One day when Annie was trimming her lamp, she observed Helsa, Lady
Carse's maid, watching the process earnestly from the door, where she
was looking in. "Come in, Helsa," said the widow, in Gaelic, which was
more familiar to the girl than English. "Come in, if you have nothing
better to do than to see me trim my lamp."
"I am afraid about that lamp, and that is the truth," replied Helsa. "I
had charge of a lamp at Macdonald's once, when my mother went to the
main for a week; but then, if it went out, nobody was much the worse.
If this one goes out, and anybody drowns in the harbour, and the blame
is mine, what shall I do?"
"The blame yours!" said the widow, looking at her.
"Yes; when you live at Macdonald's, and I have to keep the lamp. I am
not sure that I can keep awake all the night when winter comes: but they
say I must."
Helsa was surprised to find that the widow knew nothing of the plan that
Lady Carse now talked of more than anything else: that Annie was to go
and live at Macdonald's, that Lady Carse and her maid might have the
widow's house, where Helsa was to do all the work in the day, and to
keep the lamp at night. The girl declared that the family never sat at
meals without talking of the approaching time when they could all have
more room and do whatever they pleased. Adam had cried yesterday about
the widow going away; but he had been forbidden to cry about what would
make Lady Carse so much happier; and when Kate had whispered to him that
Lady Carse would no longer live in their house, Adam had presently dried
his tears, and began to plan how he would meet the widow sometimes on
the western sands, to pick up the fine shells she had told him of.
Helsa went on to say that she could have cried longer than the boy, for
she was afraid to think of being alone with Lady Carse at times when--
Annie interrupted her by saying, with a smile, "You need not have any
dread of living in this house, Helsa. I have no thought of leaving it.
There is some mistake."
Helsa was delighted with this assurance. But she proved her point--that
the mistake was not hers--that such a plan _was_ daily, almost hourly,
spoken of next door as settled. She was going on to tell how her
mistress frightened her by her ways: her being sleepy in the afternoons,
unless she was very merry or dreadfully passionate, and so low in the
mornings that she often did little but cry; but the widow checked this.
While at Mrs Ruthven's house Helsa should make no complaints to anybody
else; or, if she had serious complaints to make, it should be to
Macdonald. Helsa pleaded that Macdonald would then perhaps take away
the anker of spirits, as being at the bottom of the mischief; and then
Lady Carse would kill her. She had once shown her a pistol; but nobody
could find that pistol now. Helsa laughed, and looked us if she could
have told where it was. In a moment, however, she was grave enough,
hearing herself called by her mistress.
"I shall say I came to learn about the lamp," said she; "and that is
true, you know."
"Why do not you speak English, both of you?" demanded Lady Carse from
the door. "You both speak English. I will have no mysteries. I will
know what you were saying."
Helsa faltered out that she came to see how Widow Fleming managed her
lamp.
"Was it about the lamp that you were talking? I will know."
"If we had any objection, madam, to your knowing what we were saying,"
interposed Annie, "we are by no means bound to tell. But you are quite
welcome to it. I have been assuring Helsa that there is some mistake
about my leaving this house. Here have I lived, and here I hope to
die."
"We must talk that matter over," declared Lady Carse. "We are so
crowded next door that we can bear it no longer; and I _must_ live in
sight of the harbour, you know."
And she went over all the old arguments, while she sent Helsa to bring
in Mr Ruthven, that he might add his pastoral authority to her claims.
After having once declared herself immovable, Annie bore all in silence;
the pleas that her lamp was so seldom wanted; that it would be well
tended for her, while she could sleep all night, and every night; that
it had become a passion with Lady Carse to obtain this house, and that
anyone was an enemy who denied her the only thing she could enjoy.
These pleas Annie listened to in silence, and then to reproaches on her
selfishness, her obstinacy, her malice and cruelty. When both her
visitors had exhausted their arguments, she turned to Lady Carse, and
intimated that now they had all spoken their minds on this subject, she
wished to be alone in her own house. Then she turned to Mr Ruthven,
and told him that whatever he had to say as her pastor, she would gladly
listen to.
"In some other place than this," he declared with severity. "I have
tried rebuke and remonstrance here, beside your own hearth, with a
perseverance which I fear has lowered the dignity of my office. I have
done. I enter this house no more as your pastor."
Annie bowed her head, and remained standing till they were gone; then
she sank down, melting into tears.
"This, then," and her heart swelled at the thought; "this, then, is the
end of my hope--the brightest hope I ever had since my great earthly
hope was extinguished! I thought I could bear anything if there was
only a pastor at hand. And now--but there is my duty still; nothing can
take that away. And I am forgetting that at this very moment, when I
have so little else left! crying in this way when I want better eyes
than mine are now for watching the sea. I have shed too many tears in
my day; more than a trusting Christian woman should; and now I must keep
my eyes dry and my heart firm for my duty. And I cannot see that I have
done any wrong in staying by the duty that God gave me, and the house
that I must do it in. With this house and God's house--" And her
thoughts recurred, as usual, to the blessing of the sabbath. She should
still have a pastor in God's house, if not in her own. And thus she
cheered her heart while she bathed her eyes that they might serve for
her evening gaze over the sea.
She was destined, however, to be overtaken by dismay on the sabbath, and
in that holy house where she had supposed her peace could never be
disturbed. The pastor read and preached from the passage in the 18th
chapter of Matthew, which enjoins remonstrance with sinners, first in
private, then in the presence of one or two witnesses, and at last
before the church. The passage was read so emphatically that Annie's
heart beat thick and fast. But this did not prepare her for what
followed. In his sermon the pastor explained that though the scriptural
expression was, "If thy brother trespass," the exhortation was equally
applicable to any Christian sister who should offend. He declared that
if any Christian sister was present who was conscious of having
trespassed on the comfort and natural feelings of an afflicted and
persecuted personage whom they had the honour to entertain among them,
he besought the offending sister to enquire of herself whether she had
not been rebuked first alone, then in the presence of a witness--alas!
in vain; and whether, therefore, the time had not come for a rebuke
before the Church. He would, however, name no one, but leave yet some
place for repentance; and so forth.
Annie's natural dismay, terrible as it was, soon yielded before the
appeal to her conscience, which the pastor supposed would appal her.
She knew that she was right; and in this knowledge she raised her bowed
head, and listened more calmly than many others. If there had been any
doubt among the small congregation as to who was meant, Lady Carse would
have dispersed it. She sat in the front row, with the minister's
family. Unable to restrain her vindictive satisfaction, she started up
and pointed with her finger, and nodded at Annie. The pitying calm gaze
with which Annie returned the insult went to many hearts, and even to
Mrs Ruthven's so far so that she pulled the lady by the skirt, and
implored her to sit down.
There are many precious things which remain always secrets to those who
do not deserve to know them. For instance, tyrants know nothing of the
animating and delicious reaction which they cause in the souls of their
victims. The cheerfulness, sweetness and joy of their victims has ever
been, and will ever be, a perplexity to oppressors. It was so now to
Mr Ruthven, after an act of tyranny perpetrated, as most acts of
tyranny are, under a mistaken, an ignorant and arrogant sense of duty.
Not only did the widow stand up with others for the closing psalm--her
voice was the firmest, sweetest, clearest in the assembly--so sweet and
clear that it came back even upon her own ear with a sort of surprise.
As for others, all were more or less moved. But their emotion had the
common effect of making them draw back from the object of it. After the
service, nobody spoke to Annie. She heeded this but little, absorbed as
she was in thankfulness in finding that the privileges of God's house
were not disturbed--that her relation to Him and her rights of worship
were not touched by any fallibility in His minister. As she reached the
entrance of the churchyard, Macdonald overtook her, and made her use his
arm for the descent of the irregular steps. A few words from Helsa had
put him in possession of the case. He desired the widow not to think
for a moment of leaving her house. Everybody wished to do what could be
done to reconcile the stranger lady to her abode in the island; but
there was a point beyond which he was sure Sir Alexander would not
permit encroachment. His advice was to serve and please her in small
affairs, and leave it to Sir Alexander to deal with her in such an
important one as her having a house to herself. Annie smiled, and said
this was exactly her plan.
That evening was, to the inhabitants of the island, the most memorable
one of the year--of the generation--of the century. This was not fully
known at the time. The most memorable days often appear just like other
days till they are past; and though there was some excitement and bustle
this evening, no one on the island saw the full meaning of what was
before his eyes.
A little before sunset, the widow plainly saw a larger vessel than often
visited those seas approaching from the south-west. It was larger than
Macdonald's sloop. She was straining her eyes to see whether it had two
masts or three, when she heard the children's voices below. She called
them up to her platform for the help of their young eyes; but when they
came, they could spare little attention for the distant vessel, so full
were they of the news that their mother had run down to the harbour to
try to speak to some sailors who had landed from a boat which had come
up the harbour while everybody was at church. It was such a pity that
their father was gone, just at this time, to visit a sick person at
Macdonald's farm! But their mother went directly, as fast as she could
run, and Lady Carse and Helsa were to follow her as soon as Helsa had
put up a bundle.
To recall Mr Ruthven was the first thing Annie thought of. She did not
venture to send the children over for him, lest their hurry and
excitement, or any air of mystery, should give the alarm to Macdonald.
She set out alone, doubtful as she was how and how soon she could
accomplish the walk, and bitterly lamenting that her son was not within
call. With her best exertions, her progress was so slow that she met
the pastor a quarter of a mile from Macdonald's house.
Breathless as she was, Mr Ruthven would have from her a full, true, and
particular account of all she knew, and many declarations that she did
not know as much again, before he would walk on. At last, however, he
did set forth quickly on the shortest path to the harbour, while Annie
turned slowly homewards over the ridge.
She was on the hill-side, not far from home, when she saw the well-known
group of neighbours--the pastor's family--coming homewards, slowly and
with many delays. She heard loud angry voices; and when she approached,
she saw tokens of distress in them all. Mr Ruthven was very pale, and
Helsa very red. Mrs Ruthven was in tears, and Lady Carse's clothes and
hair were dripping wet. It was clear that she had been in the water.
"Alas! you have missed the boat!" exclaimed Annie.
Lady Carse had just lost the chance of escape, as all believed; and all
were now quarrelling as to whose fault it was. Mrs Ruthven was turning
back from the shore, breathless from haste and vexation, as Lady Carse
and Helsa came down. The boat, with several armed men in it, had pushed
off when Mrs Ruthven appeared. They made no reply to her signs, but
lay on their oars at a little distance from the beach till Lady Carse
and her maid came down. After some delay, and many signals of entreaty
from the ladies, the boat again approached, and the man in command of it
was told that a lady of quality, wrongfully imprisoned in this island,
desired to be carried to the main, and that, once among her friends in
Edinburgh, she could give rewards for her escape to any amount. There
was a short consultation in the boat, a laugh, and a decisive pull to
shore. A sailor jumped out and seized the lady to carry her in.
Whether it was the unaccountable shout of triumph that she set up, or
something else that startled the sailor, he hastily set down his burden
on the rock, looked her in the face, and then spoke to his comrades in
the boat. They laughed again, but beckoned him on. He placed her in
the boat, but she stumbled, swayed over, caught at the side of the boat
as she went over, and very nearly upset it. The men swore at her,
declared her to be no lady in distress, but a tipsy gipsy, laid her down
on the shore, and rowed away. Mr Ruthven now declared that he could do
nothing in such a case. Lady Carse, now sobered from everything but
passion, protested that if he had had any sense or presence of mind, he
might have detained the strangers till she could produce from her
package proof of her rank and quality. If the wranglers could but have
known who these strangers were, and whence came the distant vessel to
which their boat belonged, all would have joined in thanksgiving for the
lady's escape from their hands.
Annie had no more suspicion of the truth than they. She could only
attempt to calm them, and make the best of matters by showing that
possibly all might not be over yet. It was now nearly dark. If she
could light two lamps for this once, it might bring back the boat. If
the people on board were familiar with her light and its purpose, the
singular circumstance of its being double might attract their curiosity;
if strangers, they might attend to the signal from prudence.
Mr Ruthven, being extremely cross, could see nothing but nonsense in
this plan. Lady Carse, being offended with her friends, thought it the
wisest and most promising scheme conceivable. Mr Ruthven would not
hear of spending a night down in the harbour, watching for a boat which
would never come. To ask such a thing of him after his sabbath-day's
services, and all for a woman's freak, was such a thing as--as he would
not describe. He could not think of doing such a thing. Lady Carse
said he was no friend of hers if he did not. While Mrs Ruthven
trembled and wept, Annie said that if she could only learn where Rollo
was, all would be easy. Rollo would watch in the harbour, she was sure.
Mr Ruthven caught at this suggestion for saving his night's rest, and
went off to seek Rollo; not so rapidly, however, but that he heard the
remark sent after him by Lady Carse, that it was a pretty thing for a
man to stand up in his pulpit, where nobody could answer him, and
lecture people about Christian duty, and then to be outdone in the first
trial by the first of his flock that came into comparison with him.
Annie could not bear to hear this. She desired Helsa to assist Lady
Carse to bed, that her clothes might be speedily dried, in readiness for
any sudden chance of escape.