Strickland went, to the hall, where he found Alice.
"Come to the fire! I've been watching the snow, but it is so white and
thick and still it fair frightens me! Davie told you that Alexander
has come?"
"Yes. From Edinburgh to-day."
"Yes. He left London as soon as he had our letters."
She stood opposite him, a bright and bonny lass, with a look of her
mother, but with more beauty. The light from the burning logs deepened
the gold in her hair, as the warmth made more vivid the rose of her
cheek. She owned a warm and laughing heart, a natural goodness.
Strickland, who had watched and taught her since she was a slip of a
child, had for her a great fondness.
Jamie entered the hall. "Father's awake now, but Aunt Grizel and
Tibbie Ross will not tell him Alexander's come until they've given him
something to eat." He came to the fire and stood, his blue eyes
glinting light. "It's fine to see Alexander! The whole place feels
different!"
"You've got a fine love for Alexander," said Strickland. So long had
he lived with the Jardines of Glenfernie that they had grown like own
folk to him, and he to them. He looked very kindly at the young man,
handsome, big, flushed with feeling. He did not say, "Now you'll be
going, Jamie, and he'll be staying," but the thought was in mind, and
presently Alice gave it voice.
"He says that he has seen his earth, and that now he means to be a
long time at home."
Davie appeared. "Mr. Alexander has gone to the laird's room. Mrs.
Grizel wad have ye all come, too, sae be ye move saftly and sit dumb."
The three went. The laird's room was large and somewhat grimly bare.
When his wife died he would have taken out every luxury. But a great
fire burned on the hearth and gave a touch of redemption. A couch,
too, had been brought in for the watcher at night, and a great
flowered chair. In this now sat Mrs. Grizel Kerr, a pleasant, elderly,
comely body, noted for her housewifery and her garden of herbs. Behind
her, out of a shadowy corner, gleamed the white mutch of Tibbie Ross,
the best nurse in that countryside. Jamie and Alice took two chairs
that had been set for them near the bed. Strickland moved to the
recess of a window. Outside the snow fell in very large flakes, large
and many, straight and steady, there being no wind.
In a chair drawn close to the great bed, on a line with the sick man's
hand lying on the coverlet, sat the heir of Glenfernie. He sat leaning
forward, with one hand near the hand of his father. The laird's eyes
were closed. He had been given a stimulant and he now lay gathering
his powers that were not far from this life's frontier. The curtains
of the bed had been drawn quite back; propped by pillows into a
half-sitting posture, he was plain to all in the room, in the ruddy
light of the fire. A clock upon the wall ticked, ticked. Those in the
room sat very still.
The laird drew a determined breath and opened his eyes. "Alexander!"
"Father!"
"You look like myself sitting there, and yet not myself. I am going to
die."
"If that's your will, father."
"Aye, it's my will, for I've made it mine. I can't talk much. We'll
talk at times and sit still between. Are you going to stay with me
to-night?"
"Indeed I am, father. Right here beside you."
"Well, I've missed you. But you had to have your wanderings and your
life of men. I understood that."
"You've been most good to me. It is in my heart and in the tears of my
eyes."
"I did not grudge the siller. And I've had a pride in you, Alexander.
Now you'll be the laird. Now let's sit quiet a bit."
The snow fell, the fire burned, the clock ticked. He spoke again.
"It's before an eye inside that you'll be a wanderer and a goer about
yet--within and without, my laddie, within and without! Do not forget,
though, to hold the old place together that so many Jardines have been
born in, and to care for the tenant bodies and the old folk--and
there's your brother and sister."
"I will forget nothing that you say, father."
"I have kept that to say on top of my mind.... The old place and the
tenant bodies and old folk, and your brother and sister. I have your
word, and so," said the laird, "that's done and may drift
by.--Grizel, I wad sleep a bit. Let him go and come again."
His eyes closed. Alexander rose from the chair beside him. Coming to
Alice, he put his arm around her, and with Jamie at his other hand the
three went from the room. Strickland tarried a moment to consult with
Mrs. Grizel.
"The doctor comes to-morrow?"
"Aye. Tibbie thinks him a bit stronger."
"I will watch to-night with Alexander."
"Hoot, man! ye maun be weary enough yourself!" said Mrs. Grizel.
"No, I am not. I will sleep awhile after supper, and come in about
ten. So you and Tibbie may get one good night."
Some hours later, in the room that had been his since his first coming
to Glenfernie, he gazed out of window before turning to go
down-stairs. The snow had ceased to fall, and out of a great streaming
floe of clouds looked a half-moon. Under it lay wan hill and plain.
The clouds were all of a size and vast in number, a herd of the upper
air. The wind drove them, not like a shepherd, but like a wolf at
their heels. The moon seemed the shepherd, laboring for control. Then
the clouds themselves seemed the wolves, and the moon a traveler
against whom they leaped, who was thrown among them, and rose
again.... Then the moon was a soul, struggling with the wrack and wave
of things.
Strickland went down the old, winding Glenfernie stair, and came at
last to the laird's room. Tibbie Ross opened the door to him, and he
saw it all in low firelight and made ready for the night. The laird
lay propped as before in the great bed, but seemed asleep. Alexander
sat before the fire, elbows upon knees and chin in hand, brooding over
the red coals. Tibbie murmured a direction or two and showed wine and
bread set in the deep window. Then with a courtesy and a breathed,
"Gie ye gude night, sirs!" she was forth to her own rest. The door
closed softly behind her. Strickland stepped as softly to the chair
beyond Alexander. The couch was spread for the watchers' alternate
use, if so they chose; on a table burned shaded candles. Strickland
had a book in his pocket. Sitting down, he produced this, for he would
not seem to watch the man by the fire.
Alexander Jardine, large and strong of frame, with a countenance
massive and thoughtful for so young a man, bronzed, with well-turned
features, gazed steadily into the red hollows where the light played,
withdrew and played again. Strickland tried to read, but the sense of
the other's presence affected him, came between his mind and the page.
Involuntarily he began to occupy himself with Alexander and to picture
his life away from Glenfernie, away, too, from Edinburgh and Scotland.
It was now six years since, definitely, he had given up the law,
throwing himself, as it were, on the laird's mercy both for long and
wide travel, and for life among books other than those indicated for
advocates. The laird had let him go his gait--the laird with Mrs.
Jardine a little before him. The Jardine fortune was not a great one,
but there was enough for an heir who showed no inclination to live and
to travel _en prince_, who in certain ways was nearer the ascetic
than the spendthrift.... Before Strickland's mind, strolling dreamily,
came pictures of far back, of years ago, of long since. A by-wind had
brought to the tutor then certain curious bits of knowledge.
Alexander, a student in Edinburgh, had lived for some time upon half
of his allowance in order to accommodate Ian Rullock with the other
half, the latter being in a crisis of quarrel with his uncle, who,
when he quarreled, used always, where he could, the money screw.
Strickland had listened to his Edinburgh informant, but had never
divulged the news given. No more had he told another bit, floated to
him again by that ancient Edinburgh friend and gossip, who had young
cousins at college and listened to their talk. It pertained to a time
a little before that of the shared income. This time it had been
shared blood. Strickland, sitting with his book in the quiet room, saw
in imagination the students' chambers in Edinburgh, and the little
throng of very young men, flushed with wine and with youth, making
friendships, and talking of friendships made, and dubbing Alexander
Damon and Ian Pythias. Then more wine and a bravura passage. Damon and
Pythias opening each a vein with some convenient dagger, smearing into
the wound some drops of the other's blood, and going home each with a
tourniquet above the right wrist.... Well, that was years ago--and
youth loved such passages!
Alexander, by the fire, stooped to put back a coal that had fallen
upon the oak boards, then sank again into his reverie. Strickland read
a paragraph without any especial comprehension, after which he found
himself again by the stream of Alexander's life. That friendship with
Ian Rullock utterly held, he believed. Well, Ian Rullock, too, seemed
somehow a great personage. Very different from Alexander, and yet
somehow large to match.... Where had Alexander been after
Edinburgh--where had he not been? Very often Ian was with him, but
sometimes and for months he would seem to have been alone. Glenfernie
might receive letters from Germany, from Italy or Egypt, or from
further yet to the east. He had been alone this year, for Ian was now
the King's man and with his regiment, Strickland supposed, wherever
that might be. Alexander had written from Buda-Pesth, from Erfurt,
from Amsterdam, from London. Now he sat here at Glenfernie, looking
into the fire. Strickland, who liked books of travel, wondered what he
saw of old cities, grave or gay, of ruined temples, sphinxes,
monuments, grass-grown battle-fields, and ships at sea, storied lands,
peoples, individual men and women. He had wayfared long; he must have
had many an adventure. He had been from childhood a learner. His touch
upon a book spoke of adeptship in that world.... Well, here he was,
and what would he do now, when he was laird? Strickland lost himself
in speculation. Little or naught had ever been in Alexander's letters
about women.
The white ash fell, the clock ticked, the wind went around the house
with a faint, banshee crying. The figure by the fire rested there,
silent, still, and brooding. Strickland observed with some wonder its
power of long, concentrated thinking. It sat there, not visibly
tense, seemingly relaxed, yet as evidently looking into some place of
inner motion, wider and swifter than that of the night world about it.
Strickland tried to read. The clock hand moved toward midnight.
The laird spoke from the great bed. "Alexander--"
"I am here, father." Alexander rose and went to the sick man's side.
"You slept finely! And here we have food for you, and drops to give
you strength--"
The laird swallowed the drops and a spoonful or two of broth. "There.
Now I want to talk. Aye, I am strong enough. I feel stronger. I am
strong. It hurts me more to check me. Is that the wind blowing?"
"Yes. It is a wild night."
"It is singing. I could almost pick out the words. Alexander, there's
a quarrel I have with Touris of Black Hill. I have no wish to make it
up. He did me a wrong and is a sinner in many ways. But his sister is
different. If you see her tell her that I aye liked her."
"Would it make you happier to be reconciled to Mr. Touris?"
"No, it would not! You were never a canting one, Alexander! Let that
be. Anger is anger, and it's weakness to gainsay it! That is," said
the laird, "when it's just--and this is just. Alexander, my bonny
man--"
"I'm here, father."
"I've been lying here, gaeing up and down in my thoughts, a bairn
again with my grandmither, gaeing up and down the braes and by the
glen. I want to say somewhat to you. When you see an adder set your
heel upon it! When a wolf goes by take your firelock and after him!
When a denier and a cheat is near you tell the world as much and help
to set the snare! Where there are betrayers and persecutors hunt the
wild plant shall make a cup like their ain!" He fell to coughing,
coughing more and more violently.
Strickland rose and came to the bedside, and the two watchers gave him
water and wine to drink, and would have had him, when the fit was
over, cease from all speech. He shook them off.
"Alexander, ye're like me. Ye're mair like me than any think! Where ye
find your Grierson of Lagg, clench with him--clench--Alexander!"
He coughed, lifting himself in their arms. A blood-vessel broke.
Tibbie Ross, answering the calling, hurried in. "Gude with us! it's
the end!" Mrs. Grizel came, wrapped in a great flowered bed-gown. In a
few minutes all was over. Strickland and Alexander laid him straight
that had been the laird.