When Dr Grierson sat down at my bedside this morning and took my wrist
between his sensitive finger and thumb, I felt magnetically drawn to
him, and the desire to confide in him became irresistible. I had been
wondering in my mind for hours how best I could introduce the subject;
and, not hitting readily on a fitting opening, I had left it to chance
and circumstance. Strangely enough, it was he who paved the way for me.
After we had talked briefly on general subjects, he referred to my
'temporary breakdown,' as he termed it, and told me he was quite sure I
had undergone a sudden mental strain which had adversely affected me
physically; but that, once my mind and body were sufficiently rested, I
should be quite all right again.
'You're quite right, doctor, in your diagnosis of my case,' I said. 'I
have had rather a queer experience lately, and, if you care to hear
about it I shall gladly tell you. Would you share a little secret with
me, doctor?'
'Most gladly,' he said.
'Well, will you please light your pipe? Take that easy-chair by the
fire, and you may sit with your back to me, and I sha'n't feel
slighted.'
He laughed softly, and, extracting a short clay pipe from his waistcoat
pocket, took the chair I indicated. Seated thus, and smoking steadily,
he listened in silence till my story was finished. I gave him the whole
history, kept nothing back; and in telling all the details I never
hesitated, for the incidents were fresh in my mind, and I had everything
well thought out.
'Ay, Mr Russell,' he said, after a long pause, 'you tell a story very
well, and what you have told is most interesting and wonderful. I have
read of such occurrences, but I haven't till now come across one at
first hand, as it were. Shakespeare says there are more things in heaven
and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy, and your experience
certainly goes to prove it. It is usual, especially during a man's
romantic years, to dream of a fair lady's face--very usual indeed; but I
consider it most remarkable that everything came to a head so shortly
after you had told Betty of your dream, and also when, for the first
time, you had entertained doubts as to your vision being realised. I
suppose you are very much in love with this lady?' and he looked over
his shoulder at me.
'Well, yes, doctor, I am.'
'What is your age, again, Mr Russell?'
'Thirty in January.'
'And--and, you've never been in love before?'
'I think I've been in love ever since I dreamed my dream, now nearly ten
years ago; but since that interview in Nithbank Wood I'm more hopelessly
in love than ever;' and, somehow, I began to blush, and I was glad his
back was turned toward me.
'Imphm! Ay, the old story is ever new,' he said, more to himself than to
me; and he rose slowly from his chair, knocked the ashes out of his pipe
on the top rib of the grate, and came over to my bedside. 'Have you told
Betty of this strange meeting?'
'No.'
'Why?'
'Well, doctor, I can hardly explain why I haven't told her, as the dear
old soul is "nearer" to me than any one else in the world; but I felt,
somehow, that I wanted to confide in you first.'
'Thank you, Mr Russell; and it will be a joyful day when you and I and
Betty can talk it all over among us. Meanwhile we'll keep it to
ourselves, you and I, and I don't think you should allow this--this
_affaire de coeur_ to monopolise your mind too much. To worry and
distract your thoughts over it would be as harmful as it would be
futile. So far, the stars have fought in their courses for you, and,
without much exertion on your part, your fondest dreams seem in a fair
way to be fulfilled. William--no "Mr Russell" after a crack like
this!--I am more than double your age, and for many years I have lived a
queer, prosaic, loveless life--a full life if hard work and gain and
recognition be reckoned everything, but empty--oh God, how empty!--if
love counts for all. I am old, but not so old that I cannot understand
you and sympathise with you, for I well remember days which were
brightened to me by the sunshine of a woman's loving smile; times when
all this earth was heaven to me, the singing of the birds an angel song,
all its people upright and just; sermons I read in stones, and good I
saw in everything. But that was long ago. When love was taken away from
me the whole world seemed changed. My life since then has been selfish
and self-centred. I have long ceased to take any interest in the social
doings of others; and were it not for my work, my books, and my daily
communings with nature, I should be a lonely, miserable old man. I don't
mind telling you, however, that you have touched a chord in my heart
and awakened memories which have slumbered long. I am very much
interested in you, partly on account of your own personality, but mainly
because it was a very near relative of yours who brought to me the only
true joy and gladness that my heart has ever known.'
He sat down on the basket chair at the foot of my bed, facing me, and
with his back to the light.
'You will doubtless remember,' he continued, 'that, during my first
visit to you here, Betty in course of conversation, casually or
otherwise, mentioned the name of your aunt Margaret.'
'Yes, doctor, I remember that distinctly, and also that you were visibly
affected; but'----
'I must confess I was, William,' he quickly interposed. 'Well,
confidence for confidence. You have told me your love experience, so far
as it has gone, and it may be that, by doing so, you have relieved your
mind and hastened your recovery; and perhaps, if I recount mine to one
who can understand, it will bring a balm and a solace to my old heart,
of which, in these my years of sear and yellow leaves, I often stand
sorely in need. You--you don't mind my smoking?'
'Certainly not, doctor; and, to be sociable, I'll join you in a pipe.'
'That's right--that's right! Nothing like tobacco for promoting
good-fellowship.'
We filled our pipes in silence. Though it was only late noon, the light
seemed to be darkening in my little room. I looked toward the window,
and down from a dull leaden sky the first of winter's snowflakes were
quietly falling--falling, as it appeared to me, into the eager
upstretched arms of the leafless lime. The doctor's gaze followed mine;
and slowly, with his pipe filled but not lit, he rose from his chair and
looked long and thoughtfully toward the quiet, obscured Dry Gill.
'I have always loved to see snow falling,' he said, after a pause. 'It
has a strange fascination for me; and to see it in its fleecy flakes,
whirling and dancing and drifting and playing, is a sight which always
soothes and inspires me. I pray God that my eyesight may long be spared
to me, because it is an avenue through which many of His richly stored
treasures are conveyed. I have no ear for music--instrumental music I
mean particularly; but, strangely enough, a wimplin' burn can speak to
me in its flow, a mavis can call me from my study into my garden, and
the eerie yammer of the whaup in the moorland solitude is always to me,
as it is to Robert Wanlock, "a wanderin' word frae hame." The human
voice raised in song conveys nothing to me, but the crooning lullaby of
a loving mother over her suffering child tirls the strings of my heart
and makes me humble. To be unable to _feel_ the pleading of the violin,
the rich soprano, and the resonant bass is something I deplore. But
Providence has ordained that if one sense is minus one, another sense
will be plus one. Well, my sense of sight is plus one, both in strength
and appreciation; and in the midst of these beautiful surroundings in
which, for the last forty years, my lines have been cast, I have
revelled, William--positively revelled. The opportunity has always been
mine of noting the changing of the seasons--the virgin green and promise
of spring, the glory and fullness of summer, the russet and gold of
autumn, the sleep and decay of winter--and each, to him who can see
aright, has a beauty and significance of its own. Ay, and this is
winter--winter heralded by a shimmering veil of pirling snowflakes,
through whose dancing meshes I can trace phantom forms I saw in youth,
and whose madcap antics still, thank God! bring me solace as of yore.
Oh, how grateful and thankful I ought to be!'
He lit his pipe with a paper spill, and stood for a minute blowing
clouds of smoke round the old china dog on my mantelpiece. Then he
resumed his seat at the foot of my bed; and, inclining his head sideways
toward the window, he said, 'The last good-bye I said to your aunt
Margaret was spoken amidst falling snow, and it is strange that I should
be speaking of her to you for the first time with these flimsy flakes
dimming your window-pane. There's not much to tell you, William; and, to
be candid with you, when I was standing smoking at your fireplace there
the thought came to me that, as your mother had never deemed it
expedient or necessary to mention my name to you, it would be more in
agreement with her will that I should be silent. However, as I have
started, I may as well proceed; but I shall be brief, as I haven't the
heart to go into what must ever be sacred details. I first met your aunt
Margaret in Edinburgh, when I was at the University. Her father--your
grandfather, Colonel Kennedy--had returned from India, where he had
served with distinction, and had, with his wife and two daughters, taken
up residence in the suburb of Murrayfield. Being of a Dumfriesshire
family, and well known to my father, who was a merchant in Dumfries and
Provost of that town, Colonel Kennedy, on the strength of my father's
letter of introduction, gave me a hearty welcome to his domestic circle,
a welcome of which I may say I took ample advantage. Your father and
mother got married shortly after I became acquainted with the family;
and as your aunt Margaret was thus deprived of a sister and companion to
whom she was ardently attached, I gladly embraced every opportunity of
showing her little kindly attentions, acting the part of a thoughtful
brother, and generally doing my utmost to minimise the loss which I was
sure she had sustained. Well, William, this ended in the usual way.
Sympathy begets love, and I fell hopelessly in love with Margaret
Kennedy. How I found out that my love was returned is a secret which is
a joy to me, too holy to share even with you, William. Ah me! the
happiness of those halcyon days--the quiet afternoons in that old
drawing-room facing southward to the distant Pentlands, the evening
walks on Corstorphine Hill when the sunset rays still lingered above Ben
Lomond, the talks we had of the future we had planned! Tennyson says
that "sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." That may
be poetic, but I don't think it is true, for it is a crown of joy to me
to call these times to mind, and I feel that to have had this
experience, and to have garnered such memories, I have surely not lived
in vain. Our love, as is the case with all young people, was
unreasoning. We gave no thought to ways and means, and position or
status we never for a moment considered. But your grandfather brought us
to earth and faced us with realities. In response to a written request,
I waited on him one evening, and in a very few words he gave me to
understand that I must on no account pay further attention to his
daughter, and that my visits to his house must cease. He reproached me
with lack of honour in taking advantage of his hospitality to further my
own interests and clandestinely win the affection of your aunt Margaret.
I repudiated this charge, perhaps somewhat warmly, informed him that if
I had broken any of the accepted social laws in the matter, I had done
so in ignorance, and assured him I loved his daughter, and that nothing
short of her renunciation would deter me from some day making her my
wife. He lost his temper, and bluntly asked me if, for a moment, I, a
prospectless student and son of a provincial merchant, considered myself
worthy of a Kennedy of Knockshaw; whereupon I told him that there were
Griersons in Lag, as wardens of the Border Marches, when the Kennedys
were sitting in farmyard barns making spoons out of ram-horns. The old
reiver blood coursed warmly through my veins, and I faced him without
fear. This was the last straw. He raised his cane to strike me; but,
noting my air of defiance, he immediately lowered it, and pointed to the
door. I bowed in silence, then walked slowly out, and I never entered
the house again.
'The days which followed that interview were perhaps the most miserable
I ever spent. I had had no opportunity of seeing your aunt; and though I
knew she loved me, and that no mercenary considerations would sway her,
still there was the uncertainty of it all, under altered circumstances,
and the possibility of her being dominated by her father's masterful
will. At last, after weary weeks of waiting, of alternate spells of hope
and despair, I received a letter from her, written from a lonely island
in the Pentland Firth, and letting me know that she had been sent
thither by her father on a visit to her uncle, who at that time was
proprietor of the island of Stroma. She assured me of her unfaltering
love, told me that nothing on earth would shake her resolve, and that,
notwithstanding her father's threats, she would join me sooner or later
in a haven of rest. She would take my love for granted, and asked me not
to write, as my letters would be intercepted. With this ray of hope I
had to be content. She wrote to me at intervals; but, as letter followed
letter, each became more despondent and despairing, and at last she
informed me that it was evident she would not be allowed to return until
she promised not to see or correspond with me again. Then came a little,
short note pleading for an interview. "It is a long journey, I know,"
she wrote; "but I dearly--oh, so dearly!--wish to see you again. Your
presence will cheer me and strengthen me to bear whatever the future may
hold. On Wednesday next my uncle goes to Kirkwall, and on that afternoon
I will walk down to a little sheltered creek called Corravoe. It is the
nearest point to the mainland, and only a mile or two from Huna. Matthew
Howat has a good boat. When you reach Huna ask for Matthew. He knows
everything, and will help us...." Never a day passes but that weird,
solitary scene comes before my eyes--no trees, no hills, no signs of
human habitation; only a short, gray-green stretch of low-lying, patchy
landscape, bordered by a narrow strip of rocky beach, lapped by the
crested tide of the Pentland Flow. One short hour we spent together, for
the tide was turning, but the smile of hope shone in her wan face ere we
said good-bye. I was the bearer of joyful news, comforting words, and
assurance of release. I told her I was specialising in Edinburgh; that
an unexpected legacy of three thousand pounds had paved the way to our
happiness; and that, when I had arranged with my mother for her
reception, she would sail across to Huna, and find me waiting her
there.... The roar of the far-off skerries is in my ear, the echoing
homeward cry of the seabird, the humming and hissing of the waves among
the shells on the shingle! The shortening day is drawing to a close,
mist is clinging to the scarred face of Dunnet Head, from the darkening
sky the snow is falling, and through the whirling flakes she fades from
my sight.
'A day came when again I was in Huna, looking across the angry,
wind-tossed Pentland Firth, waiting for a boat which, alas! never
reached its haven. What happened no one ever knew. The sullen waters
guard their secrets well; but a broken oar bearing Matthew Howat's
initials, picked up in Scrabster Bay, told a story which robbed my life
of the only light which ever shone in my soul.'
The doctor sat for a minute, after he had finished his story, with his
eyes closed and his chin resting on the knot of his stock. Then he
wearily rose from his chair and went quietly downstairs without saying
good-bye. He has a keen sense of the fitness of things, and I feel he
knew that no word of mine, no pressure of my hand, was needed to prove
to him that my heart was with him.