The return of Macdonald's boat was a great event; and especially to the
inhabitants of the hill-side cottages. Macdonald was accompanied by Sir
Alexander's steward, who brought some furniture and finishings for the
chapel and the minister's dwelling, and, for the first time, a parcel
for Lady Carse.
When the package was brought up from the shore, Lady Carse rushed in to
tell Annie the news, and to bid her come and see the unpacking.
The poor lady was sure that by means of Mr Johny, or through some other
channel, tidings of her existence and banishment had reached her friends
at Edinburgh, and that this parcel contained some warrant of release.
With raised colour and sparkling eyes, she talked of her departure the
next morning; of how it would be best to travel, when she once set foot
on the main; of how soon she could reach Edinburgh, and whether it would
not be better to go first to London, to lay her own case and the treason
of her enemies before the Prime Minister. Mrs Ruthven agreed to all
she said. Mr Ruthven walked to and fro before the door, stopping at
every turn to offer his congratulations. Annie looked anxious and
eager.
When the package was deposited before the door, and the glee of the
party was at the highest, the children capered and shouted. Annie
quietly checked this, and kept them by her side; whereupon Lady Carse
smiled at Mrs Ruthven, and said she pitied people who were grave when
good fortune befell their friends, and who could not bear even to let
children sympathise in it.
"You mistake me, madam," said Annie. "If this package was from
Edinburgh, I should feel more like dancing myself than stopping the
children's dancing; but I sadly fear this comes from no further off than
Skye. I know the Skye packages."
"Nonsense!" cried Lady Carse. "I know nobody in Skye. I hate croakers.
Some people take a pleasure in spoiling other people's pleasure."
"That is a temper that I do not approve of," observed Mr Ruthven.
"This life is to some such a vale of tears that I think it is ungrateful
not to pluck the few flowers of innocent pleasure which grow by the
wayside. I should think that a Christian temper would be ready to
assist the enjoyment. Here, my good men--"
"What stupid fellows those men are!" cried Lady Carse. "They are
actually going away without helping us to uncord the package."
She called after them; but in answer to her scolding, the men only
stared; which made Lady Carse tell them they were idiots. A word or two
from Annie in Gaelic brought them back directly, and obtained from them
what aid was needed.
"Shall I enquire, madam," asked Annie, "anything that you may wish to
know?"
"No," replied Lady Carse, sharply. "_You_ speak Gaelic, I think," she
said to Mr Ruthven. "Will you learn from the men all you can about
this package, and tell me every word they say?"
Mr Ruthven bowed, cleared his throat, and began to examine the men.
Lady Carse meantime said to Mrs Ruthven, in Annie's hearing, that she
must wait, and restrain her patience a little while. There was no
saying what might be in the package, and they must be by themselves when
they opened it.
Mrs Ruthven said she would send the children away; and Annie offered to
take them home with her.
"The children!" exclaimed Lady Carse. "Oh, bless them! what harm can
they do? Let _them_ stay by all means. I hope there will be nobody to
spoil _their_ pleasure."
Annie curtseyed, and withdrew to her own house. As she shut the door
and sank into a chair, she thought how bad her rheumatic pains were.
Her heart was swelling a little too; but it soon subsided as she said to
herself, "A vale of tears, indeed, is this life; or rather a waste and
howling wilderness, to that poor lady with her restless mind. God knows
I would not reckon hardly with her, or anyone so far from peace of mind.
Nor can I wonder, when I pity her so much, that others should also, and
forget other things when she is before their eyes. I did think, when I
heard the minister was coming--But I had no right to expect anything
beyond the blessing of the sabbath, and of burial, and the ordinances.
And oh, there is the comfort of the sabbath! The Word is preached, and
there is prayer and praise now on sabbath-days for a year to come; or,
perhaps, as many years as I shall live. If this was a place for peace
of mind before, what can trouble us now?" The closing psalm of last
sabbath had never been out of her ears and her heart since. She now
began to sing it, softly at first, but louder as her soul warmed to it.
She was soon stopped by a louder sound; a shrill cry from the next
house, and presently Mrs Ruthven rushed in to know what she was to do.
Lady Carse was hysterical. The package had contained no news from her
friends, but had brought cruel disappointment. It contained some
clothing, a stone of sugar, a pound of tea, six pecks of wheat, and an
anker of spirits; and there was a slip of paper to say that the same
quantity of these stores would be brought yearly by the steward when he
came to collect the heather rent. At this sentence of an abode of years
in this place, Lady Carse had given way to despair; had vowed she would
choke the steward in his sacks of feathers, that she might be tried for
murder on the main; and then she had attempted to scatter the wheat, and
to empty out the spirits, but that Mr Ruthven had held her hand, and
told her that the anker of spirits was, in fact, her purse--her means of
purchasing from Macdonald and others her daily meat and such service as
she needed. But now she was in hysterics, and they did not know what to
do next. Would Mrs Fleming come?
Annie thought the lady would rather not see her; told Mrs Ruthven how
to treat the patient, and begged that the children might be sent to her,
if they were in the way.
The children were with Annie all the rest of the day; for their father
and mother were exceedingly busy writing letters, to go by the steward.
In the evening the steward paid them a visit, in his round back to the
boat. He was very civil, brought with him a girl, the handiest and
comeliest he said, that he could engage among Macdonald's people, to
wait upon Lady Carse; gave order for the immediate erection of a sort of
outhouse for her stores, and desired her to say if there was anything
else she was pressingly in want of. She would not say a word to him of
one kind or another, but turned him over to the minister. But the
minister could not carry his own points. He could not induce the
steward to convey a single letter of the several written that day. The
steward was sorry: had hoped it was understood that no letter was to
leave the island,--no written paper of any kind,--while Lady Carse
resided there. He would not take these to Sir Alexander: he would not
ask him to yield this point even to the minister. Sir Alexander's
orders were positive; and it was clear that in these parts that settled
the question.
While the argument was going on, Lady Carse rose from her seat, and
passed behind the steward, to leave the room. She caught up the letters
unperceived, and unperceived slipped them into the steward's pocket: so
that while he bowed himself out, declining to touch the letters, he was
actually carrying them with him.
Helsa, Lady Carse's new maid, witnessed this prank; and, not daring to
laugh at the moment, made up for this by telling the story to her
acquaintance, the widow, when sent for the children at night.
"That will never do," Annie declared. "Harm may come of it, but no
good."
And this set her thinking.
The consequence of her meditation was that she roused the family from
their beds when even Lady Carse had been an hour asleep. When Mr
Ruthven found that there was neither fire nor illness in the case, he
declared to Annie his disapprobation of untimely hours; and said that if
those who had a lamp to keep burning became in time forgetful of the
difference between night and day, they should remember that it was not
so with others; and that the afflicted especially, who had griefs and
agitations during the day, should be permitted to enjoy undisturbed such
rest as might be mercifully sent them.
Annie listened respectfully to all this, and acknowledged the truth of
it. It was, however, a hope that Lady Carse might possibly sleep
hereafter under the same roof with her children, if this night were not
lost, which made her take the liberty of rousing the minister at such an
hour.
She was confident that the steward would either bring back the letters,
as soon as he put his hand upon them, or destroy them; for such a thing
was never heard of as an order of Sir Alexander's being disobeyed. She
had thought of a way of sending a note, if the minister could write on a
small piece of paper what would alarm the lady's friends. She had now
and then, at long intervals, a supply from a relation from Dumfries, of
a particular kind of thread which she used to knit into little socks and
mittens for sale. This knitting was now too fine for her eyes: but the
steward did not know this; and he would no doubt take her order, as he
had done before. She believed he would come up to return the letters
quite early in the morning. If she had a ball of thread ready, he would
take it as a pattern: and this ball might contain a little note;--a very
small one indeed, if the minister would write it.
"How would the receiver know there was a note?" asked Mr Ruthven.
"It might be years before the ball was used up," Mrs Ruthven observed:
"or it might come back as it went."
"I thought," said Annie, "that I would give the order in this way. I
would say that I want four pieces of the thread, all exactly the same
length as the one that goes. The steward will set that down in his
book; and he always does what we ask him very carefully. Then my
relation will unwind the ball to see what the length is, and come upon
the note; and then--"
"I see. I see it all," declared Mr Ruthven. "Do not you, my dear?"
"Oh yes; I see. It will be delightful, will it not, Lady Carse?"
"That is as it may be," said Lady Carse. "It is a plan which may work
two ways."
"I do not see how it can work to any mischief," Annie quietly declared.
"I will leave you to consider it. If you think well of the plan, I
shall be found ready with my thread. If the steward returns, it will be
very early, that he may not lose the tide."
As might be expected, Annie's offer was accepted; for even Lady Carse's
prejudiced mind could point out no risk, while the success might be
everything. There was something that touched her feelings in the
patient care with which the widow sat, in the lamplight, winding the
thread over and over the small slip of paper, so as to leave no speck
visible, and to make a tight and secure ball.
The slip of paper contained a request that the reader would let Mr
Hope, advocate, Edinburgh, know that Lady Carse was not dead, though
pretended to be buried, but stolen away from Edinburgh, and now confined
to the after-mentioned island of the Hebrides. Then followed Lady
Carse's signature and that of the minister, with the date.
"It will do! It will do!" exclaimed Mrs Ruthven. "My dear, dear Lady
Carse--"
But Lady Carse turned away, and paced the room, "I don't wonder, I am
sure," declared Mrs Ruthven, "I don't wonder that you walk up and down.
To think what may hang on this night--Now, take my arm,--let me support
you."
And she put her arm around the waist of her dear friend. But Lady Carse
shook her off, turned weeping to Annie, and sobbed out, "If you save
me--If this is all sincere in you, and--"
"Sincere!" exclaimed Annie, in such surprise that she almost dropped the
ball.
"O yes, yes; it is all right, and you are an angel to me. I--"
"What an amiable creature she is!" said Mrs Ruthven to her husband,
gazing on Lady Carse. "What noble impulses she has!"
"Very fine impulses," declared the minister. "It is very affecting. I
find myself much moved." And he began pacing up and down.
"Sincere!" Annie repeated to herself in the same surprise.
"Oh, dear!" observed Mrs Ruthven, in a whisper, which, however, the
widow heard: "how long it takes for some people to know some other
people. There is Mrs Fleming, now, all perplexed about the dear
creature. Why, she knew her; I mean, she had her with her before we
ever saw her, and now we know her--Oh! how well, how thoroughly we know
her--we know her to the bottom of her heart."
"A most transparent being, indeed!" declared Mr Ruthven. "As guileless
as a child."
"Call me a child; you may," sobbed Lady Carse. "None but children and
such as I quarrel with their best friends. She has been to me--"
"You reproach yourself too severely, my dear lady," declared the
minister. "There are seasons of inequality in us all; not that I intend
to justify--"
His wife did not wait for the end, but said, "Quarrel, my dear soul?
Quarrel with your best friends? You do such a thing! Let us see
whether you ever quarrel with us; and we _are_ friends, are we not; you
and we? Let us see whether you ever quarrel with us! Ah!"
Annie had finished her work; and she was gone before the long kiss of
the new friends was over.
"It is only two days more to the sabbath," thought she. Then she
smiled, and said, "Anyone might call me a child, counting the days as if
I could not wait for my treat. But, really, I did not know what the
comfort of the sabbath would be. The chapel is all weather-tight now;
and thank God for sending us a minister!"
As all expected, up came the steward; very early and very angry. Nobody
from the minister's house cared to encounter him. He threw the letters
down upon the threshold of the door, and shouted out that his bringing
them back was more than the writer deserved. If he had read them, and
made mischief of their contents, nobody could, under the circumstances,
have blamed him. Here they were, however, as a lesson to the family not
to lose their time, and waste their precious ink and paper in writing
letters that would never leave the island.
As he was turning to go away, the widow opened her door, and asked if he
would excuse her for troubling him with one little commission which she
had not thought of the day before, and she produced the ball of thread.
Lady Carse was watching through a chink in a shutter. She saw the
steward's countenance relax, and heard his voice soften as he spoke to
the widow. She perceived that Annie had influence with him, if she
would use it faithfully and zealously. Next she observed the care with
which he wrote in his note book Annie's directions about her commission,
and how he deposited the precious ball in his securest pocket. She felt
that this chance of escape, though somewhat precarious, was the best
that had yet occurred.
Before the steward was out of sight she opened the shutter, though it
creaked perilously, and kissed her hand to the surprised Annie, who was
watching her agent down the hill. Annie smiled, but secured caution by
immediately going in.