authoritative mood, and he said, "What is your
intention, Mrs. Ruleson? This is a singular order for you to give."
"Doctor, I am going to my husband. Christine has told me where he is.
He loves me yet, and I want to go, and help, and comfort him."
"That is right. It is converting love into action. If this is not
done, love is indolent and unbelieving. It is not enough for Neil to
love you, your love must flow out to him in return, or your married
life will be barren as sand."
"I shall forgive him everything. He is longing to explain all to me."
"Forgive him before he explains. Have no explanations, they turn to
arguments, and an argument is a more hopeless barrier than a vigorous
quarrel, or an indignant contradiction. You do not want to judge
whether he is right or wrong. The more you judge, the less you love.
Take him just as he is, and begin your lives over again. Will you do
this?"
"I will try."
"Roberta, you have a great work before you--the saving of a man--the
lifting of him up from despair and ruin to confidence and hope, and
success. He is well worth your effort. Neil has fine traits, he comes
of a religiously royal ancestry, and true nobility is virtue of race.
You can save this man. Some women could not, others would not, you can
do it."
"I will do it, Sir, God helping me."
"Now I will go to Glasgow, and do all you require. You must take some
money with you, the bank----"
"I have a thousand pounds in my purse."
"You extravagant woman!"
"Money is necessary, in saving souls, Sir."
"I believe you. Where shall I meet you in Glasgow?"
"At the Victoria Hotel--dinner at six."
To these words the Doctor disappeared, and Roberta began to amplify
and explain and justify her position and her intentions. She talked to
Christine, while Christine cooked their meals and did all the
necessary housework. She begged her to lock the doors against all
intruders, and then making herself comfortable in the large cushioned
chair by the fireside, she took off her tight shoes, and divested her
hair of all its pads, and combs, and rats, and with a sigh of relief
said, "Now we can talk comfortably." They talked all day long, and
they talked of Neil. A little later, she was eager to tell Christine
all about her brother's unaccountable marriage. "I was really ashamed
of the affair, Christine," she said. "No consideration for others,
scarcely time to make the wedding-dress, and I think she asked
everyone she saw to come to her marriage. She talked the slang of
every country she had visited, and the men all thought it 'so funny'
when she kicked up her dress with her heel, and treated them to a bit
of London or New York slang. The perfectly silly and easy way in which
men are caught, and tied fast, always amazes me, Christine. It is just
like walking up to a horse's head, with a dish full of corn in one
hand and a bridle in the other. This little Sabrina Wales walked up to
Reginald Rath with a bit of London slang on her lips, and a wedding
ring hid in the palm of her hand, and the poor man is her slave for
life."
"Not necessarily a slave for life, Roberta."
"Necessarily. No remission. No redemption. The contract reads 'until
death us part.'"
They discussed Sabrina from head to feet--her hair, her eyes, her
complexion, her carriage, her way of dressing, her gowns--all short in
front and long behind--"can you guess what for, Christine?"
"Perhaps she has pretty feet."
"She has very small ones. I do not know whether they are pretty or
not. But the effect is striking, if you watch her from the front--you
can't help thinking of a turkey gobbler."
The hours went happily enough, Christine enjoyed them. After her paper
heroine, this all-alive, scornful, loving and hating, talking and
laughing woman was a great pleasure. Christine baked delicious scones,
and scalloped some fine oysters in bread crumbs and chopped parsley,
and made one or two pots of Pekoe and Young Hyson tea, and they
nibbled and sipped, and talked over the whole sacred druidical family
of the Raths, even to Aunt Agatha, who was worth half a million
pounds--"which I threw away for a good joke," said Roberta.
"Look at the clock, it is near midnight! We must go to bed."
"Well, then, I have had the loveliest day. I shall never forget it,
and I will tell Neil all about it before long. Dear Christine, I am
glad you are my sister, it lets me take nice little liberties with
you; and you know, I love you, but that is inevitable. No one can help
it."
When Roberta went, she seemed to take the sunshine with her. The
summer of All Saints, and the melancholy of its long fine weather was
over, and there was the touch of winter in the frosty nights and
mornings, but for five weeks Christine heeded nothing but her new
novel. For the time being, it fully absorbed her; and for the next few
weeks she made great progress. Then one morning Norman came to see
her. "Christine," he said. "I am in great trouble. Jessy is vera ill
with scarlet fever, and I am anxious about the children."
"Bring them all here, Norman."
"They'll mebbe hinder you i' your writing."
"But what is my writing worth, when the children are in danger? Go and
bring them here at once. Get Judith to come with them. With her help I
can manage. I will come in the afternoon, and sit with Jessy awhile."
"No, you willna be permitted. The doctors say there are o'er many
cases. They hae ordered the school closed, and they are marking every
house in which there is sickness."
This epidemic prostrated the village until the middle of January,
taking a death toll from the little community, of nearly eighty,
mostly women and children. But this loss was connected with wonderful
acts of kindness, and self-denial. The men left their boats and nursed
each other's children, the women who were well went from house to
house, caring tenderly even for those they supposed themselves to be
unfriends with. If the fever triumphed over its victims, love
triumphed over the fever. In the Valley of the Shadow of Death, they
had forgotten everything but that they were fellow-sufferers.
Christine's house had been a home for children without a home, and she
had spent a great part of her time in preparing strengthening and
appetizing food for those who needed it more than any other thing. No
one, now, had a word wrong to say of Christine Ruleson. She had been a
helping and comforting angel in their trouble, and if there had been a
woman or child more suffering and destitute than all the rest,
Christine had always taken her to her home. For in such times of
sorrow, God reveals Himself to the heart, not to the reason. Oh, how
far it is, from knowing God, to loving Him!
Well, then, Sorrow may endure for a night, but Joy cometh in the
morning. And the mornings grew to be spring mornings, full of that
sunshine that goes not only to the heart of man, but to the roots of
every green thing. The silence of the receding hills was broken by
streams glancing and dancing down the glens. The "incalculable
laughter of the sea" was full of good promise, for those who had been
sick, and for those who had perforce been long idle. The roar of angry
billows was hushed, and it came up to the land, hard-edged with stiff,
tinkling waves, and the convalescents rested on the shingles beside
them, taking life with every breath, and enjoying that perfect rest
that shingle knows how to give, because it takes the shape of the
sleeper, whether he be young or old, or short or long.
The days were of soft, delicate radiance, the nights full of stars.
The moon in all her stages was clear as silver, the dawns came
streaming up from the throbbing breast of the ocean. The springtime
songs were bubbling in the birds' throats, they sang as if they never
would grow old, and the honey bees were busy among the cherry blooms,
delirious with delight.
Who speaks of sadness in such days?
Certainly Christine did not. All the troubles of the hard winter were
past, and her heart was running over with a new joy. Cluny was coming
home. Very soon, the long waiting would be over. This thought made her
restlessly busy. Her home had to be renovated thoroughly. Altogether
twenty-eight children had been sheltered for short or longer periods
there, and they had all left their mark on its usually spotless walls
and floors. Well, then, they must be cleaned--and men quickly appeared
with lime and white paint, and women with soap and scrubbing brushes.
And Christine went through the rooms, and through the rooms, with
them, directing and helping forward the beautifying work.
She had also to think of her wedding-dress, and her wedding-breakfast,
but these cheerful, lengthening days gave her time for everything.
When the house pleased even her particular idea of what it ought to
be, she turned to the garden. The seeds of the annuals were sown, and
the roses trimmed, and not a weed left in the sacred little spot.
Then day after day added to all this beauty and purity, and one
happy morning Jamie brought the letter. Cluny was in Glasgow, and his
letter was like the shout of a victor. He would be in Culraine on
Thursday--first train he could make--they would be married Saturday
morning. Christine could not put him off any longer. He had been
waiting twenty-one years--for he had loved her when he was only nine
years old--and he had fulfilled every obligation laid on him. And
now! Now! Now! She was his wife, his very own! there was no one,
and no circumstance, to dispute his claim! and so on, in sentences
which stumbled over each other, because it was impossible for
humanity to invent words for feelings transcending its comprehension.
Christine laughed softly and sweetly, kissed the incoherent letter,
and put it in her breast. Then she walked through the house and
garden, and found everything as it should be. Even the dress in which
she would meet her lover, with its ribbons and ornaments, was laid out
ready to put on the next morning. Judith was in the kitchen. The
wedding dress, and the wedding cake, would be brought home on Friday
morning.
However, a woman, on such an occasion, wants to make the perfect still
more perfect. She wondered if it would not be well to go and give her
last directions and orders that afternoon, and finally decided to do
so.
She was just leaving the baker's, when Colonel Ballister entered. He
met her with respectful effusiveness, and asked permission to walk
home with her. And as they walked to the village together, the Colonel
said, "I spent four, long, delightful hours with Captain Macpherson
last night. He is to be here tomorrow."
"I didna ken you was acquaint wi' him, Colonel."
"Mr. Henderson introduced me to him, and then asked us both to dinner.
We had a delightful three hours at Henderson's, then the captain and I
walked round and round the square for an hour, and we liked each other
so well, that I got permission from him, to ask a great favor from
you."
"I dinna see how I can favor you, Colonel, but if I can do sae, I'll
be gey glad to do it."
"I want you to allow me to be present at your marriage ceremony. I
shall never forget the supper I ate with your father and mother. I
respected them both with all my heart, and I am one of the most
enthusiastic admirers of your writing, and you must know and feel that
I am your sincere friend."
"I do know it, Sir. I thank you for your kind words anent my dear
feyther and mither; and I shall be a very proud and happy girl, if you
will stand a few minutes by the side o' Cluny and Christine. It will
be for our honor and pleasure!"
"Captain Macpherson asked me to call and see him, and I will then
find out your arrangements, and very proudly drop into them." Then he
walked to the foot of the hill with her, and could not help noticing
the school, from which at least eighty boys and girls were issuing
with a shout and a leap for the playground. On this sight he looked
pleasantly for a few moments, and then smiling at Christine said:
"Our enterprise! It appears to be attractive."
Not knowing just what reply to make, she smiled, and nodded, and gave
him her hand. "Good-by, Christine! May I call you Christine? In a day
or two it will not be permissible. May I say it until then?"
"Christine is my name. Call me Christine always."
"Captain Macpherson would have something to say to that."
"What for? He has naething to do with my name."
"The first thing he does, after you are his wife, is to change it."
"He can only change the family name. Every one o' us in the family has
that name. It is common to all, far and near. Cluny can change that,
and I hae no objections; but he wouldna daur to touch a letter of my
christened name. That is my ain, as much as my hands and my eyes are
my ain--ay, and a gey bit mair sae--for a man may claim the wark o'
your hands, and the glint o' your e'en, but he canna mak' use o' your
name. It is o'er near forgery--and punishment. Sae I am Christine to
yoursel' neither for wark, nor for use, but just for pure honest
friendship--Christine, as lang as we baith wish it sae."
"Thank you, Christine. I am proud of the favor!"
Now I am beggared for words, when I come to try any description of
Cluny's wonderful joy in the final fruition of his long-delayed hopes.
When he landed, he was at first volubly happy. He told everyone he was
going to be married. He expected everyone to rejoice with him. All his
thoughts, words, and actions were tinctured with Christine. Men looked
at him, and listened to him, with pity or envy, and one of the
greatest of Glasgow's mercantile magnates cried out enviously--"Oh,
man! Man! I would gie all I possess to be as divinely mad as you
are--just for one twenty-four hours!"
But joy at its very deepest and holiest turns strangely silent. The
words it needs have not yet been invented, and when Cluny was free of
all duty, and could come to the very presence of his Beloved, he could
say nothing but her name, "Christine! Christine!" almost in a
whisper--and then a pause, a pause whose silence was sweeter far than
any words could have been. Speech came later, in passionate terms of
long and faithful love, in wonder at her beauty, ten-fold finer than
ever, in admiration of her lovely dress, her softer speech, her
gentler manner. She was a Christine mentalized by her reading and
writing, and spiritualized by her contact with the sick and suffering
little children of the past months. Also, love purifies the heart it
burns in.
Everything was ready for the marriage, and it was solemnized on
Saturday morning in the Ruleson home. The large living room was a
bower of fresh green things, and made gay and sweet with the first
spring flowers. The marriage table was laid there also, but the Domine
stood on the hearthstone, and on the very altar of the home in which
Christine had grown to such a lovely and perfect womanhood, she became
the wife of Captain Cluny Macpherson.
That day when Cluny came in to the bridal, he wore for the very first
time his uniform as captain of the new steamer just finishing for him.
For he had asked one great favor for himself, which was readily
granted, namely, that his commission as captain be dated on his
wedding day. So then he received his wife and his ship at the same
time. The room was crowded with men and women who had known him from
boyhood, and when he appeared, it was hard work to refrain from
greeting him with a shout of "Welcome, Captain!" But it was the light
of joy and admiration in Christine's face, which repaid him for the
long years of working and waiting for this gloriously compensating
hour.
The Colonel said he had the honor of assisting at the wedding of the
handsomest couple in Scotland. And it was not altogether an
exaggeration. Christine in her white satin gown, with white rose buds
in her golden hair, and on her breast--tender, intelligent, intensely
womanly was the very mate--in difference--for Cluny, whose sea-beaten
beauty, and splendid manhood were so fittingly emphasized by the gold
bands and lace and buttons, which Jamie had once called "his
trimmings." He wore them now with becoming dignity, for he knew their
value, because he had paid their price.
There was a crowded breakfast table after the ceremony. The Domine
blessed the meal, and the Colonel made a flattering speech to the
people of Culraine--his people--he called them; promising them better
water, and better sanitary arrangements, and another teacher who would
look especially after the boys' athletic games and exercises. During
this speech the Captain and his bride slipped away to the train, in
the Colonel's carriage, and when it returned for the Colonel, the
wedding guests were scattering, and the long-looked-for event was
over.
Over to the public, but to the newly-wed couple it was just beginning.
To them, the long, silent strings of hitherto meaningless life, were
thrilling with strange and overwhelming melodies. Marriage had
instantly given a new meaning to both lives. For the key to life is in
the heart, not in the brain; and marriage is the mystical blending of
two souls, when self is lost, and found again in the being of another.
It was with them,
That ever working miracle of God,
The green and vital mystery of love,
Still budding in the garden of the heart.
The wedding festivities over, all excitement about it quickly
subsided. Christine would be sure to come back again, Cluny would
return at stated periods, and always bring with him the air and flavor
of lands strange and far off. Their farewells would always be short
ones. Their presence would always be a benefaction. There was nothing
to discuss, or wonder over, and the preparations for the herring
season were far behind-hand. They could talk about the wedding later,
at present the nets and the boats were the great anxiety in every
house in the village. So Christine and Cluny with little observation,
Sailed happily into the future,
Wherever their wishes inclined them;
Love and Good Fortune as shipmates,
And Troubles always a mile behind them.[*]
[*] A fisherman's toast or blessing.