The house proceeded well. Macdonald had no express orders about it; but
he had express orders to keep Lady Carse on the island, and, if
possible, in a quiet and orderly state of manners. When he saw how
completely engrossed she was in the building of this dwelling, and what
a close friendship she appeared to have formed with Annie Fleming, he
believed that she was a woman of a giddy mind and strong self-will, who
might be managed by humouring. If he could assist her in providing
herself with a succession of new objects, he hoped that she might be
kept from mischief and misery, as a child is by a change of toys. He
would try this method, and trust to his chief's repaying him any
expenses incurred for the strange lady's sake. So he granted the use of
his ponies and his people,--now a man or two,--and now their wives, to
bring stones and earth and turf, and to twist heather bands. Once or
twice he came himself, and lent a strong hand to raise a corner-stone,
and help to lay the hearthstone. The house consisted of two rooms,
divided by a passage. If Lady Carse had chosen to admit the idea of
remaining after the arrival of the Ruthvens, she would have added a
third room; but she had resolved that she would leave the island in the
vessel which brought them, or in the next that their arrival would
bring: and she would not dwell for an instant on any doubt of
accomplishing her purpose.
So the thick walls rose, and the low roof was on, and the thatch well
bound down, and secured moreover with heavy stones, before the autumn
storms arrived. And before the hard rains came down, all Macdonald's
ponies were one evening seen approaching in a string, laden with peat--a
present to the lady. In the course of the day there was stacked, at the
end of her cottage, enough to last for some months. When the widow came
out to see it and wish her joy--for a good stack of well dried peat was
the richest of all possessions in that region--the lady smiled as
cheerfully as Annie; not at the peat, however, but at the thought that
she should see little or none of it burn. She intended to dispose of
her winter evenings far otherwise.
As for the widow, she was thankful now that she had never thought her
situation dreary. If, in her former solitude, when her boy was absent,
she had murmured at that solitude, her present feelings would have been
a rebuke to her. She was not happy now; so far from it, that her former
life appeared, in comparison with it, as happy as she could desire.
Perhaps it had been too peaceful, she thought, and she might need some
exercise of patience. It was a great advantage, certainly, for both
herself and Rollo to hear the thing; the lady could tell of ways of
living in other places, and to learn such a variety of knowledge from a
person so much better informed than themselves. But then this knowledge
appeared to be all so unsanctified! It did not make the poor lady
herself strong in heart and peaceful in spirit. It was wonderful, and
very stirring to the mind, to learn how wise people were who lived in
cities and what great ability was required to conduct the affairs of
life where men were gathered together in numbers; but then these wonders
did not seem to impress those who lived in the midst of them. There was
no sign that they were watching and praising God's hand working among
the faculties of men, as more retired people do in much meaner things--
in the warmth which the eider-duck gives to her eggs by wrapping them in
down from her own breast, and the punctuality with which the herring
shoals pass by in May and October, making the sea glitter with life and
light as they go. She feared that when people lived out of sight of
green pastures and still waters--and she looked at the moment upon the
down on which the goats were browsing, and the fresh water pool, where
the dragon fly hovered for a few hot days in summer--when men lived out
of sight of green pastures and still waters, she feared that they became
perplexed in a sort of Babel, where the call of the shepherd was too
gentle to be heard. At least, it appeared thus from the effect upon
Rollo of the lady's conversation. She had always feared for him the
effect of seeing the world, as she remembered the world--of his seeing
it before he had better learned to see God everywhere, and to be humble
accordingly--and the conversation he now heard was to him much like
being on the mainland, and even in a town. It had not made him more
humble, or more kind, or more helpful; except, indeed, to the lady--
there was nothing he would not do to help her.
And here Annie sighed and smiled at once, as the thought struck her that
while she was mourning over other people's corruption she was herself
not untouched. She detected herself admitting some dislike to the lady
because she so occupied Rollo that he had left off supplying his mother
with fishes' livers and seal-fat for oil. The best season had passed:--
she had spoken to him several times not to lose the six-weeks-old seals;
but he had not attended to it; and now her stock of oil was very low;
and the long winter nights were before her. She must speak to Macdonald
to procure her some oil. But very strictly must she speak to herself
about this new trouble of discontent. Did she not know that He who
appointed her dwelling-place on that height, and who marked her for her
life's task by that touch on her heart-strings the night she saw her
husband drown, would supply the means? If her light was to be set on
the hill for men to see from the tossing billows and be saved, it would
be taken care of that, as of old, the widow's cruise of oil did not
fail. What _she_ had to look to was that the lamp of her soul did not
grow dim and go out. How lately was she thanking God for the new
opportunities afforded her by the arrival of this stranger! and now she
was shrinking from these very opportunities, and finding fault with
everybody before herself!
There was some little truth in this, and it was very natural; for this
kind of trial was new to Annie. But she never yielded to it again--not
even when the trial was such as few would have been able to bear.
As the dark blustering month of November advanced, the widow's
rheumatism came on more severely than ever before. She had given up her
bed to Lady Carse, and when Rollo was at home, slept on the floor, on
some ashes covered with a blanket; the only materials for a bed which
she had been able to command, as Rollo had been too busy to get
seal-skins, or go to any distance for heather while it was soft. She
had caught cold repeatedly, and was likely to have a bad winter with her
rheumatism, however soon the lady might get into her own house and yield
up the widow's bed. One gusty afternoon, when the wet fogs were driving
past, Annie waited long for the lady and Rollo to come in to the evening
meal. She could not think what detained them next door in such weather;
for it was no weather for working--besides that, it was getting dark.
She could not, with her stiff and painful limbs, go out of doors; and
when she perceived that her smallest lamp was gone, she satisfied
herself that they had some particular work to finish for which they
needed light, and would come in when it was done.
But it grew dark, and the wind continued to rise, and they did not
appear. They did not mean to appear this night. Macdonald had been
informed, at last, from his chief, of the intended arrival of the
minister and his lady; had been very angry at the long concealment of
the news, and would now, Lady Carse apprehended, keep a careful watch
over her, and probably confine her till the expected boats had come and
gone. So she and her accomplices at once repaired to the cave--a cave
which Rollo was sure none of Macdonald's people had discovered--where
for some time past Rollo and his comrade had stored dried fish, such
small parcels of oatmeal as they could obtain, and plenty of peat for
fuel. There they were now sitting at supper over a good fire, kindled
in a deep sand, which would afford a warm and soft bed--they were at
supper while the widow was waiting for them in pain and anxiety--and, at
last, in cold and dreariness.
When the fire was low, she rose painfully from her seat, to feed it, and
to trim and light the lamp. Alas! there were no peats in the corner.
She knew there were plenty at mid-day: but Lady Carse had, at the last
moment, bethought herself that the fuel in the cave might be damp, and
had carried off those in the corner, desiring Rollo to bring in more
from the stack to dry; and this Rollo had neglected to do. The fire
would be quite out in an hour. Annie saw that she must attempt to get
out to the stack. She did attempt it; but the stormy blast and the
thick cold drizzle so drove against her that she could not stand it, and
could only with difficulty shut the door. She turned to her lamp, to
light it while the fire was yet alive. There was but little oil in it.
She reached out her hand for the oil can. It was not there. Rollo had
considered that the lady would want light in the cave; Lady Carse had
considered that the widow might for one night make a good fire serve her
purposes; and so the oil can was gone to the same place with the peats.
Annie sank down on her seat, almost subdued. Not quite subdued,
however, even by this threat of the baffling of the great object of her
life. Not quite subdued, for her heart and her ear were yet open to the
voices of nature.
The scream of a sea-bird reached her, as the creature was swept by on
the blast.
"That is for me," she said to herself, the blood returning to her
stricken heart and pale cheek. "How God sends His creatures to teach us
at the moment when we need His voice! I have seen the cormorant sitting
in his hole in wintry weather,--sitting there for days together, hungry
and cold, trying now and then to get out, and driven back by such a
blast as he cannot meet,--by such a blast as this. And then he sits on
patiently, and moves no more till the wind lulls and the sky clears.
And if his wing is weak at first it soon strengthens. The blast drives
me back to-night; but I, who have thoughts to rest upon, may well bear
what a winged creature can. That screamer was sent to me. I wonder
what has become of it. I hope it is not swept quite away."
But it would not do to sit thinking while the fire was just out, and the
lamp likely to burn only an hour. She lighted the lamp with
difficulty,--with a beating heart and trembling hands, lest the last
available spark should go out first. But the wick caught; and the lamp
was placed in the window, sending, as it seemed to Annie, a gleam
through the night of her own mind, as well as through that of the stormy
air. It quickened her invention and her hopes.
"There is an hour yet," thought she. "I am sure it will burn an hour;
and something may be sent by that time."
She took off her cotton handkerchief, tore off the hem, and ravelled out
the cotton as quickly as she could, and twisted it into a wick which she
thought she could fix by a skewer across a tin cup from which Rollo
drank his whisky when at home. She brought down from the chimney and
looked over rapidly all the oily parts of the fish, and every fatty
portion of the dried meat hung up in the smoke for winter use; and these
she made a desperate endeavour to melt in the flames of her lamp. She
wrung out a few drops,--barely enough to soak her wick. This would not
burn five minutes. She persevered to the last moment,--saying to
herself, "Not once for these seventeen years since I saw my husband
drown, has there been a dark night between this window and the sea. Not
once has my spark been put out: and I will not think it now. God can
kindle fire where He pleases. I have heard tell that people in foreign
countries have seen a lightning-shaft dart down into a forest, and make
a tree blaze up like a torch. God has His own ways."
All the while her hands wrought so busily that she scarcely felt their
aching in the cold of the night. But now her new wick was wanted, for
the old was going out. It blazed up, but she saw it must soon be gone.
She broke up her old stool, all shattered as it was already. Some
splinters she stuck one after another into the lamp; and then she burned
the larger pieces in the hearth, saying to herself incessantly, as if
for support, "God has His own ways."
But the rising and falling flame became more and more uncertain; and at
last, very suddenly, it went quite out. There was not, in another
minute, a spark left.
For a while there was silence in the cottage, now dark for the first
time since Annie was a widow. She crept to her cold bed; and there,
under cover of the strange darkness she shed a few tears. But soon she
said to herself, "God has His own ways of kindling our spirits as well
as the flame of a lamp. Perhaps by humbling me, or by changing my duty
when I became too fond of it, He may warm my heart to new trust in Him.
His will be done! But He will let me pray that there may be none in the
harbour this night who may drown, or be buffeted in the storm because He
is pleased to darken my light."
Before she had quite calmed her heart with this prayer, there was noise
at a little distance, and red gleams on the fitful mist which drove past
the window; and then followed a loud knocking at the door.
It was Macdonald with his people, come to see whether the lady was safe.
He looked perplexed and uneasy when Annie told him that she could not
think that the lady could be otherwise than safe, now she knew the
places about the island so well, and was so fearless. It often happened
that she was absent for a night and day; and no doubt the storm had this
night detained her and her companions in some sheltered place,--some
place where, she had reason to believe, they had fire and light. As for
herself, when Annie saw the torch that Macdonald carried, her eyes
glistened in the blaze, and she said once more in the depth of her mind,
"Surely God has His own ways."
Macdonald was very wrathful when he learned by questioning Annie how it
was that her house was dark. As he hastily kindled the peats he brought
in from the stack, he muttered that it seemed to have pleased God to
afflict the island again with a witch, after all the pains that were
taken twenty years before, as he well remembered, to clear the place of
one. This woman must be a witch--
"Nay," said Annie. "I take her to be sent to us for good. Let us wait
and learn."
"Good? What good?"
"It is through her, you see, that I find how kind a neighbour you are,
at need," replied Annie; not adding aloud what she was thinking of,--how
this night had proved that God brings help at the least likely moments.
"She is a witch," Macdonald persisted. "No power short of that could
have quenched your lamp, and drawn away your only son from honouring his
parent to be a slave to a stranger."
As Annie could not at the moment speak, Macdonald went on raising a
flame meantime by flapping the end of his plaid.
"It is the chapel, I know. Things have never gone well for any length
of time here since the chapel fell completely down, and the bleat of the
kid came out from where the psalm ought to sound. We must apply
ourselves to build up the chapel; and, as there is a minister coming, we
may hope to be released from witches and every kind of curse."
"There will be little room for any kind of curse," thought Annie, "when
the minister has taught us to `be kindly affectioned one to another,'
and not to make our little island more stormy with passions than it ever
is with tempests of wind and hail."
"There, now, there is a good fire for you," said Macdonald, rising from
his knees; "and I won't ask you. Annie, what was in your mind as the
blaze made your eyes shine. I won't ask you, because you might tell me
that I am in need of the minister, to make me merciful to a banished
lady. Ah, your smile shows that that is what you were thinking of. But
I can tell you this: she is a wicked woman. Her father committed
murder, and she is quite able and willing to do the same thing. So I
must go and find her, and take care that her foot is set in no boat but
mine."
"Yours?"
"Yes. I must carry her out of the way of all boats but mine. This
island was chosen for such a purpose, and now--"
"And now," said Annie, "if the lady is afflicted with such hardness of
heart, is it not cruel to take her away from God's word and worship,
just when there is a minister coming? Oh, Macdonald! what would you do
to one who should carry away your poor sick little Malcolm to Saint
Kilda, just when your watching eye caught sight of an eastward sail, and
you knew it was the physician coming; sent, moreover, for Malcolm's
sake? What would you think then, Macdonald?"
"I should think that if Sir Alexander was in it there could be nothing
done, and there ought to be nothing said. And Sir Alexander is in this,
so I must go."
While Macdonald and his people were beating about among the caves, as
morning drew on, Lady Carse and Rollo slipped up to the house, partly to
secure a few more comforts that they had a mind for, and partly to
obtain a wide view over the sea, and a certainty whether any boats were
in sight.
"Have you brought up my oil can, Rollo?" asked his mother. "If not, you
must go for it, and never again touch it without my leave."
"I took it," said Lady Carse; "and I cannot spare it."
"It cannot be spared from this room, my lady. It never left this room
before but by my order, and it never must again."
"It shall never leave the place where it now is," declared Lady Carse,
reddening. "I threw myself on your hospitality, and you grudge me light
in the night. You, who are housed in a cottage of your own, with a
fire, and everything comfortable about you--that is, every comfort that
a poor woman like you knows how to value. You think yourself very
religious, I am aware, and I rather believe you think yourself
charitable, too; and you grudge me your oil can, when there is no one
thing on earth you can do for me but lend it."
"Your way of thinking is natural, my lady, till you better know me and
my duty. But to-day I must say that the oil can is mine, and I cannot
lend it. You will please desire Rollo to bring it to me."
"I know well enough about you and your duty, as you call it. I know
your particularity about a fancy of your own. I know well enough how
obstinate you are about it, and how selfish, that you would sacrifice me
to your whim about your duty, and your husband, and all that set of
notions. And I know more. I know what it is to have a husband, and
that you ought to be thankful that yours was gone before he could play
the tyrant over you. You pretend to speak with authority because this
cottage is yours, and your precious oil can, and your rotten old
bedstead. But, besides that, I can teach you many things. You may be
assured I can pay you for more oil than I shall burn to the end of my
days, and for more sleeps than I hope ever to have on your old bed. You
need not fear but that I shall pay for everything--pay more money than
you ever saw in your life."
"Money will not do, madam. I must have my oil can. Rollo will fetch
it. And you will lie down, my lady--lie down and rest on my old bed,
without thinking of money, or of anything but ease to your head and your
weary heart. Lie down in safety here, madam, for your head and your
heart are aching sadly."
"What do you know about my head and heart aching?"
"By more signs than one. When anyone is hunted like the deer upon the
hills--"
Lady Carse groaned.
"That is only for a while, however," said Annie, tenderly. "When there
is peace of mind, there is no one to hunt us--no one to hurt us. We
abide here or anywhere; for the shadow of the Almighty is everywhere.
No one can hunt us from it, nor hurt us within it. And I assure you, my
lady, this is the place of all places for peace of mind."
"I hurt you just now, however," said the lady; "and I left you little
peace of mind last night."
"If so, it must be my own fault," said Annie, cheerfully. "But never
mind that. I never have any troubles now hardly; and you, madam, have
so many, and such sad ones."
"That is true," said Lady Carse, as burning tears forced their way.
"You never knew--you cannot conceive--such misery as mine."
Annie kissed the hand which was wet with those scalding tears, and laid
her own hand on the head which was shaken on the pillow with sobs.
After a time, the lady murmured out, "This seems very childish: but it
is so long--so long since anyone--since I met with any tenderness--any
affection from anyone!"
"Is that it?" said the widow, cheerfully. "Well--this is a poor place
enough; and we are no companions for anybody beyond ourselves: but what
you speak of is ours to give. That you may always depend on here."
"In spite of anything I may say or do? You see how hasty I am at times.
Will you love me and caress me, through anything I may say or do?"
"No doubt," replied Annie, smiling. "It will be the happiest way if you
constrain us to love and cherish you as your due. But if not, these are
charities that God has put into every hand that is reached out to Him,
that the very humblest and poorest may have the best of alms to give."
"Alms!" sighed the lady. She shook off the kind hand that was upon her
aching brow, for the thought struck upon her heart that she was a
destitute beggar for those smallest offices of kindness and courtesy
which she had not affections or temper to reciprocate or claim.