“_The grace of God, the light and life that flow from His indwelling,
can lift the very weariest and hardest-driven soul into a dignity of
endurance, a radiance of faith, a simplicity of love, far above all that
this world can give or take away_.” Dean Paget.
|But perhaps no one so thoroughly rejoiced in the news of the engagement
as Myra Brinton. It was Ivy herself who first told her, when she and
Evereld with Bridget and Dick in attendance rejoined the company at
Worcester. Ralph had of course heard all about it the first Sunday
he had visited them at Bath, but he had kept his own counsel, for Ivy
preferred telling her own news herself both to Macneillie and to her
friends in the company.
Nothing could so completely have restored peace and harmony between Myra
and Ivy, all the past mistakes and disagreements faded into oblivion,
and the two became once more excellent friends.
As for little Dick he soon became the darling of the whole company.
Thanks to Bridget’s good management he throve wonderfully, spent most
of his time in sleeping, seldom cried, and behaved with discretion
on journeys, to the immense satisfaction of his mother, who proudly
reflected that not even the most crabbed old bachelor in the company
could ever complain that Dick was in the way.
Like a true Denmead he was thoroughly well-bred and had a way of
accommodating himself to all surroundings; but Evereld saw he would run
an excellent chance of being spoilt as soon as he grew a little older,
for everyone made much of him and he received votive offerings in such
profusion that it became difficult to pack them. Even the low comedy man
broke his rule of silence so far as to inquire occasionally after his
health, and at Christmas presented him with a magnificent red and blue
clown who shook his head to solemn music.
As to Macneillie, though he had always professed total indifference
to children, he was completely subjugated by the wiles of his Godson.
Either from insight into character, or from some consideration of the
strong hands and arms which held him so delightfully, Dick preferred the
manager to anyone else in the world; his father’s long slender hands and
taper fingers were not to be compared for a moment with the comfort of
the highlander’s firm and comfortable grasp. And Macneillie found it
impossible to resist the subtle flattery of this small worshipper who
was always ready to laugh and shout with glee at the mere sight of
him. In his darkest hours the little elf would often cajole him into
a temporary forgetfulness, seeming indeed to take a special delight in
beguiling him into a romp, whenever his clouded brow betokened that
his own great trouble and the bitter thought of Christine’s lonely and
difficult life were weighing him down.
On the whole the years which followed the birth of Ralph’s child were
as happy as any Macneillie had known since Christine’s marriage, and as
tranquil as his life was ever likely to be. Ralph and Evereld were like
a son and daughter to him, and both were able to do much to help him in
the busy and harassing days which fall to the lot of most managers.
Still there was no denying that his private troubles had more or less
shattered his health; he worked on bravely, as had always been his
custom, but now and then an intolerable sense of weariness crept over
him and he would wonder how much longer he could keep going.
At last, soon after Dick had celebrated his second birthday, the manager
suddenly broke down.
There was nothing which could definitely account for his failure; he had
indeed been very busy with preparations for the Shaksperian Performances
at Stratford-on-Avon, which were that year to be given by his company
during the birthday week. But hard work seldom does people any harm. It
was rather that he had for years been bearing a load which overtaxed his
strength and at last, from sheer exhaustion, nature gave way.
His old enemy, utter sleeplessness, returned to torment him, and there
was nothing for it but to obey the doctor’s orders and go to Scotland
for rest and change.
“You are looking sorely fagged, Hugh,” was his mother’s comment when
on the evening of his arrival at Callander they sat together by the
fireside. It was some months since she had seen him and she was quick to
note that he was hollow-cheeked and that his face, as she expressed it,
“looked all eyes.”
“Scottish air will soon cure me,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “I
shall sleep to-night.”
“Ah lad,” she said with a sigh, “and what reason is there that you
should not be always breathing your native air? If you had but chosen
the calling I would have had you choose, how different all might have
been.”
“Yes, we might now have been sitting in the most comfortable Manse,”
said Macneillie, a gleam of humour lighting up his grave face. “Instead
of a lean and hard-worked actor, roaming from place to place, I might
have been a portly minister revered by half the neighbourhood.”
“I believe you are tired of your wandering life after all,” she said,
scrutinizing his careworn face with her keen eyes.
“Deadly tired,” he admitted with a sigh. “But what has that to do with
it? Are not half the manses in the land filled with weary men who would
give anything for a change in the dull routine of the work they are
called to do? It is the same with all of us, Mother. However much we
love our profession there must be hard times now and again, and somehow
we have got to live through them like men.”
She did not reply, but silently knitted away at one of his socks,
thinking to herself how different his life would have been had she had
the ordering of it. He should have come to great honour, should have
been a noted preacher filling a high position in Edinburgh, he should
have married well, and about her in her old age troops of grandchildren
should have played. As it was, his life had she felt been wrecked by the
luckless taste for dramatic art which had puzzled her so much from his
childhood upwards. She laid all his misfortunes to that strange
and unaccountable passion for acting which she was wholly unable
to comprehend. It was this which had brought him into contact with
Christine Greville, this which had debarred him from marriage, this
which had for years prevented him from settling down, and forced him to
lead the life of a wanderer.
“Hugh,” she said, “is it even now too late? Could you not give up acting
and do something more worthy of your powers?”
He started as though someone had struck him a blow.
“Give up my profession?” he said in amazement. “Why no, mother, I could
never do that. I am tired out and in a grumbling mood but you must not
take me too literally. My vocation has saved me again and again from
making utter shipwreck. Depend upon it no other work is as you would say
‘more worthy’ of me.”
She urged it no more; but the old sore feeling that his mother could not
understand his point of view, that she still in her heart desired him
to take up work for which he was wholly unfitted, came back to mar the
entire peace of Macneillie’s holiday.
On the Saturday before Holy Week he could no longer resist the restless
craving for change which took possession of him as his strength
gradually returned. And taking leave of his mother he left Callander and
travelled down to Stratford, intending there to await the arrival of his
company later on.
It was a mild bright afternoon in mid April when he reached the quiet
little town. It seemed to sleep tranquilly in the golden sunshine,
scarcely a breath of air stirred the trees, the beautiful spire of the
stately old church rose into the bluest of skies, and the green fields
flecked with daisies seemed to be just the right setting for a picture
so fair and peaceful. The pastoral character of the scenery somehow
suited Macneillie’s mood better even than the rugged mountains of his
own land. Surely in this quiet loveliness, rich in associations with
the great Master he could gain the rest and the ease he so grievously
needed!
He would spend his days on the river, would not allow any business
anxieties or arrangements for the following week to invade his repose;
Shakspere and Shakspere’s country should hearten him for the future--the
quiet of Holy Week should lift him up out of the depression which sought
to drag him back into its dreary torture chambers.
So he thought to himself on the evening of his arrival; forgetting that
“through the shadow of an agony cometh redemption”;--never dreaming
that in this most tranquil place he was to be confronted with the worst
ordeal of his whole life.