Loch Arroch once more.
Edgar and Margaret (accompanied, as she always was, by her child)
arrived at Loch Arroch early on the morning of the second day. They were
compelled to stay in Glasgow all night--she with friends she had there,
he in an inn. It was a rainy, melancholy morning when they got into the
steamer, and crossed the broad Clyde, and wound upward among the hills
to Loch Arroch Head, where Robert Campbell, with an aspect of formal
solemnity, waited with his gig to drive them to the farm.
“You’re in time--oh ay, you’re in time; but little more,” he said, and
went on at intervals in a somewhat solemn monologue, as they drove down
the side of the grey and misty loch, under dripping cloaks and
umbrellas. “She’s been failing ever since the new year,” he said. “It’s
not to be wondered at, at her age; neither should we sorrow, as them
that are without hope. She’s lived a good and useful life, and them that
she brought into the world have been enabled to smooth her path out of
it. We’ve nothing to murmur at; she’ll be real glad to see you
both--you, Marg’ret, and you, Mr. Edgar. Often does she speak of you.
It’s a blessing of Providence that her life has been spared since the
time last Autumn when we all thought she was going. She’s had a real
comfortable evening time, with the light in it, poor old granny, as she
had a right to, if any erring mortal can be said to have a right. And
now, there’s Willie restored, that was thought to be dead and gone.”
“Has Willie come back?” asked Margaret hastily.
“He’s expected,” said Robert Campbell, with a curious dryness, changing
the lugubrious tone of his voice; “and I hope he’ll turn out an altered
man; but it’s no everyone going down to the sea in ships that sees the
wisdom o’ the Lord in the great waters, as might be hoped.”
The rain blew in their faces, the mists came down over the great
mountain range which separates Loch Arroch from Loch Long, and the
Castle Farm lay damp and lonely in its little patch of green, with the
low ruins on the other side of the house shining brown against the cut
fields and the slaty blueness of the loch. It was not a cheerful
prospect, nor was it cheerful to enter the house itself, full of the
mournful bustle and suppressed excitement of a dying--that high
ceremonial, to which, in respect, or reverence, or dire curiosity, or
acquisitiveness, more dreadful still, so many spectators throng in the
condition of life to which all Mrs. Murray’s household belonged.
In the sitting-room there were several people seated. Mrs. MacColl, the
youngest daughter, in her mother’s chair, with her handkerchief to her
eyes, and Mrs. Campbell opposite, telling her sister, who had but lately
arrived, the details of the illness; Jeanie MacColl, who had come with
her mother, sat listlessly at the window, looking out, depressed by the
day and the atmosphere, and the low hum of talk, and all the dismal
accessories of the scene. James Murray’s wife, a hard-featured, homely
person, plain in attire, and less refined in manner than any of the
others, went and came between the parlour and the kitchen.
“They maun a’ have their dinner,” she said to Bell, “notwithstanding
that there’s a dying person in the house;” and with the corners of her
mouth drawn down, and an occasional sigh making itself audible, she laid
the cloth, and prepared the table.
Now and then a sound in the room above would make them pause and
listen--for, indeed, at any moment they might all be called to witness
the exit of the departing soul. Bell’s steps in the kitchen, which were
unsubduable in point of sound, ran through all the more gentle stir of
this melancholy assembly. Bell was crying over her work, pausing now and
then to go into a corner, and wipe the tears from her cheeks; but she
could not make her footsteps light, or diminish the heaviness of her
shoes.
There was a little additional bustle when the strangers arrived, and
Margaret and her child, who were wrapped up in cloaks and shawls, were
taken into the kitchen to have their wraps taken off, and to be warmed
and comforted. Edgar gave his own dripping coat to Bell, and stole
upstairs out of “the family,” in which he was not much at home. Little
Jeanie had just left her grandmother’s room on some necessary errand,
when he appeared at the top of the stair. She gave a low cry, and the
little tray she was carrying trembled in her hands. Her eyes were large
with watching, and her cheeks pale, and the sudden sight of him was
almost more than the poor little heart could bear; but, after a moment’s
silence, Jeanie, with an effort, recovered that command of herself which
is indispensable to women.
“Oh! but she’ll be glad--glad to see you!” she cried--“it’s you she’s
aye cried for night and day.”
Edgar stood still and held her hand, looking into the soft little face,
in which he saw only a tender sorrow, not harsh or despairing, but deep
and quiet.
“Before even I speak of her,” he said, “my dear little Jeanie, let me
say how happy I am to hear about your brother--he is safe after all.”
Jeanie’s countenance was moved, like the loch under the wind. Her great
eyes, diluted with sorrow, swelled full; a pathetic smile came upon her
lips.
“He was dead, and is alive again,” she said softly; “he was lost and is
found.”
“And now you will not be alone, whatever happens,” said Edgar.
I don’t know what mixture of poignant pain came over the grateful gleam
in little Jeanie’s face. She drew her hand from him, and hastened
downstairs. “What does it matter to him, what does it matter to anyone,
how lonely I am?” was the thought that went through her simple heart.
Only one creature in the world had ever cared, chiefly, above everything
else, for Jeanie’s happiness, and that one was dying, not to be detained
by any anxious hold. Jeanie, simple as she was, knew better than to
believe that anything her brother could give her would make up for what
she was about to lose.
Edgar went into the sick-room reverently, as if he had been going into a
holy place. Mrs. Murray lay propped up with pillows on the bed. For the
first moment it seemed to him that the summons which brought him there
must have been altogether uncalled for and foolish. The old woman’s eyes
were as bright and soft as Jeanie’s; the pale faint pink of a Winter
rose lingered in her old cheeks; her face seemed smoothed out of many of
the wrinkles which he used to know; and expanded into a calm and
largeness of peace which filled him with awe. Was it that all mortal
anxieties, all fears and questions of the lingering day were over? By
the bedside, in her own chair, sat the minister of the parish, an old
man, older than herself, who had known her all her life. He had been
reading to her, with a voice more tremulous than her own; and the two
old people had been talking quietly and slowly of the place to which
they were so near. I have no doubt that in the pulpit old Mr. Campbell,
like other divines, talked of golden streets, and harps and crowns, in
the New Jerusalem above. But here there was little room for such
anticipations. A certain wistfulness was in their old eyes, for the
veil before them was still impenetrable, though they were so near it;
but they were not excited.
“You’re sure of finding Him,” the old man was saying; “and where He is,
there shall His people be.”
“Ay,” said Mrs. Murray. “And, oh! it’s strange lying here, no sure
sometimes if it’s me or no; no sure which me it is--an auld woman or a
young woman; and then to think that a moment will make a’ clear.”
This was the conversation that Edgar interrupted. She held out her
withered hand to him with a glow of joy that lighted up her face.
“_My_ son,” she said. There was something in the words that seemed to
fill the room, Edgar thought, with an indescribable warmth and fulness
of meaning, yet with that strange uncertainty which belongs to the last
stage of life. He felt that she might be identifying him, unawares, with
some lost son of thirty years ago, not forgetting his own individuality,
yet mingling the two in one image. “This is the one I told you of,” she
said, turning to her old friend.
“He is like his mother,” said the old man dreamily, putting out a hand
of silent welcome.
They might have been two spirits talking over him, Edgar felt, as he
stood, young, anxious, careful, and troubled, between the two who were
lingering so near the calm echoes of the eternal sea.
“You’ve come soon, soon, my bonnie man,” said Mrs. Murray, holding his
hand between hers; “and, oh, but I’m glad to see you! Maybe it’s but a
fancy, and maybe it’s sinful vanity, but, minister, when I look at him,
he minds me o’ mysel’. Ye’ll say it’s vain--the like of him, a comely
young man, and me; but it’s no in the outward appearance. I’ve had much,
much to do in my generation,” she said, slowly looking at him, with a
smile in her eyes. “And, Edgar, my bonnie lad, I’m thinking, so will
you----”
“Don’t think of me,” he said; “but tell me how you are. You are not
looking ill, my dear old mother. You will be well again before I go.”
“Oh! ay, I’ll be well again,” she said. “I’m no ill--I’m only slipping
away; but I would like to say out my say. The minister has his ain way
in the pulpit,” she went on, with a smile of soft humour, and with a
slowness and softness of utterance which looked like the very perfection
of art to cover her weakness; “and so may I on my deathbed, my bonnie
man. As I was saying, I’ve had much, much to do in my generation,
Edgar--and so will you.”
She smoothed his hand between her own, caressing it, and looking at him
always with a smile.
“And you may say it’s been for little, little enough,” she went on. “Ah!
when my bairns were bairns, how muckle I thought of them! I toiled, and
I toiled, and rose up early and lay down late, aye thinking they must
come to mair than common folk. It was vanity, minister, vanity; I ken
that weel. You need not shake your head. God be praised, it’s no a’ in
a moment you find out the like o’ that. But I’m telling you, Edgar, to
strengthen your heart. They’re just decent men and decent women, nae
mair--and I’ve great, great reason to be thankful; and it’s you, my
bonnie man, the seed that fell by the wayside--none o’ my training, none
o’ my nourishing---- Eh! how the Lord maun smile at us whiles,” she
added, slowly, one lingering tear running over her eyelid, “and a’ our
vain hopes!--no laugh. He’s ower tender for that.”
“Or weep, rather,” said Edgar, penetrated by sympathetic understanding
of the long-concealed, half-fantastic pang of wounded love and pride,
which all these years had wrung silently the high heart now so near
being quieted for ever. She could smile now at her own expectations and
vanities--but what pathos was in the smile!
“We must not put emotions like our own into His mind that’s over all,”
said the old minister. “Smiling or weeping’s no for Him.”
“Eh, but I canna see that,” said the old woman. “Would He be kinder down
yonder by the Sea of Tiberias than He is up there in His ain house? It’s
at hame that the gentle heart’s aye kindest, minister. Mony a day I’ve
wondered if it mightna be just like our own loch, that Sea of
Galilee--the hills about, and the white towns, as it might be Loch
Arroch Head (though it’s more grey than white), and the fishing-cobbles.
But I’m wandering--I’m wandering. Edgar, my bonnie man, you’re tired
and hungry; go down the stair and get a rest, and something to eat.”
Little though Edgar was disposed to resume the strange relationship
which linked him to the little party of homely people in the farm
parlour, with whom he felt so little sympathy, he had no alternative but
to obey. The early dinner was spread when he got downstairs, and a large
gathering of the family assembled round the table. All difference of
breeding and position disappear, we are fond of saying, in a common
feeling--a touch of nature makes the whole world kin; but Edgar felt, I
am afraid, more like the unhappy parson at tithing time, in Cowper’s
verses, than any less prosaic hero. With whimsical misery he felt the
trouble of being too fine for his company--he, the least fine of mortal
men.
Margaret, upon whom his eye lingered almost lovingly, as she appeared
among the rest, a lily among briers, was not ill at ease as he was;
perhaps, to tell the truth, she was more entirely at her ease than when
she had sat, on her guard, and very anxious not to “commit any
solecism,” at Lady Mary’s table. To commit a solecism was the bugbear
which had always been held before her by her brother, whose fears on
this account made his existence miserable. But here Margaret felt the
sweetness of her own superiority, without being shocked by the
homeliness of the others. She had made a hurried visit to her
grandmother, and had cried, and had been comforted, and was now smiling
softly at them all, full of content and pleasant anticipations. Jeanie,
who never left her grandmother, was not present; the Campbells, the
MacColls and the Murrays formed the company, speaking low, yet eating
heartily, who thus waited for the death which was about to take place
above.
“I never thought you would have got away so easy,” said Mrs. Campbell.
“I would scarcely let your uncle write. ‘How can she leave Charles, and
come such a far gait, maybe just for an hour or two?’ I said. But here
you are, Margaret, notwithstanding a’ my doubts. Ye’ll have plenty of
servant-maids, and much confidence in them, that ye can leave so easy
from a new place?”
“We are not in our house yet, and we have no servant,” said Margaret.
“Charles is in lodgings, with a very decent person. It was easy enough
to get away.”
“Lodgings are awful expensive,” said Mrs. MacColl. “I’m sure when we
were in lodgings, Mr. MacColl and me, the Exhibition year, I dare not
tell what it cost. You should get into a house of your ain--a doctor is
never anything thought of without a house of his ain.”
“I hope you found the information correct?” said Robert Campbell,
addressing Edgar. “The woman at Dalmally minded the couple fine. It was
the same name as your auld friend yonder,” and he pointed with his thumb
over his left shoulder, to denote England, or Arden, or the world in
general. “One of the family, perhaps?”
“Yes.”
“Oh! I want to spy into no secrets. Things of this kind are often
turning up. They may say what they like against our Scotch law, but it
prevents villainy now and then, that’s certain. Were you interested for
the man or the leddy, if it’s a fair question? For it all depends upon
that.”
“In neither of them,” said Edgar. “It was a third party, whom they had
injured, that I cared for. When is--Jeanie’s brother--expected back?”
“He may come either the day or the morn,” said Mrs. MacColl. “I wish he
was here, for mother’s very weak. Do you not think she’s weaker since
the morning? I thought her looking just wonderful when I saw her first,
but at twelve o’clock--What did the doctor think?”
“He canna tell more than the rest of us,” said James Murray’s wife.
“She’s going fast--that’s all that can be said.”
And then there was a little pause, and everybody looked sad for the
moment. They almost brightened up, however, when some hasty steps were
heard overhead, and suspended their knives and forks and listened.
Excitement of this kind is hard to support for a stretch. Nature longs
for a crisis, even when the crisis is more terrible than their mild
sorrow could be supposed to be. When it appeared, however, that nothing
was about to happen, and the steps overhead grew still again, they all
calmed down and resumed their dinner, which was an alleviation of the
tedium.
“She’s made a’ the necessary dispositions?” said James Murray’s wife,
interrogatively. “My man is coming by the next steamer. No that there
can be very muckle to divide.”
“Nothing but auld napery, and the auld sticks of furniture. It will
bring very little--and the cow,” said Robert Campbell. “Jean likes the
beast, so we were thinking of making an offer for the cow.”
“You’ll no think I’m wanting to get anything by my mother’s death,” said
Mrs. MacColl; “for I’m real well off, the Lord be thanked! with a good
man, and the bairns doing well; I would rather give than take, if there
was any occasion; but Robert has aye had a great notion of the old clock
on the stairs. There’s a song about it that one of the lassies sings. I
would like that, to keep the bairns in mind o’ their granny. She’s been
a kind granny to them all.”
She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and Margaret and Jeanie MacColl
cried a little. The rest of the company shook their heads, and assented
in different tones.
“Real good and kind, good and kind to everybody! Ower guid to some that
little deserved it!” was the general burden, for family could not but
have its subdued fling at family, even in this moment of melancholy
accord.
“You are forgetting,” said Edgar, “the only one of the family who is not
provided for. What my grandmother leaves should be for little Jeanie.
She is the only helpless one of all.”
At this there was a little murmur round the table, of general
objection.
“Jeanie has had far more than her share already,” said one.
“She’s no more to granny than all the rest of the bairns,” cried
another.
Robert Campbell, the only other man present, raised his voice, and made
himself heard.
“Jeanie will never want,” he said; “here’s her brother come back, no
very much of a man, but still with heart enough in him to keep her from
wanting. Willie’s but a roving lad, but the very rovingness of him is
good for this, that he’ll not marry; and Jeanie will have a support,
till she gets a man, which is aye on the cards for such a bonnie lass.”
This was said with more than one meaning. Edgar saw Margaret’s eyelashes
flutter on her cheek, and she moved a little uneasily, as though unable
to restrain all evidence of a painful emotion. Just at this moment,
however, a shadow darkened the window. Margaret, more keenly on the
watch than anyone, lifted her eyes suddenly, and, rising to her feet,
uttered a low cry. A young man in sailor’s dress came into the room,
with a somewhat noisy greeting.
“What, all of you here! What luck!” he cried. “But where’s granny?”
He had to be hushed into silence, and to have all the circumstances
explained to him; while Jeanie MacColl, half-reluctant to go, was sent
upstairs to call her cousin and namesake, and to take her place as nurse
for the moment. Edgar called her back softly, and offered himself for
this duty. He cast a glance at the returned prodigal as he left the
room, the brother for whom Jeanie had taken him, and whom everybody had
acknowledged his great likeness to. Edgar looked at him with mingled
amusement and curiosity, to see what he himself must look like. Perhaps
Willie had not improved during his adventurous cruise. Edgar did not
think much of himself as reflected in his image; and how glad he was to
escape from his uncle and his aunt, and their family talk, to the
stillness and loftier atmosphere of the death-chamber upstairs!