CHAPTER II.

"--and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James i.

15.

Blessed are they who have seen Nature in those rare, ineffable moments

when she appears to be asleep--when the stars, large and white, bend

stilly over the dreaming earth, and not a breath of wind stirs leaf or

flower. On such a night James Lorimer sat upon his south verandah

smoking; and his niece Lulu, white and motionless as the magnolia

flowers above her, mused the hour away beside him. There were little

ebony squads of negroes huddled together around the doors of their

quarters, but they also were singularly quiet. An angel of silence had

passed by no one was inclined to disturb the tranquil calm of the

dreaming earth.

There is nothing good in this life which Time does not improve. In ten

days the better feelings which had led James Lorimer to seek his son in

the path of moral and physical danger had grown as Divine seed does

grow. This very night, in the scented breathless quiet, he was longing

for David's return, and forming plans through which the future might

atone for the past. Gradually the weary negroes went into the cabins,

rolled themselves in their blankets and fell into that sound, dreamless

sleep which is the compensation of hard labor. Only Lulu watched and

thought with him.

Suddenly she stood up and listened. There was a footstep in the avenue,

and she knew it. But why did it linger, and what dreary echo of sorrow

was there in it?

"That is David's step, uncle; but what is the matter? Is he sick?"

Then they both saw the young man coming slowly through the gloom, and

the shadow of some calamity came steadily on before him. Lulu went to

the top of the long flight of white steps, and put out her hands to

greet him. He motioned her away with a woeful and positive gesture, and

stood with hopeless yet half defiant attitude before his father.

In a moment all the new tenderness was gone.

In a voice stern and scornful he asked, "Well, sir, what is the matter?

What hae ye been doing now?"

"I have shot Whaley!"

The words were rather breathed than spoken, but they were distinctly

audible. The father rose and faced his wretched son.

Lulu drew close to him, and asked, in a shocked whisper, "Dead?"

"Dead!"

"But you had a good reason, David; I know you had. He would have shot

you?--it was in self-defence?--it was an accident? Speak, dear!"

"He called me a coward, and--"

"You shot him! Then you are a coward, sir!" said Lorimer, sternly; "and

having made yourself fit for the gallows, you are a double coward to

come here and force upon me the duty of arresting you. Put down your

rifle, sir!"

Lulu uttered a long low wail. "Oh, David, my love! why did you come

here? Did you hope for pity or help in his heart? And what can I do

Davie, but suffer with you?" But she drew his face down and kissed it

with a solemn tenderness that taught the wretched man, in one moment,

all the blessedness of a woman's devotion, and all the misery that the

indulgence of his ungovernable temper had caused him.

"We will hae no more heroics, Lulu. As a magistrate and a citizen it is

my duty to arrest a murderer on his ain confession."

"Your duty!" she answered, in a passion of scorn. "Had you done your

duty to David in the past years, this duty would not have been to do.

Your duty or anything belonging to yourself, has always been your sole

care. Wrong Davie, wrong me, slay love outright, but do your duty, and

stand well with the world and yourself! Uncle, you are a dreadful

Christian!"

"How dare you judge me, Lulu? Go to your own room at once!"

"David, dearest, farewell! Fly!--you will get no pity here. Fly!"

"Sit down, sir, and do not attempt to move!"

"I am hungry, thirsty, weary and wretched, and at your mercy, father. Do

as you will with me." And he laid his rifle upon the table.

Lorimer looked at the hopeless figure that almost fell into the chair

beside him, and his first feeling was one of mingled scorn and pity.

"How did it happen? Tell me the truth. I want neither excuses nor

deceptions."

"I have no desire to make them. There was a 'run,' just as my time was

out. Whaley, in an insolent manner, ordered me to help turn the

leaders. I did not move. He called me a coward, and taunted me with my

Spanish blood--it was my dear mother's."

"That is it," answered Lorimer, with an anger all the more terrible for

its restraint; "it is the Spanish blood wi' its gasconade and foolish

pride."

"Father! You have a right to give me up to the hangman; but you have no

right to insult me."

The next moment he fell senseless at his father's feet. It was the

collapse of consciousness under excessive physical exhaustion and mental

anguish; but Lorimer, who had never seen a man in such extremity,

believed it to be death. A tumult of emotions rushed over him, but

assistance was evidently the first duty, and he hastened for it. First

he sent the housekeeper Cassie to her young master, then he went to the

quarters to arouse Plato.

When he returned, Lulu and Cassie were kneeling beside the unconscious

youth. "You have murdered him!" said Lulu, bitterly; and for a moment he

felt something of the remorseful agony which had driven the criminal at

his feet into a short oblivion. But very soon there was a slight

reaction, and the father was the first to see it. "He has only fainted;

bring some wine here!" Then he remembered the weakness of the voice

which had said, "I am hungry, and thirsty, and weary and wretched."

When David opened his eyes again his first glance was at his father.

There was something in that look that smote the angry man to his heart

of hearts. He turned away, motioning Plato to follow him. But even when

he had reached his own room and shut his door, he could not free himself

from the influence evoked by that look of sorrowful reproach.

Plato stood just within the door, nervously dangling his straw hat. He

was evidently balancing some question in his own mind, and the

uncertainty gave a queer restlessness to every part of his body.

"Plato, you are to watch the young man down-stairs; he is not to be

allowed to leave the house."

"Yes, sar."

"He has committed a great crime, and he must abide the consequences."

No answer.

"You understand that, Plato?"

"Dunno, sar. I mighty sinful ole man myself. Dunno bout de

consequences."

"Go, and do as I bid you!"

When he was alone he rose slowly and locked his door. He wanted to do

right, but he was like a man in the fury and darkness of a great

tempest: he could not see any road at all. There was a Bible on his

dressing-table, and he opened it; but the verses mingled together, and

the sense of everything seemed to escape him. The hand of the Great

Father was stretched out to him in the dark, but he could not find it.

He knew that at the bottom of his heart lay a wish that David would

escape from justice. He knew that a selfish shame about his own fair

character mingled with his father's love; his motives and feelings were

so mixed that he did not dare to bring them, in their pure truthfulness,

to the feet of God; for as yet he did not understand that "like as a

father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him;" he

thought of the Divine Being as one so jealous for His own rights and

honor that He would have the human heart a void, so that he might reign

there supremely. So all that terrible night he stood smitten and

astonished on a threshold he could not pass.

In another room the question was being in a measure solved for him.

Cassie brought in meat and bread and wine, and David ate, and felt

refreshed. Then the love of life returned, and the terror of a shameful

death; and he laid his hand upon his rifle and looked round to see what

chance of escape his father had left him. Plato stood at the door, Lulu

sat by his side, holding his hand. On her face there was an expression

of suffering, at once defiant and despairing--a barren suffering,

without hope. They had come to that turn on their unhappy road when they

had to bid each other "Farewell!" It was done very sadly, and with few

words.

"You must go now, beloved."

He held her close to his heart and kissed her solemnly and silently. The

next moment she turned on him from the open door a white, anguished

face. Then he was alone with Plato.

"Plato, I must go now. Will you saddle the brown mare for me?"

"She am waiting, Massa David. I tole Cassie to get her ready, and some

bread and meat, and _dis_, Massa Davie, if you'll 'blige ole Plato."

Then he laid down a rude bag of buckskin, holding the savings of his

lifetime.

"How much is there, Plato?"

"Four hundred dollars, sar. Sorry it am so little."

"It was for your freedom, Plato."

"I done gib dat up, Massa Davie. I'se too ole now to git de rest. Ef you

git free, dat is all I want."

They went quietly out together. It was not long after midnight. The

brown mare stood ready saddled in the shadow, and Cassie stood beside

her with a small bag, holding a change of linen and some cooked food.

The young man mounted quickly, grasped the kind hands held out to him,

and then rode away into the darkness. He went softly at first, but when

he reached the end of the avenue at a speed which indicated his terror

and his mental suffering.

Cassie and Plato watched him until he became an indistinguishable black

spot upon the prairie; then they turned wearily towards the cabins. They

had seen and shared the long sorrow and discontent of the household;

they hardly expected anything but trouble in some form or other. Both

were also thinking of the punishment they were likely to receive; for

James Lorimer never failed to make an example of evil-doers; he would

hardly be disposed to pass over their disobedience.

Early in the morning Plato was called by his master. There was little

trace of the night of mental agony the latter had passed. He was one of

those complete characters who join to perfect physical health a mind

whose fibres do not easily show the severest strain.

"Tell Master David to come here."

"Massa David, sar! Massa David done gone sar!" The old man's lips were

trembling, but otherwise his nervous restlessness was over. He looked

his master calmly in the face.

"Did I not tell you to stop him?"

"Ef de Lord in heaven want him stopped, Massa James, He'll send the

messenger--Plato could not do it!"

"How did he go?"

"On de little brown mare--his own horse done broke all up."

"How much money did you give him?"

"Money, sar?"

"How much? Tell the truth."

"Four hundred dollars."

"That will do. Tell Cassie I want my breakfast."

At breakfast he glanced at Lulu's empty chair, but said nothing. In the

house all was as if no great sin and sorrow had darkened its threshold

and left a stain upon its hearthstone. The churning and cleaning was

going on as usual. Only Cassie was quieter, and Lulu lay, white and

motionless, in the little vine-shaded room that looked too cool and

pretty for grief to enter. The unhappy father sat still all day,

pondering many things that he had not before thought of. Every footfall

made his heart turn sick, but the night came, and there was no further

bad news.

On the second day he went into Lulu's room, hoping to say a word of

comfort to her. She listened apathetically, and turned her face to the

wall with a great sob. He began to feel some irritation in the

atmosphere of misery which surrounded him. It was very hard to be made

so wretched for another's sin. The thought in an instant became a

reproach. Was he altogether innocent? The second and third days passed;

he began to be sure then that David must have reached a point beyond the

probability of pursuit.

On the fourth day he went to the cotton field. He visited the overseer's

house, he spent the day in going over accounts and making estimates. He

tried to forget that _something_ had happened which made life appear a

different thing. In the grey, chill, misty evening he returned home. The

negroes were filing down the long lane before him, each bearing their

last basket of cotton--all of them silent, depressed with their

weariness, and intensely sensitive to the melancholy influence of the

autumn twilight.

Lorimer did not care to pass them. He saw them, one by one, leave their

cotton at the ginhouse, and trail despondingly off to their cabins. Then

he rode slowly up to his own door. A man sat on the verandah smoking. At

the sight of him his heart fell fathoms deep.

"Good evening." He tried to give his voice a cheerful welcoming sound,

but he could not do it; and the visitor's attitude was not encouraging.

"Good evening, Lorimer. I'm right sorry to tell you that you will be

wanted on some unpleasant business very early to-morrow morning."

He tried to answer, but utterly failed; his tongue was as dumb as his

soul was heavy. He only drew a chair forward and sat down.

"Fact is your son is in a tighter place than any man would care for. I

brought him up to Sheriff Gillelands' this afternoon. Perhaps he can

make it out a case of 'justifiable homicide'--hope he can. He's about as

likely a young man as I ever saw."

Still no answer.

"Well, Lorimer, I think you're right. Talking won't help things, and may

make them a sight worse. You'll be over to Judge Lepperts' in the

morning?--say about ten o'clock."

"Yes. Will you have some supper?"

"No; this is not hungry work. My pipe is more satisfactory under the

circumstances. I'll have to saddle up, too. There's others to see yet.

Is there any one particular you'd like on the jury?"

"No. You must do your duty, Sheriff."

He heard him gallop away, and stood still, clasping and unclasping his

hands in a maze of anguish. David at Sheriff Gillelands'! David to be

tried for murder in the morning! What could he do? If David had not

confessed to the shooting of Whaley, would he be compelled to give his

evidence? Surely, conscience would not require so hard a duty of him.

At length he determined to go and see David before he decided upon the

course he ought to take. The sheriff's was only about three miles

distant. He rode over there at once. His son, with travel-stained

clothes and blood-shot hopeless eyes, looked up to see him enter. His

heart was full of a great love, but it was wronged, even at that hour,

by an irritation that would first and foremost assert itself. Instead of

saying, "My dear, dear lad!" the lament which was in his heart, he said,

"So this is the end of it, David?"

"Yes. It is the end."

"You ought not to have run away."

"No. I ought to have let you surrender me to justice; that would have

put you all right."

"I wasna thinking o' that. A man flying from justice is condemned by the

act."

"It would have made no matter. There is only one verdict and one end

possible."

"Have you then confessed the murder?"

He awaited the answer in an agony. It came with a terrible distinctness.

"Whaley lived thirty hours. He told. His brother-in-law has gone on with

the cattle. Four of the drivers are come back as witnesses. They are in

the house."

"But you have not yourself confessed?"

"Yes. I told Sheriff Gillelands I shot the man. If I had not done so you

would; I knew that. I have at least spared you the pain and shame of

denouncing your own son!"

"Oh, David, David! I would not. My dear lad, I would not! I would hae

gane to the end o' the world first. Why didna you trust me?"

"How could I, father?"

He let the words drop wearily, and covered his face with his hands.

After a pause, he said, "Poor Lulu! Don't tell her if you can help it,

until--all is over. How glad I am this day that my mother is dead!"

The wretched father could endure the scene no longer. He went into the

outer room to find out what hope of escape remained for his son. The

sheriff was full of pity, and entered readily into a discussion of

David's chances. But he was obliged to point out that they were

extremely small. The jury and the judge were all alike cattle men; their

sympathies were positively against everything likely to weaken the

discipline necessary in carrying large herds of cattle safely across the

continent. In the moment of extremest danger, David had not only

refused assistance, but had shot his employer.

"He called him a coward, and you'll admit that's a vera aggravating

name."

The sheriff readily admitted that under any ordinary circumstances in

Texas that epithet would justify a murder; "but," he added, "most any

Texan would say he was a coward to stand still and see eight thousand

head of cattle on the stampede. You'll excuse me, Lorimer, I'd say so

myself."

He went home again and shut himself in his room to think. But after many

hours, he was just as far as ever from any coherent decision. Justice!

Justice! Justice! The whole current of his spiritual and mental

constitution ran that road. Blood for blood; a life for a life; it was

meet and right, and he acknowledged it with bleeding heart and streaming

eyes. But, clear and distinct above the tumult of this current, he heard

something which made him cry out with an equally unhappy father of old,

"Oh, Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!"

Then came the accuser and boldly told him that he had neglected his

duty, and driven his son into the way of sin and death; and that the

seeds sown in domestic bickering and unkindness had only brought forth

their natural fruit. The scales fell from his eyes; all the past became

clear to him. His own righteousness was dreadful in his sight. He cried

out with his whole soul, "God be merciful! God be merciful!"

The darkest despairs are the most silent. All the night long he was only

able to utter that one heartbroken cry for pity and help. At the

earliest daylight he was with his son. He was amazed to find him calm,

almost cheerful. "The worst is over father," he said. "I have done a

great wrong; I acknowledge the justice of the punishment, and am willing

to suffer it."

"But after death! Oh, David, David--afterward!"

"I shall dare to hope--for Christ also has died, the just for the

unjust."

Then the father, with a solemn earnestness, spoke to his son of that

eternity whose shores his feet were touching. At this hour he would

shirk no truth; he would encourage no false hope. And David listened;

for this side of his father's character he had always had great respect,

and in those first hours of remorse following the murder, not the least

part of his suffering had been the fearful looking forward to the Divine

vengeance which he could never fly from. But there had been _One_ with

him that night, _One_ who is not very far from us at any time; and

though David had but tremblingly understood His voice, and almost feared

to accept its comfort, he was in those desperate circumstances when men

cannot reason and philosophize, when nothing remains for them but to

believe.

"Dinna get by the truth, my dear lad; you hae committed a great sin,

there is nae doubt o' that."

"But God's mercy, I trust, is greater."

"And you hae nothing to bring him from a' the years o' your life! Oh,

David, David!"

"I know," he answered sadly. "But neither had the dying thief. He only

believed. Father, this is the sole hope and comfort left me now. Don't

take it from me."

Lorimer turned away weeping; yes, and praying, too, as men must pray

when they stand powerless in the stress of terrible sorrows. At noon the

twelve men summoned dropped in one by one, and the informal court was

opened. David Lorimer admitted the murder, and explained the long

irritation and the final taunt which had produced it. The testimony of

the returned drovers supplemented the tragedy. If there was any excuse

to be made, it lay in the disgraceful epithet applied to David and the

scornful mention of his mother's race.

There was, however, an unfavorable feeling from the first. The elder

Lorimer, with his stern principles and severe manners, was not a popular

man. David's proud, passionate temper had made him some active enemies;

and there was not a man on the jury who did not feel as the sheriff had

honestly expressed himself regarding David's conduct at the moment of

the stampede. It touched all their prejudices and their interests very

nearly; not one of them was inclined to blame Whaley for calling a man a

coward who would not answer the demand for help at such an imperative

moment.

As to the Spanish element, it had always been an offence to Texans.

There were men on the jury whose fathers had died fighting it; beside,

there was that unacknowledged but positive contempt which ever attaches

itself to a race that has been subjugated. Long before the form of a

trial was over, David had felt the hopelessness of hope, and had

accepted his fate. Not so his father. He pleaded with all his soul for

his son's life. But he touched no heart there. The jury had decided on

the death-sentence before they left their seats.

And in that locality, and at that time, there was no delay in carrying

it out. It would be inconvenient to bring together again a sufficient

number of witnesses, and equally inconvenient to guard a prisoner for

any length of time. David was to die at sunset.

Three hours yet remained to the miserable father. He threw aside all

pride and all restraint. Remorse and tenderness wrung his heart. But

these last hours had a comfort no others in their life ever had. What

confessions of mutual faults were made! What kisses and forgivenesses

were exchanged! At last the two poor souls who had dwelt in the chill of

mistakes and ignorance knew that they loved each other. Sometimes the

Lord grants such sudden unfoldings to souls long closed. They are of

those royal compassions which astonish even the angels.

When his time was nearly over, David pushed a piece of paper toward his

father. "It is my last request," he said, looking into his face with

eyes whose entreaty was pathetic. "You must grant it, father, hard as it

is."

Lorimer's hand trembled as he took the paper, but his face turned pale

as ashes when he read the contents.

"I canna, I canna do it," he whispered.

"Yes, you will, father. It is the last favor I shall ask of you."

The request was indeed a bitter one; so bitter that David had not dared

to voice it. It was this--

"Father, be my executioner. Do not let me be hung. The rope is all I

dread in death; ere it touch me, let your rifle end my life."

For a few moments Lorimer sat like a man turned to stone. Then he rose

and went to the jury. They were sitting together under some mulberry

trees, smoking. Naturally silent, they had scarcely spoken since their

verdict. Grave, fierce men, they were far from being cruel; they had no

pleasure in the act which they believed to be their duty.

Lorimer went from one to the other and made known his son's request. He

pleaded, "That as David had shot Whaley, justice would be fully

satisfied in meting out the same death to the murderer as the victim."

But one man, a ranchero of great influence and wealth, answered that he

must oppose such a request. It was the rope, he thought, made the

punishment. He hoped no Texan feared a bullet. A clean, honorable death

like that was for a man who had never wronged his manhood. Every

rascally horse thief or Mexican assassin would demand a shot if they

were given a precedent. And arguments that would have been essentially

false in some localities had a compelling weight in that one. The men

gravely nodded their heads in assent, and Lorimer knew that any further

pleading was in vain. Yet when he returned to his son, he clasped his

hand and looked into his eyes, and David understood that his request

would be granted.

Just as the sun dropped the sheriff entered the room. He took the

prisoner's arm and walked quietly out with him. There was a coil of rope

on his other arm, and David cast his eyes on it with horror and

abhorrence, and then looked at his father; and the look was returned

with one of singular steadiness. When they reached the little grove of

mulberries, the men, one by one, laid down their pipes and slowly rose.

There was a large live oak at the end of the enclosure, and to it the

party walked.

Here David was asked "if he was guilty?" and he acknowledged the sin:

and when further asked "if he thought he had been fairly dealt with, and

deserved death?" he answered, "that he was quite satisfied, and was

willing to pay the penalty of his crime."

Oh, how handsome he looked at this moment to his heart-broken father!

His bare head was just touched by the rays of the setting sun behind

him; his fine face, calm and composed, wore even a faint air of

exultation. At this hour the travel-stained garments clothed him with a

touching and not ignoble pathos. Involuntarily they told of the weary

days and nights of despairing flight, which after all had been useless.

Lorimer asked if he might pray, and there was a simultaneous though

silent motion of assent. Every man bared his head, while the wretched

father repeated the few verses of entreaty and hope which at that awful

hour were his own strength and comfort. This service occupied but a few

minutes; just as it ended out of the dead stillness rose suddenly a

clear, joyful thrilling burst of song from a mocking bird in the

branches above. David looked up with a wonderful light on his face;

perhaps it meant more to him than anyone else understood.

The next moment the sheriff was turning back the flannel collar which

covered the strong, pillar-like throat. In that moment David sought his

father's eyes once more, smiled faintly, and called "Father! _Now_!" As

the words reached the father's ears, the bullet reached the son's heart.

He fell without a moan ere the rope had touched him. It was the father's

groan which struck every heart like a blow; and there was a grandeur of

suffering about him which no one thought of resisting.

He walked to his child's side, and kneeling down closed the eyes, and

wept and prayed over him as a mother over her first-born. They were all

fathers around him; not one of them but suffered with him. Silently they

untied their horses and rode away; no one had the heart to say a word of

dissent. If they had, Lorimer had reached a point far beyond care of

man's approval or disapproval in the matter; for a great sorrow is

indifferent to all outside itself.

When he lifted his head he was alone. The sheriff was waiting at the

house door, Plato stood at a little distance, weeping. He motioned to

him to approach, and in a few words understood that he had with him a

companion and a rude bier. They laid the body upon it, and the sheriff

having satisfied himself that the last penalty had been fully paid,

Lorimer was permitted to claim his dead. He took him up to his own room

and laid him on his own bed, and passed the night by his side. The dead

opened the eyes of the living, and in that solemn companionship he saw

all that he had been blind to for so many years. Then he understood what

it must be to sit in the silent halls of eternal despair, and count over

and over the wasted blessings of love and endure the agony of unavailing

repentance.

In the morning he knew he must tell Lulu all; and this duty he dreaded.

But in some way the girl already knew the full misery of the tragedy.

Part she had divined, and part she had gathered from the servants' faces

and words. She was quite aware _what_ was in her uncle's lonely room.

Just as he was thinking of the hard necessity of going to her, she came

to the door. For the first time in his life he called her "My daughter,"

and stooped and kissed her. He had a letter for her--David's dying

message of love. He put it in her hand, and left her alone with the

dead.

At sunrise a funeral took place. In that climate the necessity was an

urgent one. Plato had dug the grave under a tree in the little clearing

in the cypress swamp. It had been a favorite place of resort; there Lulu

had often brought her work or book, and passed long happy hours with the

slain youth. She followed his corpse to the grave in a tearless apathy,

more pitiful than the most frantic grief. Lorimer took her on his arm,

the servants in long single file, silent and terrified, walked behind

them. The sun was shining, but the chilly wind blew the withered leaves

across the still prostrate figure, as it lay upon the ground, where last

it had stood in all the beauty and unreasoning passion of youth.

When the last rites were over the servants went wailing home again,

their doleful, monotonous chant seeming to fill the whole spaces of air

with lamentation. But neither Lorimer nor Lulu spoke a word. The girl

was white and cold as marble, and absolutely irresponsive to her uncle's

unusual tenderness. Evidently she had not forgiven him. And as the

winter went wearily on she gradually drew more and more within her own

consciousness. Lorimer seldom saw her. She was soon very ill, and kept

her room entirely. He sent for eminent physicians, he surrounded her

with marks of thoughtful love and care; but quietly, as a flower fades,

she died.

One night she sent for him. "Uncle," she said, "I am going away very

soon, now. If I have been hard and unjust to you, forgive me. And I want

your promise about my sister's children; will you give me it?"

He winced visibly, and remained silent.

"There are six boys and two girls--they are poor, ignorant and unhappy.

They are under very bad influences. For David's sake and my sake you

must see that they are brought up right. There need be no mistakes this

time; for two wrecked lives you may save eight. You will do it, uncle?"

"I will do my best, dear."

"I know you will. Send Plato to San Antonio for them at once. You will

need company soon."

"Do you think you are dying, dear?"

"I know I am dying."

"And how is a' wi' you anent what is beyond death?"

She pointed with a bright smile to the New Testament by her side, and

then closed her eyes wearily. She appeared so exhausted that he could

press the question no further. And the next morning she had "gone

away"--gone so silently and peacefully that Aunt Cassie, who was sitting

by her side, knew not when she departed. He went and looked at her. The

fair young face had a look austere and sorrowful, as if life had been

too sore a burden for her. His anguish was great, but it was God's

doing. What was there for him to say?

The charge that she had left him he faithfully kept--not very cheerfully

at first, perhaps, and often feeling it to be a very heavy care; but he

persevered, and the reward came. The children grew and prospered; they

loved him, and he learned to love them, so much, finally, that he gave

them his own name, and suffered them to call him father.

As the country settled, and little towns grew up around him, the tragedy

of his earlier life was forgotten by the world, but it was ever present

to his own heart; for though love and sorrow mellowed and chastened the

stern creed in which he believed with all his soul, he had many an hour

of spiritual agony concerning the beloved ones who had died and made no

sign. Not till he got almost within the heavenly horizon did he

understand that the Divine love and mercy is without limitations; and

that He who could say, "Let there be light," could also say, "Thy sins

be forgiven thee;" and the pardoned child, or ever he was aware, be come

to the holy land: for--

"Down in the valley of death

A cross is standing plain;

Where strange and awful the shadows sleep,

And the ground has a deep red stain.

This cross uplifted there

Forbids, with voice Divine,

Our anguished hearts to break for the dead

Who have died and made no sign.

As they turned at length from us,

Dear eyes that were heavy and dim,

May have met his look, who was lifted there,

May be sleeping safe in Him."

THE SEVEN WISE MEN OF PRESTON.

Let me introduce to our readers seven of the wisest men of the present

century--the seven drafters and signers of the first teetotal pledge.

The movement originated in the mind of Joseph Livesey, and a short

consideration of the circumstances and surroundings of his useful career

will give us the best insight into the necessities and influences which

gave it birth. He was born near Preston, in Lancashire, in the year

1795; the beginning of an era in English history which scarcely has a

parallel for national suffering. The excitement of the French Revolution

still agitated all classes, and, commercial distress and political

animosities made still more terrible the universal scarcity of food and

the prostration of the manufacturing business.

His father and mother died early, and he was left to the charge of his

grandfather, who, unfortunately, abandoned his farm and became a cotton

spinner. Lancashire men had not then been whetted by daily attrition

with steam to their present keen and shrewd character, and the elder

Livesey lost all he possessed. The records of cotton printing and

spinning mention with honor the Messrs. Livesey, of Preston, as the

first who put into practice Bell's invention of cylindrical printing of

calicoes in 1785; but whether the firms are identical or not I have no

certain knowledge. It shows, however, that they were a race inclined to

improvements and ready to test an advance movement.

That Joseph Livesey's youth was a hard and bitter one there is no doubt.

The price of flour continued for years fabulously high; so much so that

wealthy people generally pledged themselves to reduce their use of it

one-third, and puddings or cakes were considered on any table, a sinful

extravagance. When the government was offering large premiums to farmers

for raising extra quantities and detailing soldiers to assist in

threshing it, poor bankrupt spinners must have had a hard struggle for a

bare existence.

Indeed, education was hardly thought possible, and, though Joseph

managed, "by hook or crook," to learn how to read, write and count a

little, it was through difficulties and discouragements that would have

been fatal to any ordinary intelligence or will.

Until he was twenty-one years of age he worked patiently at his loom,

which stood in one corner of a cellar, so cold and damp that its walls

were constantly wet. But he was hopeful, and even in those dark days

dared to fall in love. On attaining his majority, he received a legacy

of £30. Then he married the poor girl who had made brighter his hard

apprenticeship, and lived happily with her for fifty years.

But the troubles that had begun before his birth--and which did not

lighten until after the passing of the Reform Bill, in June, 1832--had

then attained a proportion which taxed the utmost energies of both

private charities and the national government.

The year of Joseph Livesey's marriage saw the passage of the Corn Laws,

and the first of those famous mass meetings in Peter's Field, near

Manchester, which undoubtedly molded the future temper and status of the

English weavers and spinners. From one of these meetings, the following

year, thousands of starving men started _en masse_ to London. They were

followed by the military and brought back for punishment or died

miserably on the road, though 500 of them reached Macclesfield and a

smaller number Derby.

But Livesey, though probably suffering as keenly as others, joined no

body of rioters. He borrowed a sovereign and bought two cheeses; then

cutting them up into small lots, he retailed them on the streets,

Saturday afternoons, when the men were released from work. The profit

from this small investment exceeding what it was possible for him to

make at his loom, he continued the trade, and from this small beginning

founded a business, and made a fortune which has enabled him to devote a

long life to public usefulness and benevolence.

But his little craft must have needed skillful piloting, for his family

increased rapidly during the disastrous years between 1816 and 1832; so

disastrous that in 1825-26 the Bank of England was obliged to authorize

the Chamber of Commerce to make loans to individuals carrying on large

works of from £500 to £10,000. Bankruptcies were enormous, trade was

everywhere stagnant, £60,000 were subscribed for meal and peas to feed

the starving, and the government issued 40,000 articles of clothing. The

quarrels between masters and spinners were more and more bitter, mills

were everywhere burnt, and at Ashton in one day 30,000 "hands" turned

out.

During these dreadful years every thoughtful person had noticed how much

misery and ill-will was caused by the constant thronging to public

houses, and temperance societies had been at work among the angry men of

the working classes. Joseph Livesey had been actively engaged in this

work. But these first efforts of the temperance cause were directed

entirely against spirits. The use of wine and ale was considered then a

necessity of life. Brewing was in most families as regular and important

a duty as baking; the youngest children had their mug of ale; and

clergymen were spoken of without reproach as "one," "two" or

"three-bottle men."

But Joseph Livesey soon became satisfied that these half measures were

doing no good at all, and in 1831 a little circumstance decided him to

take a stronger position. He had to go to Blackburn to see a person on

business; and, as a matter of course, whiskey was put on the table.

Livesey for the first time tasted it, and was very ill in consequence.

He had then a large family of boys, and both for their sakes and that of

others, he resolved to halt no longer between two opinions.

He spoke at once in all the temperance meetings of the folly of partial

reforms, pointed out the hundreds of relapses, and urged upon the

association the duty of absolute abstinence. His zeal warmed with his

efforts and he insisted that in the matter of drinking "the golden mean"

was the very sin for which the Laodicean Church had been cursed.

The disputes were very angry and bitter; far more so than we at this

day can believe possible, unless we take into account the universal

national habits and its poetic and domestic associations with every

phase of English life. But he gradually gained adherents to his views

though it was not until the following year he was able to take another

step forward.

It was on Thursday, August 23, 1832, that the first solemn pledge of

total abstinence was taken. That afternoon Joseph Livesey, pondering the

matter in his mind, saw John King pass his shop. He asked him to come in

and talk the subject over with him. Before they parted Livesey asked

King if he would join him in a pledge to abstain forever from all

liquors; and King said he would. Livesey then wrote out a form and,

laying it before King, said: "Thee sign it first, lad." King signed it,

Livesey followed him, and the two men clasped hands and stood pledged to

one of the greatest works humanity has ever undertaken.

A special meeting was then called, and after a stormy debate, the main

part of the audience left, a small number remaining to continue the

argument. But the end of it was that seven men came forward and drew up

and signed the following document, which is still preserved:

"We agree to abstain from all liquors of an intoxicating quality,

whether they be ale, porter, wine or ardent spirits, except as

medicine.

"JOHN GRATREX,

EDWARD DICKINSON,

JOHN BROADBENT,

JNO. SMITH,

JOSEPH LIVESEY,

DAVID ANDERTON,

JNO. KING."

All these reformers were virtually _working_ men, though most of them

rose to positions of respect and affluence. Still the humility of the

origin of the movement was long a source of contempt, and its members,

within my own recollection, had the stigma of vulgarity almost in right

of their convictions.

But God takes hands with good men's efforts, and the cause prospered

just where it was most needed--among the operatives and "the common

people." One of these latter, a hawker of fish, called Richard Turner,

stood, in a very amusing and unexpected way, sponsor for the society.

Richard was fluent of speech, and, if his language was the broadest

patois, it was, nevertheless, of the most convincing character. He

always spoke well, and, if authorized words failed him, readily coined

what he needed. One night while making a very fervent speech, he said:

"No half-way measures here. Nothing but the _te-te total_ will do."

Mr. Livesey at once seized the word, and, rising, proposed it as the

name of the society. The proposition was received with enthusiastic

cheering, and these "root and branch" temperance men were thenceforward

known as teetotalers. Richard remained all his life a sturdy advocate of

the cause, and when he died, in 1846, I made one of the hundreds and

thousands that crowded the streets of the beautiful town of Preston and

followed him to his grave. The stone above it chronicles shortly his

name and death, and the fact that he was the author of a word known now

wherever Christianity and civilization are known.

MARGARET SINCLAIR'S SILENT MONEY.

"It was ma luck, Sinclair, an' I couldna win by it."

"Ha'vers! It was David Vedder's whiskey that turned ma boat

tapsalteerie, Geordie Twatt."

"Thou had better blame Hacon; he turned the boat _Widdershins_ an' what

fule doesna ken that it is evil luck to go contrarie to the sun?"

"It is waur luck to have a drunken, superstitious pilot. Twatt, that

Norse blood i' thy veins is o'er full o' freets. Fear God, an' mind thy

wark, an' thou needna speir o' the sun what gate to turn the boat."

"My Norse blood willna stand ony Scot stirring it up, Sinclair. I come

o' a mighty kind--"

"Tush, man! Mules mak' an unco' full about their ancestors having been

horses. It has come to this, Geordie: thou must be laird o' theesel'

before I'll trust thee again with ony craft o' mine." Then Peter

Sinclair lifted his papers, and, looking the discharged sailor steadily

in the face, bid him "go on his penitentials an' think things o'er a

bit."

Geordie Twatt went sullenly out, but Peter was rather pleased with

himself; he believed that he had done his duty in a satisfactory manner.

And if a man was in a good temper with himself, it was just the kind of

even to increase his satisfaction. The gray old town of Kirkwall lay in

supernatural glory, the wondrous beauty of the mellow gloaming blending

with soft green and rosy-red spears of light that shot from east to

west, or charged upward to the zenith. The great herring fleet outside

the harbor was as motionless as "a painted _fleet_ upon a painted

ocean"--the men were sleeping or smoking upon the piers--not a foot fell

upon the flagged streets, and the only murmur of sound was round the

public fountains, where a few women were perched on the bowl's edge,

knitting and gossiping.

Peter Sinclair was, perhaps, not a man inclined to analyze such things,

but they had their influence over him; for, as he drifted slowly home in

his skiff, he began to pity Geordie's four motherless babies, and to

wonder if he had been as patient with him as he might have been. "An'

yet," he murmured, "there's the loss on the goods, an' the loss o' time,

and the boat to steek afresh forbye the danger to life! Na, na, I'm no

called upon to put life i' peril for a glass o' whiskey."

Then he lifted his head, and there, on the white sands, stood his

daughter Margaret. He was conscious of a great thrill of pride as he

looked at her, for Margaret Sinclair, even among the beautiful women of

the Orcades, was most beautiful of all. In a few minutes he had fastened

his skiff at a little jetty, and was walking with her over the springy

heath toward a very pretty house of white stone. It was his own house,

and he was proud of it also, but not half so proud of the house as of

its tiny garden; for there, with great care and at great cost, he had

managed to rear a few pansies, snowdrops, lilies of the valley, and

other hardy English flowers. Margaret and he stooped lovingly over them,

and it was wonderful to see how Peter's face softened, and how gently

the great rough hands, that had been all day handling smoked geese and

fish, touched these frail, trembling blossoms.

"Eh, lassie! I could most greet wi' joy to see the bonnie bit things;

when I can get time I'se e'en go wi' thee to Edinburgh; I'd like weel to

see such fields an' gardens an' trees as I hear thee tell on."

Then Margaret began again to describe the greenhouses, the meadows and

wheat fields, the forests of oaks and beeches she had seen during her

school days in Edinburgh. Peter listened to her as if she was telling a

wonderful fairy story, but he liked it, and, as he cut slice after slice

from his smoked goose, he enjoyed her talk of roses and apple-blossoms,

and smacked his lips for the thousandth time when she described a peach,

and said, "It tasted, father, as if it had been grown in the Garden of

Eden."

After such conversations Peter was always stern and strict. He felt an

actual anger at Adam and Eve; their transgression became a keenly

personal affair, for he had a very vivid sense of the loss they had

entailed upon him. The vague sense of wrong made him try to fix it, and,

after a short reflection, he said in an injured tone:

"I wonder when Ronald's coming hame again?"

"Ronald is all right, father."

"A' wrong, thou means, lassie. There's three vessels waiting to be

loaded, an' the books sae far ahint that I kenna whether I'm losing or

saving. Where is he?"

"Not far away. He will be at the Stones of Stennis this week some time

with an Englishman he fell in with at Perth."

"I wonder, now, was it for my sins or his ain that the lad has sic auld

world notions? There isna a pagan altar-stane 'tween John O'Groat's an'

Lambaness he doesna run after. I wish he were as anxious to serve in

the Lord's temple--I would build him a kirk an' a manse for it."

"We'll be proud of Ronald yet, father. The Sinclairs have been fighting

and making money for centuries: it is a sign of grace to have a scholar

and a poet at last among them."

Peter grumbled. His ideas of poetry were limited by the Scotch psalms,

and, as for scholarship, he asserted that the books were better kept

when he used his own method of tallies and crosses. Then he remembered

Geordie Twatt's misfortune, and had his little grumble out on this

subject: "Boat and goods might hae been a total loss, no to speak o' the

lives o' Geordie an' the four lads wi' him; an' a' for the sake o'

liquor!"

Margaret looked at the brandy bottle standing at her father's elbow,

and, though she did not speak, the look annoyed Peter.

"You arna to even my glass wi' his, lassie. I ken when to stop--Geordie

never does."

"It is a common fault in more things than drinking, father. When Magnus

Hay has struck the first blow he is quite ready to draw his dirk and

strike the last one; and Paul Snackole, though he has made gold and to

spare, will just go on making gold until death takes the balances out of

his hands. There are few folks that in all things offend not."

She looked so noble standing before him, so fair and tall, her hair

yellow as down, her eyes cool and calm and blue as night; her whole

attitude so serene, assured and majestic, that Peter rose uneasily, left

his glass unfinished, and went away with a very confused "good night."

In the morning the first thing he did when he reached his office, was to

send for the offending sailor.

"Geordie, my Margaret says there are plenty folk as bad as thou art; so,

thou'lt just see to the steeking o' the boat, an' be ready to sail

her--or upset her--i' ten days again."

"I'll keep her right side up for Margaret Sinclair's sake--tell her I

said that, Master."

"I'se do no promising for thee Geordie. Between wording an' working is a

lang road, but Kirkwall an' Stromness kens thee for an honest lad, an'

thou wilt mind this--_things promised are things due_."

Insensibly this act of forbearance lightened Peter's whole day; he was

good-tempered with the world, and the world returned the compliment.

When night came, and he watched for Margaret on the sands, he was

delighted to see that Ronald was with her. The lad had come home and

nothing was now remembered against him. That night it was Ronald told

him fairy-stories of great cities and universities, of miles of books

and pictures, of wonderful machinery and steam engines, of delicious

things to eat and drink. Peter felt as if he must start southward by the

next mail packet, but in the morning he thought more unselfishly.

"There are forty families depending on me sticking to the shop an' the

boats, Ronald, an' I canna go pleasuring till there is ane to step into

my shoes."

Ronald Sinclair had all the fair, stately beauty and noble presence of

his sister, but yet there was some lack about him easier to feel than to

define. Perhaps no one was unconscious of this lack except Margaret; but

women have a grand invention where their idols are concerned, and create

readily for them every excellency that they lack. Her own two years'

study in an Edinburgh boarding-school had been very superficial, and she

knew it; but this wonderful Ronald could read Homer and Horace, could

play and sketch, and recite Shakespeare and write poetry. If he could

have done none of these things, if he had been dull and ugly, and

content to trade in fish and wool, she would still have loved him

tenderly; how much more then, this handsome Antinous, whom she credited

with all the accomplishments of Apollo.

Ronald needed all her enthusiastic support. He had left heavy college

bills, and he had quite made up his mind that he would not be a minister

and that he would be a lawyer. He could scarcely have decided on two

things more offensive to his father. Only for the hope of having a

minister in the family had Peter submitted to his son's continued

demands for money. For this end he had bought books, and paid for all

kinds of teachers and tours, and sighed over the cost of Ronald's

different hobbies. And now he was not only to have a grievous

disappointment, but also a great offence, for Peter Sinclair shared

fully in the Arcadean dislike and distrust of lawyers, and would have

been deeply offended at any one requiring their aid in any business

transaction with him.

His son's proposal to be a "writer" he took almost as a personal insult.

He had formed his own opinion of the profession and the opinion of any

other person who would say a word in favor of a lawyer he considered of

no value. Margaret had a hard task before her, that she succeeded at all

was due to her womanly tact. Ronald and his father simply clashed

against each other and exchanged pointed truths which hurt worse than

wounds. At length, when the short Arcadean summer was almost over,

Margaret won a hard and reluctant consent.

"The lad is fit for naething better, I suppose"--and the old man turned

away to shed the bitterest tears of his whole life. They shocked

Margaret; she was terrified at her success, and, falling humbly at his

feet, she besought him to forget and forgive her importunities, and to

take back a gift baptized with such ominous tears.

But Peter Sinclair, having been compelled to take such a step, was not

the man to retrace it; he shook his head in a dour, hopeless way: "He

couldna say 'yes' an' 'no' in a breath, an' Ronald must e'en drink as he

brewed."

These struggles, so real and sorrowful to his father and sister, Ronald

had no sympathy with--not that he was heartless, but that he had taught

himself to believe they were the result of ignorance of the world and

old-fashioned prejudices. He certainly intended to become a great

man--perhaps a judge--and, when he was one of "the Lords," he had no

doubt his father would respect his disobedience. He knew his father as

little as he knew himself. Peter Sinclair was only Peter Sinclair's

opinions incorporate; and he could no more have changed them than he

could have changed the color of his eyes or the shape of his nose; and

the difference between a common lawyer and a "lord," in his eyes, would

only have been the difference between a little oppressor and a great

one.

For the first time in all her life Margaret suspected a flaw in this

perfect crystal of a brother; his gay debonnaire manner hurt her. Even

if her father's objections were ignorant prejudices, they were positive

convictions to him, and she did not like to see them smiled at,

entertained by the cast of the eye, and the put-by of the turning hand.

But loving women are the greatest of philistines: knock their idol down

daily, rob it of every beauty, cut off its hands and head, and they will

still "set it up in its place," and fall down and worship it.

Undoubtedly Margaret was one of the blindest of these characters, but

the world may pause before it scorns them too bitterly. It is faith of

this sublime integrity which, brought down to personal experience,

believes, endures, hopes, sacrifices and loves on to the end, winning

finally what never would have been given to a more prudent and

reasonable devotion. So, if Margaret had her doubts, she put them

arbitrarily down, and sent her brother away with manifold tokens of her

love--among them, with a check on the Kirkwall Bank for sixty pounds,

the whole of her personal savings.

To this frugal Arcadean maid it seemed a large sum, but she hoped by the

sacrifice to clear off Ronald's college debts, and thus enable him to

start his new race unweighted. It was but a mouthful to each creditor,

but it put them off for a time, and Ronald was not a youth inclined to

"take thought" for their "to-morrow."

He had been entered for four years' study with the firm of Wilkes &

Brechen, writers and conveyancers, of the city of Glasgow. Her father

had paid the whole fee down, and placed in the Western Bank to his

credit four hundred pounds for his four years' support. Whatever Ronald

thought of the provision, Peter considered it a magnificent income, and

it had cost him a great struggle to give up at once, and for no evident

return, so much of his hard-earned gold. To Ronald he said nothing of

this reluctance; he simply put vouchers for both transactions in his

hand, and asked him to "try an' spend the siller as weel as it had been

earned."

But to Margaret he fretted not a little. "Fourteen hun'red pounds a'

thegither, dawtie," he said in a tearful voice. "I warked early an' late

through mony a year for it; an' it is gane a' at once, though I hae

naught but words an' promises for it. I ken, Margaret, that I am an auld

farrant trader, but I'se aye say that it is a bad well into which are

must put water."

When Ronald went, the summer went too. It became necessary to remove at

once to their rock-built house in one of the narrow streets of

Kirkwall. Margaret was glad of the change; her father could come into

the little parlor behind the shop any time in the day and smoke his pipe

beside her. He needed this consolation sorely; his son's conduct had

grieved him far more deeply than he would allow, and Margaret often saw

him gazing southward over the stormy Pentland Frith with a very mournful

face.

But a good heart soon breaks bad fortune and Peter had a good heart,

sound and sweet and true to his fellow-creatures and full of faith in

God. It is true that his creed was of the very strictest and sternest;

but men are always better than their theology and Margaret knew from the

Scriptures chosen for their household worship that in the depth and

stillness of his soul his human fatherhood had anchored fast to the

fatherhood of God.

Arcadean winters are long and dreary, but no one need much pity the

Arcadeans; they have learned how to make them the very festival of

social life. And, in spite of her anxiety about Ronald, Margaret

thoroughly enjoyed this one--perhaps the more because Captain Olave

Thorkald spent two months of it with them in Kirkwall. There had been a

long attachment between the young soldier and Margaret; and having

obtained his commission, he had come to ask also for the public

recognition of their engagement. Margaret was rarely beautiful and

rarely happy, and she carried with a charming and kindly grace the full

cup of her felicity. The Arcadeans love to date from a good year, and

all her life afterward Margaret reckoned events from this pleasant

winter.

Peter Sinclair's house being one of the largest in Kirkwall, was a

favorite gathering place, and Peter took his full share in all the

home-like, innocent amusements which beguiled the long, dreary nights.

No one in Orkney or Zetland could recite Ossian with more passion and

tenderness, and he enjoyed his little triumph over the youngsters who

emulated him. No one could sing a Scotch song with more humor, and few

of the lads and lassies could match Peter in a blithe foursome reel or a

rattling strathspey. Some, indeed, thought that good Dr. Ogilvie had a

more graceful spring and a longer breath, but Peter always insisted that

his inferiority to the minister was a voluntary concession to the

Dominie's superior dignity. It was, however, a rivalry that always ended

in a firmer grip at parting. These little festivals, in which young and

old freely mingled, cultivated to perfection the best and kindest

feelings of both classes. Age mellowed to perfect sweetness in the

sunshine of youthful gayety, and youth learned from age how at once to

be merry and wise.

At length June arrived; and though winter lingered in _spates_, the song

of the skylark and the thrush heralded the spring. When the dream-like

voice of the cuckoo should be heard once more, Peter and Margaret had

determined to take a long summer trip. They were to go first to Perth,

where Captain Thorkald was stationed, and then to Glasgow and see

Ronald. But God had planned another journey for Peter, even one to a

"land very far off." A disease, to which he had been subject at

intervals for many years, suddenly assumed a fatal character and Peter

needed no one to tell him that his days were numbered.

He set his house in order, and then, going with Margaret to his summer

dwelling, waited quietly. He said little on the subject, and as long as

he was able, gave himself up with the delight of a child to watching the

few flowers in his garden; but still one solemn, waylaying thought made

these few last weeks of life peculiarly hushed and sacred. Ronald had

been sent for, and the old man, with the clear prescience that sometimes

comes before death, divined much and foresaw much he did not care to

speak about--only that in some subtle way he made Margaret perceive that

Ronald was to be cared for and watched over, and that to her this

charge was committed.

Before the summer was quite over Peter Sinclair went away. In his

tarrying by the eternal shore he became, as it were, purified of the

body, and one lovely night, when gloaming and dawning mingled, and the

lark was thrilling the midnight skies, he heard the Master call him, and

promptly answered, "Here am I." Then "Death, with sweet enlargement, did

dismiss him hence."

He had been considered a rich man in Orkney, and, therefore, Ronald--who

had become accustomed to a Glasgow standard of wealth--was much

disappointed. His whole estate was not worth over six thousand pounds;

about two thousand pounds of this was in gold, the rest was invested in

his houses in Kirkwall, and in a little cottage in Stromness, where

Peter's wife had been born. He gave to Ronald £1800, and to Margaret

£200 and the life rent of the real property. Ronald had already received

£1400, and, therefore, had no cause of complaint, but somehow he felt as

if he had been wronged. He was older than his sister, and the son of the

house, and use and custom were not in favor of recognizing daughters as

having equal rights. But he kept such thoughts to himself, and when he

went back to Glasgow took with him solid proof of his sister's

devotion.

It was necessary, now, for Margaret to make a great change in her life.

She determined to remove to Stromness and occupy the little four-roomed

cottage that had been her mother's. It stood close to that of Geordie

Twatt, and she felt that in any emergency she was thus sure of one

faithful friend. "A lone woman" in Margaret's position has in these days

numberless objects of interest of which Margaret never dreamed. She

would have thought it a kind of impiety to advise her minister, or

meddle in church affairs. These simple parents attended themselves to

the spiritual training of their children--there was no necessity for

Sunday Schools, and they did not exist. She was not one of those women

whom their friends call "beings," and who have deep and mysterious

feelings that interpret themselves in poems and thrilling stories. She

had no taste for philosophy or history or social science, and had been

taught to regard novels as dangerously sinful books.

But no one need imagine that she was either wretched or idle. In the

first place, she took life much more calmly and slowly than we do; a

very little pleasure or employment went a long way. She read her Bible

and helped her old servant Helga to keep the house in order. She had

her flowers to care for,--and her brother and lover to write to. She

looked after Geordie Twatt's little motherless lads, went to church and

to see her friends, and very often had her friends to see her. It

happened to be a very stormy winter, and the mails were often delayed

for weeks together. This was her only trouble. Ronald's letters were

more and more unsatisfactory; he was evidently unhappy and dissatisfied

and heartily tired of his new study. Posts were so irregular that often

their letters seemed to be playing at cross purposes. She determined as

soon as spring opened to go and have a straightforward talk with him.

So the following June Geordie Twatt took her in his boat to Thurso,

where Captain Thorkald was waiting for her. They had not met since Peter

Sinclair's death, and that event had materially affected their

prospects. Before it their marriage had been a possible joy in some far

future; now there was no greater claim on her care and love than the

captain's, and he urged their early marriage.

Margaret had her two hundred pounds with her, and she promised to buy

her "plenishing" during her visit to Glasgow. In those days girls made

their own trousseau, sewing into every garment solemn and tender hopes

and joys. Margaret thought that proper attention to this dear stitching

as well as proper respect for her father's memory, asked of her yet at

least another year's delay; and for the present Captain Thorkald thought

it best not to urge her further.

Ronald received his sister very joyfully. He had provided lodgings for

her with their father's old correspondent, Robert Gorie, a tea merchant

in the Cowcaddens. The Cowcaddens was then a very respectable street,

and Margaret was quite pleased with her quarters. She was not pleased

with Ronald, however. He avowed himself thoroughly disgusted with the

law, and declared his intention of forfeiting his fee and joining his

friend Walter Cashell in a manufacturing scheme.

Margaret could _feel_ that he was all wrong, but she could not reason

about a business of which she knew nothing, and Ronald took his own way.

But changing and bettering are two different things, and, though he was

always talking of his "good luck" and his "good bargains", Margaret was

very uneasy. Perhaps Robert Gorie was partly to blame for this; his

pawky face and shrewd little eyes made visible dissents to all such

boasts; nor did he scruple to say, "Guid luck needs guid elbowing,

Ronald, an' it is at the _guid bargains_ I aye pause an' ponder."

The following winter was a restless, unhappy one; Ronald was either

painfully elated or very dull; and, soon after the New Year, Walter

Cashell fell into bad health, went to the West Indies, and left Ronald

with the whole business to manage. He soon now began to come to his

sister, not only for advice, but for money. Margaret believed at first

that she was only supplying Walter's sudden loss, but when her cash was

all gone, and Ronald urged her to mortgage her rents she resolutely shut

her ears to all his plausible promises, and refused to "throw more good

money after bad."

It was the first ill-blood between them, and it hurt Margaret sorely.

She was glad when the fine weather came, and she could escape to her

island home, for Ronald was cool to her, and said cruel things of

Captain Thorkald, for whose sake he declared his sister had refused to

help him.

One day, at the end of the following August, when most of the

towns-people--men and women--had gone to the moss to cut the winter's

peat, she saw Geordie Twatt coming toward the house. Something about his

appearance troubled her, and she went to the open door and stood waiting

for him.

"What is it, Geordie?"

"I am bidden to tell thee, Margaret Sinclair, to be at the Stanes o'

Stennis to-night at eleven o'clock."

"Who trysts me there, Geordie, at such an hour?"

"Thy brother; but thou'lt come--yes, thou wilt."

Margaret's very lips turned white as she answered: "I'll be there--see

thou art, too."

"Sure as death! If naebody spiers after me, thou needna say I was here

at a', thou needna."

Margaret understood the caution, and nodded her head. She could not

speak, and all day long she wandered about like a soul in a restless

dream.

Fortunately, every one was weary at night, and went early to rest, and

she found little difficulty in getting outside the town without notice;

and one of the ponies on the common took her speedily across the moor.

Late as it was, twilight lingered over the silent moor, with its old

Pictish mounds and burial places, giving them an indescribable aspect of

something weird and eerie. No one could have been insensible to the

mournful, brooding light and the unearthly stillness, and Margaret was

trembling with a supernatural terror as she stood amid the solemn circle

of gray stones and looked over the lake of Stennis and the low, brown

hills of Harray.

From behind one of these gigantic pillars Ronald came toward

her--Ronald, and yet not Ronald. He was dressed as a common sailor, and

otherwise shamefully disguised. There was no time to soften things--he

told his miserable story in a few plain words:

"His business had become so entangled that he knew not which way to

turn, and, sick of the whole affair, he had taken a passage for

Australia, and then forged a note on the Western Bank for £900. He had

hoped to be far at sea with his ill-gotten money before the fraud was

discovered, but suspicion had gathered around him so quickly, that he

had not even dared to claim his passage. Then he fled north, and,

fortunately, discovering Geordie's boat at Wick, had easily prevailed on

him to put off at once with him."

What cowards sin makes of us! Margaret had seen this very lad face death

often, among the sunken rocks and cruel surfs, that he might save the

life of a ship-wrecked sailor, and now, rather than meet the creditors

whom he had wronged, he had committed a robbery and was flying from the

gallows.

She was shocked and stunned, and stood speechless, wringing her hands

and moaning pitifully. Her brother grew impatient. Often the first

result of a bitter sense of sin is to make the sinner peevish and

irritable.

"Margaret," he said, almost angrily, "I came to bid you farewell, and

to promise you, _by my father's name_! to retrieve all this wrong. If

you can speak a kind word speak it, for God's sake--if not, I must go

without it!"

Then she fell upon his neck, and, amid sobs and kisses, said all that

love so sorely and suddenly tried could say. He could not even soothe

her anguish by any promise to write, but he did promise to come back to

her sooner or later with restitution in his hand. All she could do now

for this dear brother was to call Geordie to her side and put him in his

care; taking what consolation she could from his assurance that "he

would keep him out at sea until the search was cold, and if followed

carry him into some of the dangerous 'races' between the islands." If

any sailor could keep his boat above water in them, she knew Geordie

could; _and if not_--she durst follow that thought no further, but,

putting her hands before her face, stood praying, while the two men

pulled silently away in the little skiff that had brought them up the

outlet connecting the lake of Stennis with the sea. Margaret would have

turned away from Ronald's open grave less heart-broken.

It was midnight now, but her real terror absorbed all imaginary ones;

she did not even call a pony, but with swift, even steps walked back to

Stromness. Ere she had reached it, she had decided what was to be done,

and next day she left Kirkwall in the mail packet for the mainland.

Thence by night and day she traveled to Glasgow, and a week after her

interview with Ronald she was standing before the directors of the

defrauded bank and offering them the entire proceeds of her Kirkwall

property until the debt was paid.

The bank had thoroughly respected Peter Sinclair, and his daughter's

earnest, decided offer won their ready sympathy. It was accepted without

any question of interest, though she could not hope to clear off the

obligation in less than nine years. She did not go near any of her old

acquaintances; she had no heart to bear their questions and condolences,

and she had no money to stay in Glasgow at charges. Winter was coming on

rapidly, but before it broke over the lonely islands she had reached her

cottage in Stromness again.

There had been, of course, much talk concerning her hasty journey, but

no one had suspected its cause. Indeed, the pursuit after Ronald had

been entirely the bank's affair, had been committed to private

detectives and had not been nearly so hot as the frightened criminal

believed. His failure and flight had indeed been noticed in the Glasgow

newspapers, but this information did not reach Kirkwall until the

following spring, and then in a very indefinite form.

About a week after her return, Geordie Twatt came into port. Margaret

frequently went to his cottage with food or clothing for the children,

and she contrived to meet him there.

"Yon lad is a' right, indeed is he," he said, with an assumption of

indifference.

"Oh, Geordie! where?"

"A ship going westward took him off the boat."

"Thank God! You will say naught at all, Geordie?"

"I ken naught at a' save that his father's son was i' trouble, an'

trying to gie thae weary, unchancy lawyers the go-by. I was fain eneuch

mesel' to balk them."

But Margaret's real trials were all yet to come. The mere fact of doing

a noble deed does not absolve one often from very mean and petty

consequences. Before the winter was half over she had found out how

rapid is the descent from good report. The neighbors were deeply

offended at her for giving up the social tea parties and evening

gatherings that had made the house of Sinclair popular for more than one

generation. She gave still greater offence by becoming a workingwoman,

and spending her days in braiding straw into the (once) famous Orkney

Tuscans, and her long evenings in the manufacture of those delicate

knitted goods peculiar to the country.

It was not alone that they grudged her the money for these labors, as so

much out of their own pockets--they grudged her also the time; for they

had been long accustomed to rely on Margaret Sinclair for their

children's garments, for nursing the sick and for help in weddings,

funerals and all the other extraordinary occasions of sympathy among a

primitively social people.

Little by little, all winter, the sentiment of disapproval and dislike

gathered. Some one soon found out that Margaret's tenants "just sent

every bawbee o' the rent-siller to the Glasgow Bank;" and this was a

double offence, as it implied a distrust of her own townsfolk and

institutions. If from her humble earnings she made a little gift to any

common object its small amount was a fresh source of anger and contempt;

for none knew how much she had to deny herself even for such curtailed

gratuities.

In fact, Margaret Sinclair's sudden stinginess and indifference to her

townsfolk was the common wonder and talk of every little gathering. Old

friends began to either pointedly reprove her, or pointedly ignore her;

and at last even old Helga took the popular tone and said, "Margaret

Sinclair had got too scrimping for an auld wife like her to bide wi'

langer."

Through all this Margaret suffered keenly. At first she tried earnestly

to make her old friends understand that she had good reasons for her

conduct; but as she would not explain these good reasons, she failed in

her endeavor. She had imagined that her good conscience would support

her, and that she could live very well without love and sympathy; she

soon found out that it is a kind of negative punishment worse than many

stripes.

At the end of the winter Captain Thorkald again earnestly pressed their

marriage, saying that, "his regiment was ordered to Chelsea, and any

longer delay might be a final one." He proposed also, that his father,

the Udaller Thorkald of Serwick, should have charge of her Orkney

property, as he understood its value and changes. Margaret wrote and

frankly told him that her property was not hers for at least seven

years, but that it was under good care, and he must accept her word

without explanation. Out of this only grew a very unsatisfactory

correspondence. Captain Thorkald went south without Margaret, and a very

decided coolness separated them farther than any number of miles.

Udaller Thorkald was exceedingly angry, and his remarks about Margaret

Sinclair's refusal "to trust her bit property in as guid hands as her

own" increased very much the bitter feeling against the poor girl. At

the end of three years the trial became too great for her; she began to

think of running away from it.

Throughout these dark days she had purposely and pointedly kept apart

from her old friend Dr. Ogilvie, for she feared his influence over her

might tempt her to confidence. Latterly the doctor had humored her

evident desire, but he had never ceased to watch over and, in a great

measure, to believe in her; and, when he heard of this determination to

quit Orkney forever, he came to Stromness with a resolution to spare no

efforts to win her confidence.

He spoke very solemnly and tenderly to her, reminded her of her father's

generosity and good gifts to the church and the poor, and said: "O,

Margaret, dear lass! what good at a' will thy silent money do thee in

_that Day_? It ought to speak for thee out o' the mouths o' the

sorrowfu' an' the needy, the widows an' the fatherless--indeed it ought.

And thou hast gien naught for thy Master's sake these three years! I'm

fair 'shamed to think thou bears sae kind a name as thy father's."

What could Margaret do? She broke into passionate sobbing, and, when the

good old man left the cottage an hour afterward there was a strange

light on his face, and he walked and looked as if he had come from some

interview that had set him for a little space still nearer to the

angels. Margaret had now one true friend, and in a few days after this

she rented her cottage and went to live with the dominie. Nothing could

have so effectually reinstated her in public opinion; wherever the

dominie went on a message of help or kindness Margaret went with him.

She fell gradually into a quieter but still more affectionate

regard--the aged, the sick and the little children clung to her hands,

and she was comforted.

Her life seemed, indeed, to have wonderfully narrowed, but when the tide

is fairly out, it begins to turn again. In the fifth year of her poverty

there was from various causes, such an increase in the value of real

estate, that her rents were nearly doubled, and by the end of the

seventh year she had paid the last shilling of her assumed debt, and was

again an independent woman.

It might be two years after this that she one day received a letter that

filled her with joy and amazement. It contained a check for her whole

nine hundred pounds back again. "The bank had just received from Ronald

Sinclair, of San Francisco, the whole amount due it, with the most

satisfactory acknowledgment and interest." It was a few minutes before

Margaret could take in all the joy this news promised her; but when she

did, the calm, well-regulated girl had never been so near committing

extravagances.

She ran wildly upstairs to the dominie, and, throwing herself at his

knees, cried out, amid tears and smiles: "Father! father! Here is your

money! Here is the poor's money and the church's money! God has sent it

back to me! Sent it back with such glad tidings!"--and surely if angels

rejoice with repenting sinners, they must have felt that day a far

deeper joy with the happy, justified girl.

She knew now that she also would soon hear from Ronald, and she was not

disappointed. The very next day the dominie brought home the letter.

Margaret took it upstairs to read it upon her knees, while the good old

man walked softly up and down his study praying for her. Presently she

came to him with a radiant face.

"Is it weel wi' the lad, ma dawtie?"

"Yes, father; it is very well." Then she read him the letter.

Ronald had been in New Orleans and had the fever; he had been in Texas,

and spent four years in fighting Indians and Mexicans and in herding

cattle. He had suffered many things, but had worked night and day, and

always managed to grow a little richer every year. Then, suddenly, the

word "California!" rung through the world, and he caught the echo even

on the lonely southwestern prairies. Through incredible hardships he had

made his way thither, and a sudden and wonderful fortune had crowned his

labors, first in mining and afterward in speculation and merchandising.

He said that he was indeed afraid to tell her how rich he was lest to

her Arcadean views the sum might appear incredible.

Margaret let the letter fall on her lap and clasped her hands above it.

Her face was beautiful. If the prodigal son had a sister she must have

looked just as Margaret looked when they brought in her lost brother, in

the best robe and the gold ring.

The dominie was not so satisfied. A good many things in the letter

displeased him, but he kissed Margaret tenderly and went away from her.

"It is a' _I_ did this, an' _I_ did that, an' _I_ suffered you; there is

nae word o' God's help, or o' what ither folk had to thole. I'll no be

doing ma duty if I dinna set his sin afore his e'en."

The old man was little used to writing, and the effort was a great one,

but he bravely made it, and without delay. In a few curt, idiomatic

sentences he told Ronald Margaret's story of suffering and wrong and

poverty; her hard work for daily bread; her loss of friends, of her

good name and her lover, adding: "It is a puir success, ma lad, that ye

dinna acknowledge God in; an' let me tell thee, thy restitution is o'er

late for thy credit. I wad hae thought better o' it had thou made it

when it took the last plack i' thy pouch. Out o' thy great wealth, a few

hun'red pounds is nae matter to speak aboot."

But people did speak of it. In spite of our chronic abuse of human

nature it is, after all, a kindly nature, and rejoices in good more than

in evil. The story of Ronald's restitution is considered honorable to

it, and it was much made of in the daily papers. Margaret's friends

flocked round her again, saying, "I'm sorry, Margaret!" as simply and

honestly as little children, and the dominie did not fail to give them

the lecture on charity that Margaret neglected.

Whether the Udaller Thorkald wrote to his son anent these transactions,

or whether the captain read in the papers enough to satisfy him, he

never explained; but one day he suddenly appeared at Dr. Ogilvie's and

asked for Margaret. He had probably good excuses for his conduct to

offer; if not, Margaret was quite ready to invent for him--as she had

done for Ronald--all the noble qualities he lacked. The captain was

tired of military life, and anxious to return to Orkney; and, as his

own and Margaret's property was yearly increasing: in value, he foresaw

profitable employment for his talents. He had plans for introducing many

southern improvements--for building a fine modern house, growing some of

the hardier fruits and for the construction of a grand conservatory for

Margaret's flowers.

It must be allowed that Captain Thorkald was a very ordinary lord for a

woman like Margaret Sinclair to "love, honor and obey;" but few men

would have been worthy of her, and the usual rule which shows us the

noblest women marrying men manifestly their inferiors is doubtless a

wise one.

A lofty soul can have no higher mission than to help upward one upon a

lower plane, and surely Captain Thorkald, being, as the dominie said,

"_no that bad_," had the fairest opportunities to grow to Margaret's

stature in Margaret's atmosphere.

While these things were occurring, Ronald got Margaret's letter. It was

full of love and praise, and had no word of blame or complaint in it. He

noticed, indeed, that she still signed her name "Sinclair," and that she

never alluded to Captain Thorkald, and the supposition that the stain on

his character had caused a rupture did, for a moment, force itself upon

his notice; but he put it instantly away with the reflection that

"Thorkald was but a poor fellow, after all, and quite unworthy of his

sister."

The very next mail-day he received the dominie's letter. He read it

once, and could hardly take it in; read it again and again, until his

lips blanched, and his whole countenance changed. In that moment he saw

Ronald Sinclair for the first time in his life. Without a word, he left

his business, went to his house and locked himself in his own room.

_Then Margaret's silent money began to speak._ In low upbraidings it

showed him the lonely girl in that desolate land trying to make her own

bread, deserted of lover and friends, robbed of her property and good

name, silently suffering every extremity, never reproaching him once,

not even thinking it necessary to tell him of her sufferings, or to

count their cost unto him.

What is this bitterness we call remorse? This agony of the soul in all

its senses? This sudden flood of intolerable light in the dark places of

our hearts? This truth-telling voice which leaves us without a particle

of our self-complacency? For many days Ronald could find no words to

speak but these, "O, wretched man that I am!"

But at length the Comforter came as swiftly and surely and mysteriously

as the accuser had come, and once more that miracle of grace was

renewed--"that day Jesus was guest in the house of one who was a

sinner."

Margaret's "silent money" now found a thousand tongues. It spoke in many

a little feeble church that Ronald Sinclair held in his arms until it

was strong enough to stand alone. It spoke in schools and colleges and

hospitals, in many a sorrowful home and to many a lonely, struggling

heart--and at this very day it has echoes that reach from the far West

to the lonely islands beyond the stormy Pentland Firth, and the

sea-shattering precipices of Duncansbay Head.

It is not improbable that some of my readers may take a summer's trip to

the Orkney Islands; let me ask them to wait at Thurso--the old town of

Thor--for a handsome little steamer that leaves there three times a week

for Kirkwall. It is the sole property of Captain Geordie Twatt, was a

gift from an old friend in California, and is called "The Margaret

Sinclair."

JUST WHAT HE DESERVED.

There is not in its own way a more distinctive and interesting bit of

Scotland than the bleak Lothian country, with its wide views, its brown

ploughed fields, and its dense swaying plantations of fir. The

Lammermoor Hills and the Pentlands and the veils of smoke that lie about

Edinburgh are on its horizon, and within that circle all the large

quietude of open grain fields, wide turnip lands, where sheep feed, and

far-stretching pastures where the red and white cows ruminate. The

patient processes of nature breed patient minds; the gray cold climate

can be read in the faces of the people, and in their hearts the seasons

take root and grow; so that they have a grave character, passive, yet

enduring; strong to feel and strong to act when the time is full ready

for action.

Of these natural peculiarities Jean Anderson had her share. She was a

Lothian lassie of many generations, usually undemonstrative, but with

large possibilities of storm beneath her placid face and gentle manner.

Her father was the minister of Lambrig and the manse stood in a very

sequestered corner of the big parish, facing the bleak east winds, and

the salt showers of the German ocean. It was sheltered by dark fir woods

on three sides, and in front a little walled-in garden separated it from

the long, dreary, straight line of turnpike road. But Jean had no

knowledge of any fairer land; she had read of flowery pastures and rose

gardens and vineyards, but these places were to her only in books, while

the fields and fells that filled her eyes were her home, and she loved

them.

She loved them all the more because the man she loved was going to leave

them, and if Gavin Burns did well, and was faithful to her, then it was

like to be that she also would go far away from the blue Lammermuirs,

and the wide still spaces of the Lothians. She stood at the open door of

the manse with her lover thinking of these things, but with no real

sense of what pain or deprivation the thought included. She was tall and

finely formed, a blooming girl, with warmly-colored cheeks, a mouth

rather large and a great deal of wavy brown hair. But the best of all

her beauty was the soul in her face; its vitality, its vivacity and

immediate response.

However, the time of love had come to her, and though her love had grown

as naturally as a sapling in a wood, who could tell what changes it

would make. For Gavin Burns had been educated in the minister's house

and Jean and he had studied and fished and rambled together all through

the years in which Jean had grown from childhood into womanhood. Now

Gavin was going to New York to make his fortune. They stepped through

the garden and into the long dim road, walking slowly in the calm night,

with thoughtful faces and clasped hands. There was at this last hour

little left to say. Every promise known to Love had been given; they had

exchanged Bibles and broken a piece of silver and vowed an eternal

fidelity. So, in the cold sunset they walked silently by the river that

was running in flood like their own hearts. At the little stone bridge

they stopped, and leaning over the parapet watched the drumly water

rushing below; and there Jean reiterated her promise to be Gavin's wife

as soon as he was able to make a home for her.

"And I am not proud, Gavin," she said; "a little house, if it is filled

with love, will make me happy beyond all."

They were both too hopeful and trustful and too habitually calm to weep

or make much visible lament over their parting; and yet when Gavin

vanished into the dark of the lonely road, Jean shut the heavy house

door very slowly. She felt as if she was shutting part of herself out of

the old home forever, and she was shocked by this first breaking of the

continuity of life; this sharp cutting of regular events asunder.

Gavin's letters were at first frequent and encouraging, but as the

months went by he wrote more and more seldom. He said "he was kept so

busy; he was making himself indispensable, and could not afford to be

less busy. He was weary to death on the Saturday nights, and he could

not bring his conscience to write anent his own personal and earthly

happiness on the Sabbath day; but he was sure Jean trusted in him,

whether he wrote or not; and they were past being bairns, always telling

each other the love they were both so sure of."

Late in the autumn the minister died of typhoid fever, and Jean,

heartbroken and physically worn out, was compelled to face for her

mother and herself, a complete change of life. It had never seemed to

these two women that anything could happen to the father and head of the

family; in their loving hearts he had been immortal, and though the

disease had run its tedious course before their eyes, his death at the

last was a shock that shook their lives and their home to the very

centre. A new minister was the first inevitable change, and then a

removal from the comfortable manse to a little cottage in the village of

Lambrig.

While this sad removal was in progress they had felt the sorrow of it,

all that they could bear; and neither had dared to look into the future

or to speculate as to its necessities. Jean in her heart expected Gavin

would at once send for them to come to America. He had a fair salary,

and the sale of their furniture would defray their traveling expenses.

She was indeed so sure of this journey, that she did not regard the

cottage as more than a temporary shelter during the approaching winter.

In the spring, no doubt, Gavin would have a little home ready, and they

would cross the ocean to it. The mother had the same thought. As they

sat on their new hearthstone, lonely and poor, they talked of this

event, and if any doubts lurked unconsciously below their love and trust

they talked them away, while they waited for Gavin's answer to the

sorrowful letter Jean had sent him on the night of her father's burial.

It was longer in coming than they expected. For a week they saw the

postman pass their door with an indifference that seemed cruel; for a

week Jean made new excuses and tried to hold up her mother's heart,

while her own was sinking lower and lower. Then one morning the

looked-for answer came. Jean fled to a room apart to read it alone; Mrs.

Anderson sat down and waited, with dropped eyes and hands tightly

clasped. She knew, before Jean said a word, that the letter had

disappointed her. She had remained alone too long. If all had been as

they hoped the mother was certain Jean would not have deferred the good

tidings a moment. But a quarter of an hour had passed before Jean came

to her side, and then when she lifted her eyes she saw that her daughter

had been weeping.

"It is a disappointment, Jean, I see," she said sadly. "Never mind,

dearie."

"Yes, mother; Gavin has failed us."

"We have been two foolish women, Jean. Oh, my dear lassie, we should

have lippened to God, and He would not have disappointed us! What does

Gavin Burns say?"

"It is what he does _not_ say, that hurts me, mother. I may as well tell

you the whole truth. When he heard how ill father was, he wrote to me,

as if he had foreseen what was to happen. He said, 'there will be a new

minister and a break-up of the old home, and you must come at once to

your new home here. I am the one to care for you when your father is

gone away; and what does it matter under what sun or sky if we are but

together?' So, then, mother, when the worst had come to us I wrote with

a free heart to Gavin. I said, 'I will come to you gladly, Gavin, but

you know well that my mother is very dear to me, and where I am there

she also must be.' And he says, in this letter, that it is me he is

wanting, and that you have a brother in Glasgow that is unmarried and

who will be willing, no doubt, to have you keep his house for him. There

is a wale of fine words about it, mother, but they come to just this,

and no more--Gavin is willing to care for me, but not for you and I will

not trust myself with a man that cannot love you for my sake. We will

stay together, mammy darling! Whatever comes or goes we will stay

together. The man isna born that can part us two!"

"He is your lover, Jean. A girl must stick to her lover."

"You are my mother. I am bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh and

love of your love. May God forsake me when I forsake you!"

She had thrown herself at her mother's knees and was clasping and

kissing the sad face so dear to her, as she fervently uttered the last

words. And the mother was profoundly touched by her child's devotion.

She drew her close to her heart, and said firmly:

"No! No, my dearie! What could we two do for ourselves? And I'm loth to

part you and Gavin. I simply cannot take the sacrifice, you so lovingly

offer me. I will write to my brother David. Gavin isna far wrong there;

David is a very close man, but he willna see his sister suffer, there

is no fear of that."

"It is Jean that will not see you suffer."

"But the bite and the sup, Jean? How are we to get them?"

"I can make my own dresses and cloaks, so then I can make dresses and

cloaks for other people. I shall send out a card to the ladies near-by

and put an advertisement in the Haddington newspaper, and God can make

my needle sharp enough for the battle. Don't cry, mother! Oh, darling,

don't cry! We have God and each other, and none can call us desolate."

"But you will break your heart, Jean. You canna help it. And I canna

take your love and happiness to brighten my old age. It isna right. I'll

not do it. You must go to Gavin. I will go to my brother David."

"I will not break my heart, mother. I will not shed a tear for the

false, mean lad, that you were so kind to for fourteen years, when there

was no one else to love him. Aye, I know he paid for his board and

schooling, but he never could pay for the mother-love you gave him, just

because he was motherless. And who has more right to have their life

brightened by my love than you have? Beside, it is my happiness to

brighten it, and so, what will you say against it? And I will not go to

Gavin. Not one step. If he wants me now, he will come for me, and for

you, too. This is sure as death! Oh, mammy! Mammy, darling, a false lad

shall not part us! Never! Never! Never!"

"Jean! Jean! What will I say at all"

"What would my father say, if he was here this minute? He would say,

'you are right, Jean! And God bless you, Jean! And you may be sure that

it is all for the best, Jean! So take the right road with a glad heart,

Jean!' That is what father would say. And I will never do anything to

prevent me looking him straight in the face when we meet again. Even in

heaven I shall want him to smile into my eyes and say, 'Well done,

Jean!'"