The beginning of a new day, a new life!
That, perhaps, should have been Marjory's first thought when, drawing
up the blind, she stood in the early dawn at the window looking out on
a world white with hoar frost. But it was not; for her eyes fell upon
a bunch of late rowans still adorning the tree, which stood so close
that, on windy nights, the berries would tap against the panes like
some ghostly visitant claiming admittance. They also were veiled
in a silvery tracery, and so the trivial remembrance of a certain
ball-dress came uppermost, instead of any sober reflection. As a
matter of fact, the larger half of existence can be excellently
executed on a penny whistle.
What a very good imitation those berries had been which Tom had sent
from Paris; and how unlikely it was, since she and Paul were both
poor, that she would have so magnificent a garment again. It would not
be wanted, that was one comfort, if they lived quietly at Gleneira,
which, of course, they must do, unless Paul were to try and get back
to active service again. She must talk that over with him--that and
many another thing--when they began life again down by the river side.
"It's ill singing the mavis' song but in the mavis' time," quoted Mrs.
Cameron, with a wise shake of the head, when Marjory came whistling
down the stairs to breakfast. "And half-past eight o' the clock on a
chill November morn in a white world is no the time for anything save
a sup o' hot porridge."
"I wasn't singing the mavis' song," she laughed; "it was the lark's,
and they always begin early." And her clear voice broke gaily into the
phrase, "And Ph[oe]bus 'gins to rise."
"Then it's ill singing on an empty stomach," persisted the old lady;
"and ill manners, too, to be sae blithe when ye are leaving us. What's
up wi' you, lassie?"
Marjory gave her a queer look. "Everything! it's going to be a fine
day for one thing."
"Wha kens? That's no a thing ye can say at half-past eight o' the
clock. Sing you the 'Flowers of the Forest,' my bairn; that's more o'
the truth in this world."
Her old, faded voice quavered over the first line, "I've seen the
morning, wi' gold the hills adorning," and Marjory's clear, young one
took up the song cheerfully, "And loud tempest storming before the mid
o' day." Then she paused mischievously. "That's a foolish version,
though; the old one is better: 'I've heard the lilting at our yowe
milking, Lassies a' lilting before the dawn o' day.' And dawn is
before half-past eight o' the clock, even in November."
Mrs. Cameron looked at her somewhat mollified, beating time with her
mittened fingers to the familiar rhythm.
"Weel! weel! One way or the t'ither it's the bonniest song ever sung
in this world, and I mind, when I was a lassie, thinkin' that my
jo--he wasna John, my dear,--sang it like the angels out o' heaven.
But there! commend me to a lassie that's in love wi' the most
ordinair' o' men for a blaspheemous sacrileegous creature, if he's
weel favoured, and that's the truth. There isn't one o' the cardinal
virtues, but she'll dig up--maybe from some ither decent man's kale
yard and plant it amang his weeds wi' a light heart. Aye! and watter
it wi' tears too when she finds it no thrivin'. It's the way o' women,
and she's happier when she gives up the gairdening and sets to rear
bairns instead."
"I wish Will could hear you admit that children are a comfort,"
laughed Marjory, from her porridge.
"And what's hindering him but sloth?" asked the old lady, rushing
eagerly to an old battle ground. "But there! was it not predicted as
the end o' a' things. Just a great Darkness as o' Night, and that is
what folks is coming to nowadays. It just beats me to roust the
hussies from their beds before six. And it's no from them bein'
hirelings a'together, for it's the same with the cottages. Where the
peat smoke used to go up wi' the mist wreaths at the earliest blink,
there's naething but an empty lum. Aye! and a cauld hearth! Not even a
gathering peat to keep the warmth o' home aboot the place. But there!
what could ye expec' wi' such names as they give the matches--Lucifers
and Damnstickers."
"My dear mother!" exclaimed Will, in horrified accents, as he lounged
in lazily.
"I'm no swearing, William," she retorted, with great dignity. "Tho'
maybe I hae a claim to be angry an' sin not, wi' a farmer son that
comes down to his breaking o' bread when the beasts have begun to chew
the cud."
"My dear mother!" quoth Will, good-naturedly. "You look after the
beasts, and my corn is all carried."
"Weel! weel! When I'm carried to me grave ye'll find the difference,
even if ye get a wife. Aye, aye! I ken fine what she'll be like--just
one o' the sort wi' a hump somewhere. I kenna whaur the fashion'll put
it then, since 'of that hour knoweth no man,' but it will be
somewheres, an' her hair will be as if a clucking hen had bin scrapin'
in't."
"I deny it; I deny it," laughed Will; "when I marry, I shall marry a
girl just like Marjory. Only she shall not be quite so tall, or so
clever, and shall be thinner, and less opinionated--more of my sort,
and----"
"And her hair shall be of a different colour," laughed Marjory, in her
turn; "I'm glad I don't leave you heartbroken--or anyone else,
either," she added, half to herself.
And as she passed through her little sitting-room, before starting on
her rendezvous with Paul, she paused for an instant before her letter
to Tom Kennedy, which still lay unfinished, as she had left it, and
looked down again on those last words. They were true still, and with
a sudden impulse she took up the pen to say so.
"Tom!" she wrote, "the problem is solved! Paul has come back to me,
and we are going to begin a new life together. Yet, I stretch out my
hands to you, dear, as I did before, and say 'Friendship is a bigger
thing than love!'"
Then she went gaily through the garden to pick a late carnation for
Paul's buttonhole, and as she picked it she sang the "Flowers o' the
Forest."
"I've seen Tweed's silver streams,
Glittering in the sunny beams,
Grow drumly and dark as he row'd on his way."
The tune, with its haunting cadences, lingered in her mind, and more
than once fell from her lips, when with a light heart she faced the
ups and downs of the white road as it crept round the loch to where
the bridge, spanning the river, would enable her to strike across the
moss-hags to the alder-fringed bank above. And Paul would be on the
other side as he had been before. But he should not jump this time,
for that was one of the things she did not like; those things which
she was going to take out of his life and hers. The very thought,
indeed, of the risk of a slip made her shiver as she paused for a
moment on the bridge, and saw the yellow-brown flood, swollen with the
night's rain, rushing against the piers.
"Drumly and dark!" Drumly it was, yet scarcely dark. It ran too fast
for that, and up yonder, where she was to meet Paul, it would be a
mass of foam with yellow lights in it. A sort of syllabub of a river
pouring over the curved edge of the rock heavily. Not like water at
all, but like some drugged draught; falling not with a roar or a rush,
but with slow, deafening boom. The waters of Lethe might fall so, she
fancied. Well! Paul should run no risk of them to-day, for she was
before her time, and would be there to warn him. So thinking, she
clambered down to the water's edge, and seating herself on the only
level slab of rock, which projected slightly over the boiling pool
below, she faced the downward course of the river, certain thus of
seeing the first glimpse of her lover's tall figure above the bracken
which crested the almost perpendicular rocks on the other side.
"I've seen this morning." It was a most distracting tune! All the more
so because the words would follow Mrs. Cameron's sentimental lead,
instead of keeping to the old lament with the lilt of battle and
sudden death in it.
"The flowers o' the forest that fought aye the foremost,
The prime o' our land are cauld in the clay."
That was why they played it as a Dead March in the Highland regiments.
If Paul decided not to retire, it might be played at his funeral some
day. At Paul's funeral! The very thought seemed impossible; and yet
the girl's heart throbbed more with pride than fear. "That fought aye
the foremost." Yes! if she were a soldier's wife that was what a
soldier should do, even if she had to sit "drearie, lamenting her
dearie."
It was too bad, she told herself, for the tune to haunt her so, since
Paul would be coming soon now, and when they had first met her head
had not been full of the "Flowers of the Forest" and such things; she
had been reading one of Tom's letters. How foolish of her not to have
brought one to complete the illusion! unless, indeed, there were, by
chance, one in her pocket. Yes! a scrap of one, old enough to rouse
her curiosity and engross her attention as she smoothed it out and
began to read.
"To be disappointed in love! The phrase is arbitrarily bound up with
the state of celibacy. Wherefore, my dear Marjory? wherefore? If love,
as we once agreed, I think, is the touchstone of life, then marriage
appears to me to be the continual essay of love, where, alas! the gold
does not often reach the standard for hall marking; therefore it is
conceivably better to be continually in love and not to marry. I don't
know how it is, Mademoiselle Grands-serieux, but my philosophy
invariably ends in paradoxes of doubtful propriety--now, doesn't it?"
She looked up smiling, then rose to her feet quickly, for there was a
rustle behind her. Paul might have been there ahead of her after all,
and have gone up to look at the river. Yes! there was someone at the
head of the fall, where the solitary rowan tree leant above the
alder-bushes, for the branches swayed.
"Paul!" she cried across the boom of the river, "is that you? Come
down a bit; I'm here!"
"I'm coming, Miss Marjory, I'm coming," answered a childish voice;
"but it is the berries I'm getting for you first. It is the last I
will be getting you in Gleneira, I'm thinking, and they're real
beauties, whatever."
Great heavens! how reckless of the boy! yet, was not recklessness in
the blood? There he was, clinging to an overhanging branch; any
instant he might fall, and---- "Paul!" she cried quickly,
peremptorily; "come down at once. I don't want them."
She saw his bright, flushed face through the sparse yellowing leaves,
close to the bunch of red berries, clutched by the little brown hand.
So like that picture of his mother--so like--so like Paul, too!--her
Paul. Ah, God in heaven!
The child had slipped. "Hold tight, Paul! Hold tight!"
Vain cry! Almost before it was uttered the seething foam with the
sunny glints in it had stifled his swift scream.
Marjory made no sound. White, desperate, she leant over the slippery
edge of the shelf, clutched at something that seethed upwards for a
second, lost her balance, and was gone--in silence. The heavy foam
closed over her like a snow-drift with the sun on it, and all the help
the bravest heart could have given was the hope that unconsciousness
might come quickly through some kindly rock, and not in the slow agony
of suffocation.
It was all over in a minute, for Nature knows her own mind when she is
in the tragic mood. She allows no time for unavailing tears. When, not
a minute afterwards, Paul Macleod's cry of "Marjory! Marjory!" with
its ring of glad certainty, echoed over the pool, there was not a sign
to show that she would ever give answer to his call again.
"Marjory! Marjory! Marjory!"
Pitiful appeal, though he knew it not, not even when a vague wonder at
her tardiness clouded the careless joy which had come to him with this
dawn of a new day, a new life. For the night seemed to have stolen his
fears as fit companions for its shadows, and left him nothing but his
hopes.
"Marjory! Marjory! Marjory!"
Is there anything in the wide world so terrible as the slow dread
which comes as the minutes pass unavailingly by?--as the certainty
that something has gone amiss seems to grow from the very passion of
protestation against the possibility?--and then, when fear has gone,
and unknown grief is the companion of the fruitless search, in which a
wild hope will spring up sometimes to intensify the pain? Of such
things all men may surely pray that fancy, and not memory, may speak.
It was Tom Kennedy's letter--lighter than the love which had penned
it--that gave the first clue, and the hope went out from Paul
Macleod's face for ever when his quick eye found it like a foam bubble
in a backwater near the ford.
"It will be in the Long Pool we must be looking," whispered the rough,
tender voices to each other, but Paul heard. Paul knew, Paul
understood what would come--if not that night, then the next day--or
the next.
But Fate was merciful, and did not prolong the agony.
"Don't look, laird! Oh, my dear! you that I carried in my arms as a
laddie--don't look," sobbed old Macpherson, as, with the first streak
of the following dawn, the men who had been working all the night long
bent over the oil-strewn, torch-lit depth through which the grapnel
came up, slowly, heavily.
But Paul was no coward. He had looked death steadily in the face many
and many a time.
"Stand back, John!" he said quietly. "I'll lift her in."
And as he held her there in his arms while they drifted down stream a
space to a shelving grassy bank, he bent over her calm face, and
thanked "whatever gods there be," passionately, for the gift of that
sharp cut just showing beneath the damp curls through which some
friendly rock had brought a quick end to life. As he looked up again,
the dawn was out-paling the stars, and the birds in the alder-bushes
were stirring into song.
"What day is it?" he asked, drearily, of old John; and that sudden
forgetfulness was the only sign he showed at the time of the terrible
shock he had sustained. Yet none who noticed it could ever forget the
look which came to his face, when, guided by the clue given by the
child's cap still clenched in the girl's hand, a further search ended
in the discovery of little Paul's body, and Marjory's lover realised
that she must have lost her life in the effort to save his namesake.
Indeed, in after years, old John, telling the tale, would often say
that he never went in such fear of seeing murder done as when Mr.
Gillespie had suggested the touching propriety of burying the brave
girl and her little friend side by side. He had even taken the bunch
of rowan berries found in the boy's fingers from the girl's breast,
where they had laid them, as no doubt they had been intended to lie,
saying, in a sort of fury, that nothing of the child's should come
near her. But beyond that he made no sign.
And old John said true. Paul Macleod came back courteous and calm
among the many mourners who climbed one sunny afternoon to that sunny
spot on the southern slope of the hill, where Marjory had said the
light lingered longest. James Gillespie, his fair, florid face gaining
a dignity from his office, leading the way bareheaded, in his white
surplice, through the dead bracken and over the heathery slopes, while
his voice steadied itself over the words of consolation and hope. Tom
Kennedy, and Will, the laird, and Mr. Wilson--who, old as he was,
would not be gainsaid--carrying their dear dead, resting at times upon
some lichen-covered rock, or aided by other hands, tenderly,
sorrowfully, willing as theirs, falling for a time a step behind. All,
save Paul, who, setting even old John's offer of help aside, kept his
clasp tight upon the tough ash staff until, as they passed the
wishing-well on their downward way, he broke it across his knee
fiercely and flung the pieces on the dismal little pile. And then it
was that Father Macdonald, who, with sad, serene eyes, and softly
moving lips, had followed at a little distance, pleaded with the Great
Judge for another soul needing mercy.
And Paul came back courteous and calm also from that smaller, drearier
procession, which laid the new-found heir among his forbears in the
stone vault belonging to the Macleods, far over by Ardmore point, in
the old kirk-yard. Dr. Kennedy, knowing all the circumstances, would
fain have spared the empty honour to the dead boy, but all his
arguments in favour of silence were unavailing. So old Peggy's little
grandson rested under a broad, silver plate, proclaiming him to be the
only son of Ronald Alister Macleod, of Gleneira, and Janet Duncan, his
wife. The sleet showers were slanting bitterly; and the outgoing tide,
buffeting with the westerly wind, almost swamped the little white
coffin as it lay in the bottom of the "Tubhaneer," while Paul sate
steering for the point steadily, as if he were not chilled through to
the marrow of both body and soul.
It was the drenching he got, no doubt, as he stood alone, as chief
mourner, on the bare, wind-swept point, that made him look so ghastly.
He said so, at any rate, when Dr. Kennedy, noting his appearance with
professional eyes, recommended him to go to bed. It was Indian ague,
he said, nothing more; he was subject to it; had, in fact, had several
similar attacks at Gleneira.
So he retired, courteously, calmly as ever, to the Big House, where he
set aside all offers of companionship. And there, Dr. Kennedy, with
that look on Paul Macleod's handsome face haunting his professional
soul, sought him next morning on pretence of saying goodbye. But by
that time Paul was past anything save that odd, rhythmical tossing
from side to side of the restless head, which comes when the brain is
conscious of nothing but the fever raging in it.
Lord George came down at once, gentle as any woman, and surprised to
hear the long tale Dr. Kennedy had to tell, for Paul had only written
of the sad accident. And Lady George followed, with two plain, black
dresses and a little assortment of highly starched linen collars and
cuffs in her portmanteaux, ready at all points to take up the rôle of
nurse; though why a woman should nurse better in handcuffs, which
prevent all natural play of the wrist, and why a patient should be
supposed to like the dangling of starched cap-strings in his face, is
another matter.
And still the head tossed restlessly, and the parched lips went on
muttering, muttering. At the first, of many things faintly articulate;
many things, and of many places; then, by degrees, centring round one
time, one scene; finally emerging into a monotonous whisper--
"Violet! Violet! Violet!"
"I think we had better telegraph for Mrs. Vane," said Dr. Kennedy,
looking grave; "his mind has gone back to that time when she nursed
him through something similar. It is often so in brain cases, and we
cannot afford to lose a chance of saving him--sane. That previous
attack lessens the chance terribly."
She came, of course, without an instant's delay, as she would have
come to anyone who needed her extraordinary tact and care; and Dr.
Kennedy gave a sigh of relief when, stealing in for a look about dawn
on the next day, he found her seated on a stool beside the low camp
bed, one hand laid lightly on the sick man's breast, the other as
lightly keeping the ice bag on his forehead, while he lay still, quite
still.
"I used to do it before," she whispered, "and it seems to soothe
him--do you think it foolish?"
For Dr. Kennedy, with a smile, had looked round the room, wondering at
the woman's quick touch which had transformed it. A night-light
flickered from the floor in one corner, the curtains had gone and the
bed was shifted to the centre, so that the mingled light of waning
night and dawning day fell sideways on the patient, and he could have
seen--if he could have seen at all--the door set wide open to the long
corridor to which some of Peter Macpherson's orange trees, the scarlet
hibiscus, and a few hot-house plants gave the look of a verandah. A
faint scent from them filled the air, and the large, empty room,
almost devoid of furniture, had lost its snug English comfort
altogether.
"Foolish?" he echoed, going to the window, and looking out, absently.
"Who can say? The brain knows its own secrets. He seems to have
responded to the suggestion, and, for all we can tell, is ten years
younger to-day than he was yesterday."
"I wish he were! I wish he were." The whisper came so passionately,
that Dr. Kennedy turned and looked at her curiously, sadly.
"He is no worse, surely," she asked, rising softly, her hands seeming
to melt away, as it were, leaving the sick man unconscious of their
going. "Surely he is not worse?"
"No! I was only thinking it might be better for us all if his memory
stopped where it is now--if he could forget."
She clasped her hands together tightly. "If he could!--if only he
could forget--I would not care how much I remembered."
EPILOGUE.
It was once more autumn. The rowans were as red, the heather as
purple, as it had been in the year when Jeanie Duncan had sate for her
portrait and Marjory Carmichael had taken her holiday; as red, as
purple, as both will be until--
"The slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,
Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,
Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble
The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink."
For Nature is supremely indifferent whether she gives birth to fools
or knaves, or whether the Great Reaper fills his sheaf with wheat or
tares.
The evening shadows were lengthening in the Glen, and from the little
school-house by the horse-chestnut tree the cadence of children's
voices rose and fell over the stirring measure of a processional hymn.
"Not so fast! not so fast! who told you to gallop it like that?" cried
a smartly dressed young woman at the harmonium; a young lady with that
curious resemblance to a commonplace book, which the profession of
teaching brings to all but clever faces.
"Miss Marjory was saying it should be gay-like," murmured a rebellious
voice among the elder scholars; the younger pausing with awed glances
at the only authority they had known.
"Then she was wrong," retorted the Reverend James Gillespie's owner.
"It should be stately and solemn as befits a--a hymn. Don't you agree
with me, James?"
"Perfectly, perfectly. The Bishop agrees also." His face beamed
unalloyed content; for he had read "dust to dust, ashes to ashes,"
over many a coffin since his voice broke down one November morning
some years ago, and the memory of one funeral scarcely troubles him
more than another; each and all have a place in that growing sense of
his sacerdotal position, which makes him greatly regret that in those
earlier days he did not wear a biretta when exercising his priestly
function in committing his flock to their graves.
And the evening shadows were lengthening also along the white road
that curves and crests the points and bays of the loch. A glint of
light where Paul had stood like St. Christopher, a deeper shadow where
Marjory had sate listening to the blabbing of the waves. Light and
shadow mingled in the woods, through which they had run hand in hand,
though with every moment the sunset glow left some golden birch or
scarlet cherry; and down among the tall, silver firs by the house a
faint white mist was beginning to rise over the trim lawns.
"It is growing chill, Paul!" said an anxious voice.
"To be continued in our next, Blazes; your aunt is inexorable!" The
tone was gracious as ever, but thinner, as Paul Macleod rose from his
lounge chair.
"But, Uncle Paul! How many runs did you make?" cried Blasius, eagerly.
It had been his first term at Harrow, and this tale he had been
hearing of past prowess in cricket was too interesting to be thus left
pointless.
"How many? I forget. Perhaps your aunt will remember----"
A little spasm of pain passed over Violet's face. "How lazy you are,
Paul! You will end by remembering nothing."
"Why should I remember when you do it so much better than I? It was a
good lot, Blasius, and I recollect being awfully proud at the time.
But these things slip by, somehow. When you are as old as I am----"
"You really ought to go in, Paul!" came that warning voice, with a
studied patience in it. "This is not the Riviera, remember."
"No, worse luck! I suppose it is the proper thing to come down here,
but it is an awful bore in some ways. Ah! there's George, back from
the hill--well, he likes it, that is one comfort."
Blanche stood at the jasmine-covered porch to welcome her husband, for
the advancing years had, as is so often the case, decided her final
selection of a part in favour of the devoted wife--the fact being that
she was becoming a trifle too matronly for most of the others, while
the growing independence of the children stood in the way of a
satisfactory rendering of the maternal one.
"Taking him in? That is right," she said approvingly, to her
sister-in-law, as Paul, on his wife's arm, paused to look at the birds
old John's son was laying out on the step. Old John himself, sturdy on
his legs as ever, but mindful of the dignity due to head keeperdom,
standing by. And then, not to be outdone, she turned to her husband.
"George! you ought not to dawdle about in wet feet. Please go in, too,
and change."
"Wet? My dear, the moors are as dry as a bone. Aren't they, John?"
"As dry as they will have been these fifty years, whatever," replied
the old man. "As dry as they would be that summer, Gleneira, when you
and----"
"Do come in, Paul!" came the anxious voice, again. "Look, how the mist
is rising----"
"By Jove! that's a fine young bird!" interrupted Paul, inconsequently,
with a flash of his old interest. "By the way, Violet, you might tell
the cook not to roast them to cinders as she did last night, and,
while I remember it, I wish you'd speak to Cunningham about that
horse----"
"Really, Paul!" said his sister; "I think you might give the grooms
their orders yourself."
He smiled kindly, and laid his other hand upon his wife's, as together
they went slowly to the smoking-room.
"I am afraid I give you a lot of trouble," he said apologetically, as
he held the door open for her to pass through--"but I have such a
wretched memory, and you are so kind."
"Don't say that, Paul! don't say that; what does it matter? I am quite
happy if you are."
She watched his face curiously, eagerly, almost passionately; but she
saw nothing save that easy, kindly smile.
Had her wish been fulfilled? and had he left memory behind in the
Valley of the Shadow, where he had left so much of the old Paul? She
could scarcely tell, for he never spoke of that one summer, but lived
his life as if it had not been.
* * * * *
But the light was lingering still on that steep slope, whence the
purple cloud of Iona could be seen lying like an amethyst on the
golden shield of the sea--for the sky was hung with blood-red pennants
as if the hosts of heaven were going forth to war.
And Tom Kennedy looked out over sea and sky from the gravestone which
told that Marjory Carmichael died in attempting to save the life of
Paul Macleod. There was a bunch of red rowans on the green grass. He
brings one every year when, his brief holiday over, he climbs over the
hill--as he did on the last day he saw her--on his way back to the
work-a-day world, and that hand-to-hand fight with Death in others
which will cease with his own.
His eyes are troubled, for it comes back to him every year as he sits
there that he might have saved her--if he had known.
Known what? A smile comes to his face as he takes out an old letter
and reads the last words she ever wrote to him, "Yet I stretch out my
hands to you and say, again and again, Friendship is a bigger thing
than Love!"
The mists are rising even there as he turns to breast the hill, the
cloud wreaths sweep solemnly in from the sea in stately curves, and as
he pauses on the summit for a last look downwards, lo! there is
nothing at all in earth, or sea, or sky, save himself and a grey,
encircling mist. Love and Friendship, Life and Death, Sunshine and
Shade! Where are they?
THE END.