In the summer evenings Mrs Ogilvy sat on the bench outside the parlour
window. I have never forgotten the sort of rapture with which the long
summer evenings in Scotland impressed my own mind when I rediscovered
them, so to speak, after a long interval of absence. The people who know
Scotland only in the autumn know them not. By that time all things have
grown common, the surprises of the year are over; but in June those
long, soft, pearly, rosy hours which are neither night nor day, which
melt by indescribable degrees out of the glory of the sunset into
everything that is soft and fair, through every tint and shining
colour and mingling of lights, until they reach that which is
inconceivable--surround us with a heavenly atmosphere all their own, the
fusion of every radiance, the subdual of every shade. There are no
shadows in that wonderful light any more than there is any sun. The
midnight sun must be a very spectacular sort of performance in
comparison. To people who live in it always, however, it will probably
appear no such great thing.
Mrs Ogilvy was not aware that there was anything that was not most
ordinary in these June nights. She loved them, but knew no reason why.
She sat in the sweet air, in the silence, sometimes feeling herself as
if suspended between air and sky, floating softly in space with the
movement of the world: and in her thoughts she was able even sometimes
to detach herself from Then and Now, those two dreadful limits of our
consciousness, and to catch a glimpse of life as it is rounded out, and
some consciousness of the beginning and the end, and the sequence and
connection of all things. Sometimes: but perhaps not very often, for
these gleams of discovery are but gleams, and fly like the flashes of
lightning which suddenly reveal to us a broad country, a noble city lost
in the darkness. On such occasions the great sphere overhead, the great
landscape stretching into distance, the glimpses of houses, great and
small, amid the warm surrounding of the trees, the murmur of the Esk low
in the glen, filling all the air with sound, affected her with an
extraordinary calm. She used to think sometimes that this was the Peace
that passeth understanding which descended upon her, hushing all her
thoughts, stilling every sigh. It came but seldom in that height of
blessing, but often in a less perfect way, as she sat and pondered upon
the great still world revolving round, and she an atom in the boundless
breadth of being, which by-and-by would drop, while the world went on.
But at other times it appeared to her more strange still that in all
these miles and miles of distance, of solid earth and growing trees, and
the hopeful harvests that were coming, there was one little thing, so
little in fact, so insignificant in the midst of all, that was throbbing
and throbbing and disturbing the quiet, unmoved by the peace of the sky
and the earth and all the beautiful things between them--thinking its
own small thoughts, and troubling, and living--till all the quiet
throbbed and thrilled with it, the one thing that was out of harmony.
The centre of her thoughts, or rather the cause of them all, night and
day, was a thing that had happened fifteen years ago, a thing that most
people had forgotten--a small matter to the world--just the going away
of a heedless young man. It was not that she was always thinking of him,
for her thoughts rambled and wandered through all the heavens and earth;
but that he was the centre of all, the pivot on which they turned, the
beginning and the end of everything. He had gone away--he had left his
home, having already erred and strayed--and he had been heard of no
more. She was not complaining or finding fault with God for it: she
would sometimes wonder with a little wistfulness why God never listened
to her, did not somewhere seize that wandering boy and bring him
back--to satisfy her before she died. But then there were many things to
be considered, Mrs Ogilvy knew and acknowledged to herself in the
philosophy that had grown out of her much thinking. Robert was not a
bairn, nor was God a mere benevolent patron, to seize the lad without
rhyme or reason, and set him back there, because she wearied Him with
crying. She had wanted God to be that, many times in her long period of
trouble; but by dint of time and thought a different sense of things had
come to her. God was not a good fairy: He was the great God of heaven
and earth. He had Robert to think of as well as his mother, and
thousands and millions of other things. Often in the weariness of her
heart she asked nothing for Robert, said nothing, but sat there before
the Lord with the boy’s name on her heart put before Him. And that was
all she was doing now.
Of all that landscape there was one point to which her eyes turned the
oftenest, and, which drew her away out of herself, as if by some charm
of movement and going. And that was the piece of road which lay at the
foot of the brae, with her own garden-gate opening into it, and the two
lines of the holly-hedges on either side. Often she would be drawn back
from her thinking by the sight of a figure on the road, which turned out
to be a very common figure,--sometimes a beggar, or a man with a pack, a
travelling merchant, or, more familiar still than that, a postman on his
way home, or a lad that had been working later than usual. But whatever
the man was, the sight of him always gave Mrs Ogilvy a sharp sensation.
“At any moment!” she had said to herself so long that it had entered
into her very soul. “At any moment!”--she was conscious of this night
and day. Through all that she was doing she had always one ear listening
for any new step or sound. And you may think how much more strong that
habitual watchfulness was when she looked out in the evening, the time
when everybody comes home, upon the road by which he must come, if he
ever came. A hundred times and a hundred more she had watched that road,
with her eyes
“Busy in the distance shaping things
That made her heart beat thick.”
Often and often she had seen a man detach himself from the white strip
of the road, and heard her own gate click and swing, and watched a head
moving upward over the line of the hedge. But it never was any one
except the most simple, the most naturally to be expected
visitor--perhaps the minister, perhaps Mr Miller from the paper-mill,
perhaps some friend of Andrew’s and Janet’s. Her heart beat in her ears,
in her throat, for a dreadful moment, and then stood still. It was not
he: how should it? She rose up with no heart at all, everything stopped
and hushed, and said, “How are you to-night, Mr Logan? What a bonnie
evening for a walk,” or “How are you, Mr Miller; sit down and take a
rest after your climb.” She said nothing about her disappointment; and,
indeed, who could say she was disappointed? It just was not Robbie: and
she had no more reason to think that it would be him than that the night
would suddenly turn into day.
On this particular evening it was Mr Logan, the minister, who gave her
this thrill of strong expectation, this disappointment--which was not a
disappointment. He found nothing that was out of the way in her peaceful
looks, neither the one sensation nor the other, but sat down beside her,
pleased with this conclusion to his summer evening’s walk, and the
delightful air and pleasant view, and the calm of the Hewan, in which
everybody said there was such an atmosphere of repose and peace. Mr
Logan was a country minister of what is now called the old school. He
was not a man who had ever thought of making innovations or disturbing
the old order of affairs. His services were just the same as they had
been when he was ordained some thirty years before. He had baptised a
great part of his parishioners, and married the others, so that there
were only the quite old folk, patriarchs of the parish, who could
remember the time when he was first “placed” at Eskholm, and opposed by
some, though always “well likit” by others. He was considered by Mrs
Ogilvy and many ladies of the parish to be a very personable man, comely
in his grey hair, with a good presence and a good voice, and altogether
a wyss-like man. This description, which is so common in Scotland, has
nothing to do with the wisdom of the person described, who may be very
wyss-like without being at all wise. Mr Logan sat down and stretched out
discreetly his long legs. He had the shadow, or rather the subdued
light, of a smile hovering about his face. He looked as if he had
something agreeable to tell.
“And how is Susie?” Mrs Ogilvy said.
“Susie,” he said, with a change of expression which did not look quite
so genuine as the lurking smile. “Oh, Susie, poor thing, she is just in
her ordinary; but that is not very well----”
“Not well! Susie? But she has just been wonderful in her health and her
cheery ways.”
“Ay, ay! she has kept up to the outside of her strength; but I have
never thought she was equal to it. You will do me the justice to
remember that I always said that. These big boys are too much for her;
and now that they’re coming and going to Edinburgh every day, and all
the trouble of getting them off in the morning, with sandwiches for
George who is in his office, and a piece for Walter and Jamie who are at
the school: and the two little ones all the day at home, and me on the
top of all, that am perhaps accustomed to have too much attention paid
to me----”
The lurking smile came forth again, much subdued, so that nobody could
ask the minister brutally, “What are you smiling at?”
“Dear me,” said Mrs Ogilvy, “I am very much astonished. I have always
thought there was nobody like Susie for managing the whole flock.”
“She is a good girl, a very good girl; but it’s too much for her, Mrs
Ogilvy. I’ve always said so. She takes after her mother, and you know
my--wife was far from strong.”
The little pause he made before that simple word wife was as when a man
who has married a second time says “my first wife.”
Mrs Ogilvy was startled and stared; but she did not take any notice of
this alarming peculiarity. She said, “I cannot think Susie delicate, Mr
Logan. She has none of the air of it. And her mother at her age----”
“Ah, her mother at her age! I must take double care that nothing
interferes with Susie. It is an anxious position for a man to have a
family to look after that is deprived of a mother’s care.”
“It is so, no doubt,” said Mrs Ogilvy; “but with Susie----”
“Poor thing! who just strains every faculty she has. There are some
women who do these kind of things with no appearance of effort,” said Mr
Logan, shaking his head a little. “You will have heard there was a
marriage in the parish yesterday. They would fain have had it in the
church, in their new-fangled way. But I said our auld kirk did not lend
itself to that sort of thing, and I would like it better in their own
drawing-room, or if they preferred it, mine.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mrs Ogilvy, “I heard of it. The English family that
have taken the little house near the Dean. I did not think it was big
enough to have a drawing-room.”
“Well, an English family is rather a misnomer: they can scarcely be
called English, though they come from the south--and a family you can
call it no longer, for this was the last daughter, and there’s nothing
but Mrs Ainslie herself left.”
“She’s a well-put-on, well-mannered woman, and well-looking too: but I
know nothing more about her,” Mrs Ogilvy said.
“She is all that,” replied the minister, with a little fervour
unnecessary in the circumstances. “We were at the little entertainment
after, Susie and me. Everything was just perfectly done, and nobody
neglected, and without a bit of fuss or flutter such as is general in
these cases----”
“Do you think it is general?” said Mrs Ogilvy, with that natural and
instantaneous impulse of self-defence which is naturally awakened by
excessive praise bestowed upon the better methods of a stranger. “We are
maybe not much used to grand entertainments in a landward parish like
this, where there are not many grand folk.”
“Oh, there was nothing particularly grand about it,” said the minister,
with the air of lingering pleasantly in recollection over an agreeable
subject. “These simple sort of things are so much better; but it takes a
clever person to see just what is adapted to a country place. I was
saying to Susie this morning it’s a grand thing to bring people together
like you--and no expense to speak of when you know how to go about
it----”
“And what did Susie think?” Mrs Ogilvy asked.
“My dear lady,” said the minister, “nobody will say I am one to take
down the ladies or give them a poor character; but they are maybe slower
of the uptake than men--especially when it’s another lady, and one with
gifts past the common, that is held up for their example.”
“I thought you were too wise a man to hold up anybody for an example.”
“You’re always sensible, Mrs Ogilvy. That is just what I should have
remembered: but perhaps I am too open in my speech at all times. I’ve
come to speak to Susie as if she knew things and the ways of the world
just as well as me.”
Mr Logan was a little vague about his pronouns, which arose not from
want of grammar, but from national prejudice or prepossession.
“And so she does,” said Mrs Ogilvy, with a little surprise. “She’s young
still, the dear lassie; but it’s very maturing to the mind to be in a
position like hers, and she is just one of the most reasonable persons I
know.”
“Ah, yes,” said the minister, with a sigh, which did not interrupt the
lurking smile; “but it’s a very different thing to have a companion of
your own age.”
At this she began to look at him with more attention than she had as yet
shown, and perceived that there was a little flush more than ordinary on
the minister’s face. Had he come to make any revelation? Mrs Ogilvy had
all the natural prejudices, and she was resolved that at least she would
do nothing to help him out. She sat demurely and looked at him, while
he, leaning forward, traced lines upon the gravel with the end of his
stick. The faint imbecility of the smile about his lips, made of vanity
and pleasure and a little shame, always irritating to women, called
forth an ironical watchfulness on her part.
“There is but one way of having that,” he continued; “a man’s a sad
wreck in many cases when he’s left a widower, as you may say, in the
middle of his days--
‘My strength he weakened in the way,
My days of life he shorten-ed.’
This is not the usual sense in which the words are used, but it just
comes to that. You will know by yourself, Mrs Ogilvy. You were widowed
young.”
“I have never taken myself to be a rule for other folk,” she said.
“Well, you don’t do that; but still how are you to judge of other folk’s
feelings but according to what you feel yourself?”
The lady made no reply. No, she would not help him! if he had any
ridiculous thing to say to her, he should muddle through it the best way
he could. She would not hold out a little finger to help him up to dry
land.
“Well,” he said, after a pause, with a little sigh, “to return to Susie.
She’s not equal to her present charge, not equal to it at all. Three big
boys on her hands, and the two little ones, not to count all the family
correspondence with the others in India and Australia, and all that.
There is a great deal of care connected with a large family that people
never think of.” He paused for sympathy, but it was not a point upon
which his present listener could speak: he went on with a slight and
momentary feeling that she was selfish not to have entered into this
trouble, notwithstanding that it was so different from her own. “And
these growing laddies want a firm hand over them--they want
authority--not just a sister that they can tease and fleech---- I maybe
ought from the first,” he said, slowly and tentatively, “to have taken
the burden more upon myself.”
“It would have left less burden upon Susie; but I think for my part she
is quite equal to it,” Mrs Ogilvy said.
When a man condescends to blame himself, he expects as his natural due
that he should be reassured. Mr Logan felt that his old friend and
parishioner, to whom he had come half for sympathy, half for
encouragement, was not nearly so sympathetic a person as he thought.
“I see we’ll not agree in that; and I am sure I hope you’re the one that
is in the right. Well,” he said, getting up slowly, “I’m afraid I must
be going. This is a long walk for me at this hour of the night; and
they’ll be waiting for me at home.”
“You’ll let me know,” Mrs Ogilvy said, as she walked with him along the
little platform round the plot of grass. “You’ll let me know--when
things have gone further.”
“When things have gone further?” he cried, with a sudden redness and
look of surprise: then added, shaking his head, “What things there are
to go further, and how far they can go, is a mystery to me. You must be
referring to something in your own mind.”
And the good-night was a little formal with which he went away.
It was time to go in. The light was fading at last, growing a little
paler, and ten had struck on the big clock. The lamp had been lighted in
the drawing-room for Mrs Ogilvy to read the chapter by, though there was
no real need for it. Janet, who had come out for her mistress’s work and
her footstool, lingered, as was her wont, before she “cried upon” Andrew
for that concluding ceremonial of the day.
“Did you ever hear that there was any word of the minister----? But
perhaps I should not speak on the small authority I have,” Mrs Ogilvy
said.
“Speak freely, mem; I can aye bear it--and better from you than from
some other folk.”
Andrew had strong Free Church inclinations. He was given to
disrespectful speech of the ministers of the Auld Kirk in general, and
of Mr Logan in particular, calling him a dumb dog that could not
bark--which roused Janet to her inmost soul. She was not satisfied even
with her mistress, though she had never forsaken the Kirk of her
fathers. Janet bore her burden, as the only perfectly orthodox person in
the house, with great solemnity and a sense of suffering for the right.
“Say what you will, mem; you may be sure I will have heard worse. I can
put up with it,” Janet said.
“You are just a very foolish person to speak in that tone to me. Am I
one to find fault with the minister without cause? Nor am I finding
fault with him. He has a right to do it if he likes. I would not say
that it was expedient.”
“Eh, mem, if ye would but put me out of my pain! What is it? He is a
douce man, that would do harm to nobody. What is he going to do?”
“Indeed, Janet, I cannot tell. It is just some things he said. Was there
ever any lady’s name named--or that caused a silly laugh, or made folk
speak?”
“Named!” said Janet,--“with our minister? ’Deed, and that there have
been--every woman born that he has ever said a ceevil word to. You ken
little of country clashes, mem, if you’re surprised at that. Your
ainsel’ for one, and we ken the truth there is in that.”
“They were far to seek if they named me,” said Mrs Ogilvy, drawing
herself up with dignity; “but there is a lady he is very full of. I do
not ask you to inquire, for I hate gossip; but if it should come your
way from any of the neighbours, I would like to hear what they say. Poor
Susie! he says she is not able for so much work, that he is feared she
will go like her mother. Now, she’s not like her mother either in that
or any other thing. There’s trouble brewing for my poor Susie--if you
hear anything, let me know.”
“And you never heard who the leddy was?” Janet said.
“I have heard much more--a great deal more,” Mrs Ogilvy cried, very
inconclusively it must be allowed, “than I had any wish to hear!”