CHAPTER I.

[Illustration]

MEMOIRS AND RESOLUTIONS

OF

ADAM GRAEME

OF MOSSGRAY.

INCLUDING SOME CHRONICLES OF THE BOROUGH OF FENDIE

BY THE AUTHOR OF

“PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MRS MARGARET MAITLAND,”

“LILLIESLEAF,” “THE DAYS OF MY LIFE,” ETC.

“So he bore without abuse

The grand old name of gentleman.”--TENNYSON.

[Illustration]

LONDON:

HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,

SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,

13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

1859.

JOHN CHILDS AND SON, PRINTERS.

BOOK I.

THE HISTORY OF ADAM GRAEME.

.... To some kind of men

Their graces serve them but as enemies.

.... Your virtues, gentle Master,

Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.

AS YOU LIKE IT.

ADAM GRAEME OF MOSSGRAY.

CHAPTER I.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,

The soul that rises with us, our Life’s star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar;

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home.--WORDSWORTH.

The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was

born.

That I was born! I who now sit in this remote and solitary study, of

whose mysteries my good neighbours speak reverently with doubt and

wonder, encompassed with things immortal!--the everlasting elements

without, the stream, the hills, the fruitful earth, which has been and

shall be until the end of time; within with things of life, instinct and

inherent, fated perchance to live longer than this present world, the

books of men--the Book of God--that out of darkness and sleep and

unconsciousness, I was born!

These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity

can bring diminution--this everlasting living soul, _began_. My mind

loses itself in these depths. Strangely significant and solemn are the

commonest phrases of our humanity; the words which veil the constant

marvels of our miraculous life!

But this of “he was born” is greater in my eyes, than that other of “he

died.” Say you, He died? say rather, He has changed his garments, has

put off a fading robe, which by and by--perchance a time as short in

Heaven’s account as are these fleeting days to us--he shall put on

again, to wear for ever. But in yonder anxious house, in yonder dim

room, with life’s plaintive music rising on his unconscious ear, in

wailing and tears, its natural utterance, this wonderful soul began. Be

solemn in your rejoicing, ye new mothers, ye glad attendant friends; for

this that hath come into the world shall abide for ever, this new

existence is beyond the breath or touch of death, a thing immortal, a

presence which shall outlive the world.

I was born sadly, in gloom which none broke by the voice of

thanksgiving, for the two greatest things of human life met in my

birth-hour. I entered the world, a fit entrance for my long, clouded

course; and solemnly, in pain and grief, my mother went forth to the

other country. My young, fair, gentle mother, of whom I think now as of

some beautiful dream that crossed me in my youth.

My father was a hard man, who loved the world; but I used to hear long

ago that this moved him. Most deeply all my life has it moved me, who

never knew the girl who was my mother. She has been a vision hovering

about me all my days; saintly and mother-like when I was young, but now,

in her pale beauty resembling more a dead child of the old man who is

her son.

I dwell upon this perhaps too often, when I am sad--and I am truly sad

too often, for I am alone; but it is surely well and blessed to preserve

in the safe keeping of death this holy fragrance of youth. The years

that have mossed her grave, and made the blood thin and chill in my old

veins, have brought no change to her--she is young for ever.

My father was a Graeme of Mossgray. In our own Southland district we are

chief of the name; but he did not esteem the traditional honour that

belonged to the title--it was mere idle breath to him. The principal

part of his life was spent in a distant city. He laboured without

ceasing, for I know not what reason. I fancy there had been some

ambition in him to accumulate one of those fairy fortunes, which very

prosaic and ordinary men do achieve sometimes, though what end he

proposed to himself in attaining this, I cannot tell, for he himself was

becoming old, and I was nothing to him; even as the heir of his name he

bestowed no regard on me; for the name itself was indifferent. He would

have thrown it into the scale with any piece of merchandise, and known

himself nothing the poorer.

But a spell was upon this fortune of his, so constantly pursued. His

prosperity never passed a certain limit. It was as though some malicious

spirit had the guiding of his fate in this respect, in vengeance of

better blessings unused and slighted. He always began with success and

good fortune; the delusive promise lasted long enough to lure him deeper

and deeper into the snare, and then the tide began to swell and turn,

and on its rising waves his hopes went bitterly out into the blank and

cheerless sea. It was a sad fate, and had his objects been worthier, a

fate to be deeply sympathised with; but the man was a hard man (I

scarcely knew him, though he was my father); and was susceptible to no

grief but this. That discipline, wise as it must be, most hard as it is

always, which strikes us through our dearest things, could not touch him

except in those outward matters of wealth and mercantile credit, which

to him were all in all; and on these accordingly the stroke fell.

So heavily it came at last, that in his wilful selfishness he resolved

to sell Mossgray. There was no one living to plead for me, a child then,

scarcely daring to lift up my eyes in his presence, and for my right to

this inheritance, descended from many upright fathers to whom its very

name and local place were dearer than fortune. But death stepped in

again to save for me a home--a home which has been to me a blessed

inheritance, a solace in the midst of some evils--from other some a

refuge and a shelter.

I was a solitary child, allowed in this lonely house of Mossgray to grow

up, neglected and uncared for, as I best could. My childish memories are

rich in dreams and spiritual presences, and overshadowed universally by

that vague sadness, which, dumb as it is, and quiet, is so pitiful in

children. I remember how the leaves were wont to fall from the old elms

and alders by the waterside, with their eerie and plaintive sound. I

remember the low sweeping cadence of the water--the disconsolate autumn

breeze--and then comes upon me again the blank childish heaviness--the

cloud of childish melancholy, that knew not how it was made sad, nor

why.

Mossgray had been a peelhouse--one of those fortified places which the

exigencies of Border warfare, predatory and otherwise, made so necessary

in our district. A high, square tower occupies the centre, with narrow

windows, and arrow slits piercing its massy wall, which has been of old

strong in all needful capabilities of defence, and could yet be a

notable hold, if our peaceful Cumberland neighbours took up their

warlike trade again.

About the tower cling irregular offshoots, added by many Lairds of

Mossgray since peace became paramount on the Border; in which, it is

impossible to deny, my good ancestors have studied convenience more than

elegance. Yet the group of buildings high and low, angled and rounded,

with the dark and rugged tower rising in the midst, have a charm upon

them, greater, as I think, than the fascination of regular beauty.

Patches of moss and yellow lichen are on the walls and roof--the grey,

thick walls, and sombre slated roof, which look themselves like some

natural growth of the earth, firmly rooted in kindly soil. Our doors are

many now, and broad and easy of access--for the successive Graemes, who

have increased the accommodations of Mossgray, have added entrance to

entrance, with a prodigality by no means pleasant when those searching

winds are abroad; but we still preserve the harsh and lowering portal,

and the heavy iron door, which of old frowned upon unwelcome southern

visitors in sullen defiance.

I confess that I have a pleasure in looking upon these--it pleases me to

trace historic changes in the aspect of my patrimonial house; that this

belongs of natural right to the rugged and sturdy times of Border

warfare--that from that gloomy turret with its spiral stair, the golden

shield of Scotland was gloomily taken down by one who had fought in her

cause, when Mary crossed the Firth on her last fatal journey to trust

the false courtesies of England. That in this dark chamber, a godly Lady

Mossgray sheltered the persecuted hinds and shepherds, whose faith has

added them to the ranks of our truest chivalry in Scotland. That this

enlarged and decorated hall in the basement of the tower bears witness

to the peace of the third William’s reign. That these gradually

accumulating walls carry on the chronicle through the less eventful

times of modern history--that here we have been dwelling, through all

vicissitudes prosperous and adverse, in our own land and among our own

people for five hundred certain years. There remembrances I acknowledge

are dear to me. I lose my own individuality when I leave Mossgray.

And in a vague mist of dreamy romance and childish reverie, these

histories hung incumbent on my mind when my dim days began. They lived

with me, a host of mingled times and shapes, more real, as I fancy yet,

than the common every-day things I saw around. The chill of

cold-heartedness, the absence of truth, strike with a strange, blank,

unexpressed pain, upon the heart of a child--and from these I turned to

dwell, where warriors and Border maidens had dwelt before me, among the

true knights and fair ladies of a yearning fancy, whose indefinite

pageants and minstrelsies had yet more truth of nature in them than the

hollow external forms of the life that men called real.--

“Blank misgivings of a creature

Moving about in worlds not realized,”

oppressed me on all sides then--but I had no misgivings as to the

beautiful olden times--they were past, and they were true!

At our feet in this Mossgray runs a water, of some importance as we

flatter ourselves. Flowing downward placid and calm from the hills, it

has attained a considerable breadth and volume before it passes our old

walls. And, by what chance I know not, our stream has been kept in its

native pride of woodland and green banks safe from encroachments of

cultivation. We have glades whose grassy undulations and noble solitary

trees might match with any park in England, and we have thickly-wooded

deans, closing in arched foliage over our river, with fretting rocks and

waterfalls peculiarly our own. Scattered cot-houses to whom this water

is a dear companion--quaint and dewy villages lying under the trees,

with glimmerings of softened light about them, from the sky above and

the stream below. Mills picturesque in their mossy homeliness throwing

the drowsy stir of rural labour across the placid water--these are our

friends and neighbours at Mossgray.

Nor do we lack, in our quiet country, inhabitants more distinguished. If

I pursue my walk southward for a mile, I come upon a brave stone bridge,

spanning with its stately arches the pleasant river; and across the

bridge appear the many-coloured roofs of the town of Fendie in their

varieties of thatch and slate, and homely red tiles, congregated happily

together for mutual friendship and traffic. A very tranquil rural town,

along whose streets the sunbeam slants drowsily in summer, with scarce a

passing figure to break its brightness; but withal a busy borough, alive

with many interests, and esteeming itself in innocent vanity and

self-complacence, very far in advance of the simple “country” over

which it sways its little sceptre, in all the arts and luxuries of life.

Withal, our water carries ships, and where it pours itself into the

Firth, has wealthy fisheries upon its margin, and beholds long ranks of

guileful nets, in which its receding waters help the fishermen to snare

the glistening grilse and lordly salmon, born by the hundred in its

silent caves. Our vessels are of no great burden, and boast but homely

names--“Williams” and “Janets,” “Johns” and “Marys”--for our ship-owners

name their cherished boats after their still more cherished children;

but all of them proudly bear the emblazoned name of Fendie. To all of

them the Waterfoot is a delicious haven, fragrant with the breath of

home.

The grey walls of Mossgray have at all times been home to me--although a

quiet and sad one often, to the man no less than to the solitary child

they sheltered long ago. I remember well the pensive childish musings of

that time; the dreamy gladness with which I wandered on those bright

summer mornings by the pleasant water, my sole friend and playmate then,

as it is my best companion now; and that unspeakable loneliness and

desolation which came to me on the drooping wing of the plaintive autumn

breeze. It is all indefinite and vague now as it was then. The little

moralist of ten twelvemonths beginning to think how swiftly those waves

of his young life glided by--the meditative, pensive boy looking on

while his compeers in years pursued their sports, with his bashful wish

to join them, and his sorrowful dreamy thoughts about their unthinking

mirth. I recall these as a succession of dim pictures--the history of a

beginning life, forlorn as only childhood can be.

CHAPTER II.

Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing boy;

But he beholds the light and whence it flows--

He sees it in his joy.

I do not quite agree with Wordsworth.

I grant you that there is much in the earlier childhood, indefinite

always and vague as twilight dreams, which proclaims the spiritual and

infinite to be nearer to these unconscious dawning souls than it is to

us. There is the instinct of wonder, which in its eager whys and

wherefores strikes out intuitions of strange wisdom sometimes,

concerning those common mysteries about us, with which, in the

invulnerable might of their simplicity, philosophers dare not meddle--

“The obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things;”

the “visionary gleam” which this new inmate of the world throws about

unawares from its own strangely luminous soul. I grant you all these in

early childhood, but for your boy!

Your healthful boy is given to no manner of musing. He has begun to come

in contact with the materialisms of the world, and battles with them

lustily, with right good will and daring joyousness. It does not occur

to him to tell you of the beauty of this water, but you shall find him

eloquent on the subject of his anglings or swimmings--his feats upon it

in boats--his miraculous slides--his inevitable fallings in. The

delicate spiritual presence within him has forgotten how, a while ago,

it seemed well nigh to touch, in dreamy awe and reverence, those other

spiritual presences with which its teeming fancy had peopled the

indefinite air everywhere. The warm blood is bounding in his veins in

all its first exuberant impulse of life and motion. To construct--to

destroy--to fight--to labour--to bend all these material obstructions

under the absolute dominion of his strong young human will. To pour

forth in boisterous glee, by shout and whoop, by leap and wrestle, by

all that is joyous, and wild, and loud enough, the overflowing energy of

his youthful powers. Your true boy does not pause in his manifold

undertakings to consider natural joys and sunshine. If you would

understand his enjoyment of these, you must see him breast the current

as he swims across the river, and swing high up on perilous branches in

the wood. His hands are full--let them talk or muse who will--his

vocation is other than this.

The boy’s hero is the material man--the one single unapproachable Crusoe

whom Genius has created for him--the many sailor-men of ruder flesh and

blood, militant upon the sea--the hunter of unknown forests--the

adventurous traveller of dangerous countries--there are the glorious

ideals of the boy. He thirsts to throw the lasso with the fiery

sportsman of Mexico, he burns with vain longing to have been one of the

olden crew who were shipwrecked with the Byron of the sea. He clenches

his hands and sets his teeth in burning indignation, when he reads how

the gentle Cook fell in yon southern island far away, and knows by the

valiant blood rising hot to his heart, that had he been there it had

chanced otherwise. And if he returns to olden times, it is to fight by

the side of Wallace, to row the forlorn boat of the Bruce, to do battle

on the muirs for the Covenant, to guide Prince Charles through mountain

pass and cavern. When he dreams, it is of the world without--the

stirring, fighting, opposing world, which is to be quelled, and put

down, and tamed into obedience to the young conqueror’s will. The sun

sheds grateful light upon him, and the moon looks down from her broad

skies in vain. If he could fight for her, she might enlist his youthful

chivalry, as the Queen of old times, the hapless Mary, like her in lofty

beauty, as in disastrous wading through stormy clouds, might have done:

but to dream of her--to think of her serene pale smile--alas, no! he has

other work in hand.

I remember I was fishing or appearing to fish one bright morning, in a

link of our water, which was a kind of hermitage to me,--I might be

twelve years old then--when my father suddenly approached me, leading in

his hand a boy of my own years--a boy so differently endowed, so

superior to myself as I felt at once in my shy consciousness.

My father visited Mossgray seldom: at this time we had received no

intimation of his coming, and the timid constraint and awkward

diffidence, which were always upon me in his presence, were heightened

into exceeding pain by this sudden appearance.

“Adam,” said my father, “this is your cousin Charles. He is to stay with

you in future at Mossgray.”

My father’s own name was Charles; he looked with favour on his namesake,

as he watched our greeting. I so shy and rustic, and Charlie Graeme so

bold and manly--I felt how disadvantageous was the comparison.

But when my father left us, and we became acquainted, as we did soon,

for my cousin was as frank as I was shy, then the glorious new life of

genuine boyhood which burst upon Mossgray and upon me! How I lavished

upon Charlie the unsunned treasures of my solitary child’s heart; how I

awoke out of my dreamy loneliness, to find myself enriched beyond all

wealth in his companionship. How I discovered a new charm and attraction

in my own beloved water and noble woods, from the wild shout of mirth

with which Charlie plunged into riotous enjoyment of them. How the old

walls and doorways that had been disturbed by few sounds louder than my

pensive stealings out and in, resounded now with the ringing speed of

boyish footsteps, and the blythe din of boyish laughter. It is pleasant

to look back upon that time, when from a childish hermit I became a boy!

There was for me after that era no more solitary watching of the sports

of others. The “haill water” ere long knew Charlie Graeme as the

adventurous leader of every troop of juvenile mischief-makers, and I was

by no means a slow or backward pupil. The complete revolution in my life

which this produced gave these vigorous enjoyments a still greater zest

to me, albeit I sometimes felt the pleasure of compassionate benevolence

towards these strong fellows, my seniors in years, whose unthinking

mirth of mood was so much younger than mine. I liked the sports for

their sake, and they gave me some casual place in their regard for sake

of the games in which I shared--we were different so far--but the

lingerings of my recluse spirit did by no means operate

disadvantageously upon my physical activities. I had emerged into a new

existence. I had entered the second stage of life.

Charlie was the son of my father’s only brother. I had never seen, and

scarcely ever heard of, my uncle; but at his death, which took place a

short time before his son’s arrival at Mossgray, Charlie, with the very

slender inheritance that remained to him, had been committed to my

father’s care, as his only near relative and guardian. To keep us

together at Mossgray was the cheapest and easiest way of getting rid of

us, and accordingly we were despatched together to the academy of

Fendie.

A somewhat famous school in our district, which in its day has sent

forth men into the world--men of stature and nobleness, some few, albeit

it has filled up its quota with perhaps a greater than usual commodity

of packmen; but a school of high standing and character withal, to which

the neighbouring gentry, and the smaller fry of “genteel families” in

Fendie, could send their sons without derogation. We made the usual

progress, as I fancy, in those routine affairs which were called our

studies. We learnt lessons with as much painstaking industry as we could

summon up in the morning, and forgot them with the most praiseworthy

ease at night. We were conscientious enough to play truant seldom--we

had no more than our average of accidents. Charlie only twice fell into

the water, and only once broke his arm. My nautical mischances had all

some connection with the mill-lead at the Dean, my favourite nook. On

the whole we got through admirably. Never boys on the Border were

blyther than we.

Young Fendie of the mount was at an English boarding-school. Our sturdy

home academy was not good enough for the young laird of that ilk. What

storms of ridicule we poured upon him--he knapped English, he had a holy

horror of torn breeks, he never climbed a tree in his life; and,

crowning shame of all, it was whispered among us in the utmost scorn and

derision, that his dainty cambric handkerchief was perfumed like a

lady’s! We looked at the indefinite looking things in our own

miscellaneous pockets, and echoed it with a storm of laughter. “He has

scent on his napkin!” It was the very climax of derision: we could go no

further.

Hew Murray, of Murrayshaugh, was our warmest friend. We met sometimes,

when out-of-door amusements were impracticable, in the vaulted room in

Mossgray Tower, where lay in state various remnants of ancestral mail,

and which we called the armoury--to compare notes as to the changes

which must have happened in the fortunes of Scotland, had we three

chanced to fight at Falkirk with Wallace, or with James at Flodden. But

whereas Hew Murray and I were chivalrously engrossed with considerations

of what we could have done for Scotland, it always happened, as I

recollect, that Charlie rose in glorious anticipation of knighthoods and

earldoms and broad lands to be won by his sword and by his bow.

Innocent chevaliers errant were we, not without a weakness for

beautiful disconsolate princesses, and imprisoned ladies to be set free

by our valour and fidelity, but the dazzling chances of war had greater

fascination for Charlie. _Our_ hero contented himself with freeing the

lady, and reducing the castle--_his_, took possession of the conquered

stronghold and reigned in the stead of his enemy.

But our friends were not all of our own degree. A mile or two on the

other side of Fendie lay a pretty house, which made up in its snug and

comfortable proportions for its entire want of all the antiquities which

clustered in hoary grace about Mossgray. Pertaining to it was a small

farm, which sufficed to give its proprietor the much-esteemed

territorial designation. The name of the place was Greenshaw, its

owner’s Johnstone. People said that he had driven a homely enough trade

in former days; but never man on the northern side of Skiddaw had seen

any vestige of the pack on the broad shoulders of Mr Johnstone of

Greenshaw. Besides, we do rather hold the “wanderer’s” trade in good

repute in our country, so the rumour did the comfortable man no harm.

His son Walter was one of our sworn brethren. Walter Johnstone surpassed

us all in daring; but the greatest heat of boyish excitement could

scarcely bring any additional glow to his cheek, or throw the slightest

tremor into his hand. Walter could calculate his time to a moment; he

was never late, he was never hurried. Prompt and bold, cool and acute,

he was the regulator and time-keeper of our obstreperous band.

Then there was Edward Maxwell, the widow’s son at the Watch-brae. He was

the detrimental of our joyous parties. He always became weary at

unseasonable times; he continually shirked his share of the work, and

evaded the perilous parts of our excursions; but he had good looks in

his favour, and a winning, ingratiating, caressing manner, which

overcame our reproaches. It always happened, too, that Maxwell’s

weakness brought him prominently forward among us. Speculations as to

what he would do next, when he would fail in a fatigue, how he would

glide out of a danger, with what new expedients he would excuse himself,

kept our conversation full of him, and he felt the distinction, such as

it was.

Other companions we had, greater and smaller as it chanced, for we were

perfectly republican. Many kindly ties I have from that school-time

with men of all classes, in all places and quarters of the earth:

Australian settlers in the bush, merchants in London and Liverpool,

distinguished men of literature, poor subalterns in India, humble

shopkeepers in Fendie, small farmer-lairds in my own county; these

pleasant threads of old connection are spun out far and near. I like

it--there is a kindly universality of brotherhood in this, that seems to

me as much better, as it is wider and further reaching than any mere

friendships of one especial class, isolated, and standing upon the bare

platform of their position.

CHAPTER III.

The youth who daily further from the East

Must travel, still is Nature’s priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended.

Yes! it is in youth, properly so called, that the true age of poetry is.

The priesthood of nature, the mood that can hold communion with her in

her every place and time--these come only when the boy’s material age is

past, and the childish dreams come back, mightier now and clearer, to

clothe with their rare grace the expanding, growing soul. Is it well

that this radiance should by and by fade into the light of common day?

let us be content--the old man is of kin to the youth--perchance if the

harsher meridian time did not intervene, it would scarcely be so.

But now the vision splendid travels with him everywhere. There is a

glory about the hills and on the sky; there is music, all the more dear

that it is inarticulate, in every running stream; there is, highest of

all, a wonderful light of truth, and love, and nobleness, over all human

things. Motives grand and sublime, labour generous and great, worthy of

the marvellous position held by this mortal race. The whole universe

vibrates to his ear, with heroic marches and noble chimes of music, to

which his soul thrills, and his step keeps time. True indeed there are

falsehood and selfishness and change here, or whence these tales of

sorrow, and this generous indignation that swells within him, against

the wrong which is to be conquered; but these are not near him. In his

own especial atmosphere there is perfect truth open at all points to the

eye of day. His ideal covers and veils all meaner faults in the objects

of his chivalrous affection; and he pities men who are smarting under

neglect or inconsistency, or worldliness of friends, as those pity who

feel their own blessedness made all the greater by the contrast.

Before I had reached this stage, my father had been for some time dead.

Mr Murray of Murrayshaugh, the father of our friend Hew, a surly old

gentleman of very ancient family, and very meagre estate, was my

guardian; and we boys, having fairly concluded our academy course, began

to form plans for our future life, not without much magniloquence of

speech. Maxwell wavered long between the two grave professions of

medicine and the Church. The latter was at first decidedly the

favourite, for Johnstone, with malicious glee, drew so exquisite a

picture of an adoring congregation, and ministering angels, in the form

of ladies, old and young, that the gentle Edward was overpowered with

modest delight. But the Widow Maxwell in her cottage, on the Watch-brae,

had no manner of influence in the Church, while she had the shadow of a

promise from some patron of her husband’s to procure for Edward a

situation like his father’s, that of an assistant army surgeon. So

Maxwell’s fate was determined. He was immediately to commence his

studies as a medical student.

Johnstone at once and promptly decided for the law, in some one of its

occult branches, I scarcely recollect which; but he had not the gift of

utterance, and therefore was disqualified from entering the highest and

most showy class of the profession.

Charlie’s destination was less easily fixed. He was eager to grow

rich--he aspired to be famous--he liked all the good things of this

world so well, that he was undecided which to grasp at. He thought of

India, and his eyes sparkled; but some indefinite feeling, which was not

home-love, made him determine to remain in Scotland. I used to wonder at

this; for Charlie, with his frank fascination of manners, and his

adventurous spirit, was the very man to travel--the very man, as I

fancied in honest boyish admiration, to succeed brilliantly wherever he

went; but he resolved to remain at home. Then he thought of

business--of becoming a great merchant--for youthful calculators have a

happy knack of leaping over all the initiatory steps--but for that the

capital was wanting. He had nothing--I not very much, and while I would

joyfully have shared my utmost farthing with Charlie, that gruff old

Murrayshaugh growled forth his veto--“There’s enough tint with

merchandise for one generation of ye!” so we relinquished that.

But the gift that Johnstone wanted, Charlie had in perfection. He was a

natural orator; and the momentous decision was made at last. Charlie

decided upon being a great lawyer--the most brilliant pleader in

Scotland--perhaps Lord Advocate eventually--certainly a Member of

Parliament--Member for Edinburgh! Charlie rose from his low carved chair

by the fire as that crowning glory burst upon him--the grandeur of it

was overpowering--Member for Edinburgh!

Murrayshaugh was an impoverished and poor estate. Its possessor had been

“wild” in his youth, and now resented and avenged upon his children the

poverty himself had made. Lucy Murray grew up in forlorn and lonely

seclusion, acquainted from her youth with many cares. Hew was designed

for a civil appointment in India, where his father ordained his industry

should redeem the fortunes of the family. The harsh old man was a

despot--there was no appeal against his arbitrary will.

But Murrayshaugh withal was a gentleman and a scholar; as anxious that

his son should be fully and carefully fitted for the position he was to

occupy as determined that in this way, and no other, should Hew’s life

be spent. So Hew also was to join our little band of students in

Edinburgh, and to have the advantage of two or three sessions’ training

there, before he departed to his far-away labour. I could not part with

them--Charlie and Hew especially were my sworn brethren; and after a

long siege Murrayshaugh yielded to my very reasonable wish of

accompanying them, and gave to Charlie and myself the necessary funds,

commenting bitterly,--

“Your father, Adam, gave me no charge of furnishing two lads for the

college. An it be your silly pleasure to spend your means on your

cousin, the way is to deny yourself, my man--not to think you are a pink

of generosity when it costs you nothing. But take it--take it--I wish ye

much gratitude. If ye get but the common share, ye will be well

repaid.”

“Never mind my father, Adam,” said Lucy, as I emerged indignantly from

the dreary library of Murrayshaugh into the luxuriant garden, with its

mossy terraces sloping to the river-side. “Simon says true, his bark is

worse than his bite--and I think, though he would not say it, that he is

sad about you all going away, and only looks angry because he thinks

shame.”

“Are we to go, Adam?” said Charlie, eagerly. He had come to Murrayshaugh

with me, and had waited on the terrace with Hew and Lucy while I bearded

the lion within.

“Yes,” said I, with some heat--for there is nothing that one resents so

warmly in one’s first youth as any prophecy of ingratitude on the part

of those whom we delight to honour. “Yes, we’re to go. I would like to

know why old people continually think young ones fools.”

I was nearly eighteen--I drew myself up.

“Perhaps because they are often, Adam,” suggested Lucy gently.

I could not be angry at Lucy Murray. I was too full of boyish chivalry,

having reëntered the age of imagination, to be anything but gentle and

deferential to a girl.

“How you do speak,” exclaimed my cousin, “you think us fools, do you,

Lucy?--very well--you’ll see that by and by.”

“When you read the honourable Member for Edinburgh’s great speech,” said

Hew, with his frank and pleasant laugh, “about--what will it be about,

Charlie?”

“And I would like to know,” continued Charlie, angrily, “what we have

done that we should be thought so very foolish. We have only been at

home all our lives, no doubt--people get so much more culture in

Yorkshire!”

Lucy turned away.

“Never heed him, Lucy,” said Hew, “he shows the cloven foot. It’s all

about poor Dick Fendie. Why, man, Charlie, to be jealous of him!”

Charlie was past eighteen. He had some time since thrown his

handkerchief on Lucy Murray, and regularly engrossed her society; by no

means to her own satisfaction at first, but she had become accustomed to

it. He had wounded her feelings now. He saw it himself, and was

maliciously pleased. I saw it as she wandered along the terrace towards

the water-side, and could almost have thrown him over the wall in spite

of our brotherhood.

“What is the matter?” said I. “Quarrel with Hew or me as you like,

Charlie, but what has Lucy done?”

Charlie twisted the graceful curl by the side of his cap, and swung

round on his heel to follow Lucy without answering me. He was very

handsome, and had a frank manliness in every look and gesture which

disarmed one’s reproofs. At present, too, the conscious smile of power

was on his face--he felt himself so sure of immediate forgiveness--so

perfectly able to restore the smiles of Lucy Murray.

Hew and I stood watching him, as he went along the terrace after her.

Our eyes met--we exclaimed in chorus, “He does not mean

anything--Charlie would not hurt any one’s feelings for the world.”

“It was Lucy’s own fault, talking so much of Dick Fendie,” said Hew.

“Mamma’s good boy has come home, Adam--have you seen him yet? And Lucy

would defend him; but I suppose it’s all over now. By the by, Adam, how

does it come about that you and I never quarrel with Lucy?”

“You and I--why, is she not your sister, Hew? and almost mine,

too--Charlie you know--Charlie is different.”

Hew became thoughtful for a moment, and ended with a laugh. “Ay, that’s

because Mrs Mense at Mossgray says they were made for each other. But I

say, Adam, do Lilie Johnstone and you battle at each other like these

two?”

I blushed a tremulous blush--it was desecration to name this sacred name

so lightly. The two things were altogether different--how or wherefore I

did not stay to analyse--but my reverent boyish adoration, and Charlie’s

bold demands upon the constant patience and sole regard of Lucy Murray,

had no resemblance to each other. I shrank back--I would have had Lilias

Johnstone distinguished by the reverent respect of all men, and to hear

her name thus profanely conjoined with mine!

“Are you nearly ready, Hew?” I asked hastily, “and when are we to

start?”

The starting time was decided on that night, and shortly after we set

out, the whole rejoicing band of us, upon a bracing frosty morning, late

in October, on the top of the coach for Edinburgh. Maxwell managed to

get up a few tears for his mother’s especial benefit. I had nearly

joined him myself, I recollect, when I saw her pale anxious face lifted

up so tenderly to the high perch where we were crowded together. Never

human face had worn that look for me, and my heart warmed the more to

the son of this sad mother, even while I almost envied him.

All the rest of us were motherless; but even the gruff “Good-bye, boys,”

of Murrayshaugh had some feeling in it this morning; and Lucy Murray’s

eyes were too heavy to be raised to us, as she stood by her father’s

side. Then there was a small white hand waving a handkerchief from

within the high holly hedge of Greenshaw as we passed. It perhaps was

not all for her brother. I appropriated, with trembling, some share of

the farewell.

In a very short time we had settled down to our respective studies. It

is comparatively unusual in Scotland to give youths the benefit of

college education except for some special profession; so that, put the

learned faculties aside, and you leave but a small residuum to represent

what forms the larger proportion of students in England. It is perhaps

for this reason that we are more practical than our neighbours; that

those niceties of profound classical learning which form the glory on

the head of English universities--those painful researches into the

nature of the Greek verb, and folio disputations on contested words, do

scarcely exist among us. But that by the way. We were very frank, very

unsophisticated, very innocent, we Fendie lads; and even, as I fancy,

very little less so when we left than when we entered Edinburgh. It has

its abundant temptations, no doubt, as all other towns have, but, so far

as I myself saw, we came through them with tolerable safety. Faults of

mind, and temper, and spirit, we had many, but I think we, in a great

degree, escaped that round of petty vices, the assumed manliness of

which leads so many foolish lads astray.

CHAPTER IV.

I walk as ere I walked forlorn

When all our path was fresh with dew

And all the bugle breezes blew

Reveillée to the breaking morn.--IN MEMORIAM.

I am looking out from the deep window of my study, through the sharp air

of a frosty, clear November night. There are lights gleaming in some

cottage windows, so far down under the bare trees by the water-side,

that you would think them glow-worms on the grass; and silvery mists are

floating about the sky, and yonder lie some great distant mountain

clouds, with stars embayed in creeks and inlets at their feet, like

lights of anchored ships.

The face of the beautiful night before me brings back another time. I

fancy I am leaning again over the grey wall, which bounds the sloping

road on yonder Calton, looking down with rapt and dreamy eyes upon that

wonderful scene below. Hew Murray’s arm is in mine; we have the

visionary reverence of youth upon us, and when we speak, we speak low,

and with few words. Yonder noble hill with its proud crest, and its

visible darkness--yonder faint towers, far below, of storied

Holyrood--that grand rugged line from the dim valley of the palace to

the bluff front of the castle, with its graceful hovering crown of St

Giles lying so fitly upon the stately head of our royal city--the

gleaming lights, halfway between the dim sky and the dimmer earth--the

confused hum ascending up in softened dreamy murmurs. So near the life

and din of a great city; so near the wonderful gloom and silence of the

everlasting hills. There is a jarring sound below. I start and open my

eyes--and I am looking forth upon the placid water of Fendie, the low

cottage lights below, and the steady stars above--an old man and alone!

After our third session together at college, Hew Murray went to his

distant destination. Murrayshaugh himself came to Edinburgh to

superintend his son’s outfit, and to my very great grief, and the regret

of the whole band of us, slightly mingled with envy, Hew set sail in a

Leith smack--we had no steamers in those days--for London, from whence

he was to proceed to Portsmouth, where his ship lay.

Hew was not of the cosmopolitan class; he was one of those--happily

still existing, and I hope increasing in these days--whom the very name

of home and country stirred like a trumpet. After the greatest motive of

all--and I fear that in our youthful time _that_ had but little

comparative weight with us, as it had little place in the teachings of

those who had the guiding of our unformed minds--the honour of his name

and of his native land roused the warm spirit of my dear friend, Hew, as

no other causes could. “For poor auld Scotland’s sake”--in some degree

we all shared the intense and loving loyalty which took this as its

centre, but it was a ruling principle with Hew Murray; and he felt his

banishment most painfully, though he submitted to the necessity like a

man--for Hew had not any very brilliant hopes.

“There is little chance that I will be able to return till I am old,

Adam,” he said to me, sadly, as we lingered on our favourite walk for

the last time, looking down on the Old Town through the balmy dim spring

night; “and if I should come home as rich as old Major Wardlaw of the

Elms, what then? One would scarcely like to look forward to such an end

of one’s labours. His gouty chair, and his hot unwholesome room, and his

solitude, and his grumbling, and his spiceries, and his inflammable

temper. Man, Adam! to think that I must leave home, and part with Lucy

and with all of you, and toil through my whole life where I shall never

hear a Scotch tongue, for such an end as that!”

“You will hear many Scotch tongues in Bombay, Hew,” said I, “and then

you are sure to marry somebody’s daughter, and come home immediately.”

Hew’s frank happy laugh rang into the dim air pleasantly; its sound

always cheered me, but the remembrance that I might not hear it again

for years fell upon me in blank pain. We made a great many hysterical

attempts after that to be merry, but failed so woefully in every case,

that we turned at last in silence round the brow of the hill, and looked

out upon the sea: the noble Firth spreading its silvery lengths far away

in the distance, with its dark islands and steady lights, and the broad

line of its princely highway leading forth into the foreign world!

The cold, strange, alien world where home was not, nor friends. Hew

Murray’s hand grasped my arm for a moment with a convulsive pressure,

and there were tears under our eyelids,--tears which we were not ashamed

to shed under cover of the gentle night.

The next day I watched a white sail gliding smoothly over the peaceful

Firth, until I lost it on the horizon far away--and my dearest friend

was gone.

For Charlie Graeme, brother-like as we were, was less closely joined to

me than Hew. It is a vulgar notion that the warmest friendship requires

a contrast of minds. Charlie and I had very distinct individualizations.

Hew resembled me closely--I had almost said, that in matters of the mind

and heart Hew Murray and I had all things common. In things physical

there was the same connection between my cousin and myself; but heartily

as I liked Charlie, there were many points on which I certainly knew

that we could by no possibility agree; there were many matters of

feeling and thought which I shrank from bringing under his keen

glance--that glance which pierced through my bashful sentimentalities

with so little pity.

Maxwell got on delicately with those medical studies of his. He was a

great favourite everywhere, his weakness, as usual, bringing him in for

much more than his average share of consideration. Charlie and Walter

toiled manfully at the dry initiatory necessities of their profession.

They were “clever lads” of good parts and promise, both, and both too

well endowed with stout common sense and the natural self-interest and

ambition, to be, except in rare outbursts, loiterers or idlers. For my

desultory self, I dabbled in all scientific crafts; was a metaphysician

for one fit, and a chemist for another, and an antiquarian for a third;

I dipped into Charlie’s dreary quartos, and lingered at the threshold of

the dissecting-room with Edward, and for my own hand got through heaps

of reading, systematic and unsystematic, not always drawn from the

venerable shelves of the college library. It formed a pile of strange

rubbish altogether, built up as it was with the crude philosophies

peculiar to my years.

But sauntering along the Calton Hill now, alone, to dream over the Old

Town, in its antique grace and beauty, made me sick at heart. Hew Murray

was one of those rare friends whom one does not need to be continually

talking to. A stranger who observed our few words might have taken us

for very indifferent companions, but this was above all, the sign of

our closest brotherhood. When Charlie was with us, we were talkative

enough, for then a foreign element was introduced, but we were too much

one when we were alone to have any such constraint upon us. And when

from these silent walks we emerged into the bustle and light of the

street below, and throwing off the charm, began to be as loud as our

neighbours, we felt, both of us, that the chain of our regard was drawn

closer by these communings. Never friend in this world did I appropriate

and feel mine so entirely as Hew, and the dim hill-side where my silence

was unshared, where there was none to dream beside me as I dreamt, or to

feel as I felt, became painful to my solitary eyes. I did not return to

Edinburgh after Hew went away. It had lost its charm for me. I remained

alone at Mossgray.

I was then a man. I had nearly reached my majority, and having perhaps

exaggerated notions of what became my place and position in respect to

the tenants and cottages around me, I began to bestir myself to

ascertain how I could do some work in this brief district, allotted to

me by Providence. I have always been inclined to the contemplative, but

I am not idle, and with all the proud hopes and ambitions of youth to

buoy me up, I laboured and deliberated “for the good of the people,”

with much enjoyment of the philanthropy.

Lucy Murray had grown into a young woman; graceful and grave, with lines

of thought upon her forehead, printed perhaps too deeply for one so

young. That slender ring upon her finger was Charlie’s gift, and

contains in its small enclosure one of those circlets of his sunny hair,

which cling so lovingly about his temples and become them so well; for

their engagement is a grave matter now, acknowledged and known. And yet

I fancy them scarcely like each other yet, for Lucy has dwelt long with

her own thoughts silently, and in solitude, and Charlie, with his whole

soul, has embarked on the busy sea of life; but the contrast gives them

singular grace when they are together, and Lucy is more than ever a

sister to me.

The bright face at Greenshaw, which, with all its happy changes, has

been the angel of my boyish dreams for years, is brighter now in the

grace of early womanhood than ever before. I fancy her the inmate of

some pure and holy atmosphere, the star of some loftier sky. I forget

when I am near Greenshaw that there is sin in the world--I become

heterodox in my very faith--for evil has no share in Lilias.

The name echoes in my ear with a ring of silvery music. The beautiful

and pure of all ages shed their glory about her, and claim my devouter

homage. The Rachel of yonder plains of Syria, the Mary, blessed among

women, the Una, the Desdemona of our own land. Their shadow is upon her

in all places; the very neighbours, common-place as they are, speak low,

I fancy, when they speak of “Lillie,” and I forgive them the familiarity

for the sake of the gracious name; for the stately flower in its royal

purity symbolizes my ideal well, and my garden at Mossgray grows white

with snowy lilies, and I wander among them dreamily, in a mist of

indefinite hopes, and fancied future gladnesses, too bright to tell.

The beautiful time! when every foundation stood fast, and all that was,

was true and constant, and of kin to the pure heavens.

Yet Lilias was only the daughter of Mr Johnstone of Greenshaw, who had

little honour or standing beyond the bounds of Fendie. Murrayshaugh

would have growled the utmost thunder of his anathema upon Lucy, had he

known that in her sisterly kindness she had accompanied me to the

comfortable plebeian parlour where shone my star, and electrified good

Mr Johnstone into hopes of future friendships with those adjacent landed

families, who had not hitherto condescended to notice him. But Lilias

was shy of Lucy, and seemed, to my chagrin, indifferent to her visit; so

I had to console myself with a transitory belief that Lilias felt

proudly the injustice of those artificial barriers of society, and was

sensible of wrong done to her native dignity by the false rule which

made the Laird’s daughter of Murrayshaugh a greater person than she, and

by Lucy’s quiet smile and gentle word of consolation. “By and by,

Adam--we will be better friends, by and by.”

Yes--there was no landed family of them all which could boast a line so

long and so unbroken as that of Mossgray. The encumbrances on the estate

had gradually melted away during my frugal minority. I was able to

maintain appropriately the position I had inherited. Only this one

external matter of rank did Lilias want, and I had it, to lay it at her

feet--the name itself acquired new honour and dignity, when my heart

beat to anticipate the advent of a new lady of Mossgray, who should

eclipse all who went before.

I greatly affected Mr Johnstone’s company then. He was a shrewd man, if

not a refined one; and albeit he did not possess that fearful command of

words which strikes one with utter panic when one comes to the beginning

of a speech of his fellow-craftsman the “Wanderer” of Wordsworth, he yet

could manage to keep up a conversation tolerably well, by help of an

occasional monosyllable from the other interlocutor--we became great

friends. He gave me counsel about the management of my lands; he told me

that Matthew Irving of Friarsford, whose tack was nearly out, had been

holding his farm for some years past nearly rent free, so greatly had

the land increased in value, since his father got the lease. He talked

to me of foreign wars and home politics--I listened in happy

unconsciousness, feeling only that I was conciliating the goodwill of

the father of Lilias, and advancing slowly to my aim.

Mr Johnstone was too shrewd a man not to perceive by and by what brought

me so often, bashful and absorbed, into that corner of his parlour. The

good man evidently believed at first that I sought the benefit and

enlightenment of his conversation; but through a flood of random

answers, and unhappy lack of comprehension on my part, of arguments

which I never heard, his eyes were opened. He was by no means

displeased, I fancied. I was “Mossgray” already, my income was good, my

prospects better. I was altogether eligible for a son-in-law.

And by and by, I thought I discovered that the Fendie young ladies, who

bore Lilias company sometimes, looked at her with wicked secret laughs

and whisperings when I entered the room. Could Lilias _guess_ herself?

Alas, I could not tell! I was too self-conscious to be at ease with her,

and she had always been shy to me.

And matters remained in this uncertain state for a considerable time. I

became of age. Murrayshaugh gruffly resigned, as he had gruffly

undertaken, the guardianship of myself and my possessions. His house

grew more and more desolate as I fancied, and Lucy paler and more

thoughtful every day. She was quite alone, and we used to walk together

sometimes on the old terrace in silent sympathy, thinking of Hew. He had

reached his destination safely, and entered with cheerfulness (as he

told us) into the duties of his office; but the loss of him cast a sad

shadow over the house of his fathers. Perhaps it might be only

that--perhaps there was something more; but a sadder decay seemed to be

gathering over it every time I visited Murrayshaugh.

CHAPTER V.

I leaned my back unto an aik,

I thought it was a trusty tree;

But first it bowed, and syne it brake,

And sae did my true love to me.--OLD SONG.

Our three students, Charlie, Walter, and Edward, at length completed

their studies, and entered upon the duties of their respective

professions. Charlie got his first brief from an old friend of the

family, and there actually was a report of his speech on the case, by no

means an important one, but greatly interesting and very momentous to

us, in one of the Edinburgh papers. It was something about a quarry, I

think, though what about it, I cannot very well remember. I hurried up

to Murrayshaugh with the paper. It was a bright day of early summer, and

Charlie himself was to be with us in a week; a visit to which we had

long looked forward, and of which Lucy and I had more than once spoken.

I found Lucy in her own little parlour, at the low window which opened

to the terrace. The willows were sweeping their long branches over the

sighing water, and in spite of the May sunshine over all, and the

universal joy without, there was a look of sadness here. I involuntarily

restrained my quick step as I reached the window, and Lucy looked up

from her habitual work with her usual kindly and gentle smile.

“Look here, Lucy! I have brought you news,” said I, “news worth seeing.

Come, don’t read them in a dull room this May-day. Come out into the

sunshine and read them here.”

Lucy rose eagerly.

“What is it? is it about Hew, Adam, or--” She paused; a wavering

painful colour came upon her cheek, and her fingers played nervously

with the work she had laid down.

“Lucy, you do not think I could bring you anything but good news to-day.

Come out and read Charlie’s first speech. His pleadings on his first

brief, you know--you heard all about that.”

I fancied I saw a slight shiver of her frame. She had not heard it! but

in a moment after Lucy stept out upon the terrace and took the paper and

read. I thought her figure seemed taller and more distinct against the

shadowy background of willows, as she stood there before me with the

paper in her hand. There was something in it of firm pride and endurance

which struck me as new--some greater emotion than I had ever known.

“Did Charlie send you this, Adam?” she asked, as she gave it back to me.

“Yes, Lucy,” said I humbly, feeling myself guilty of giving her great

pain when I had expected to bring her pleasure; “it came last night.”

There was a slight, almost imperceptible shiver again, and a wandering

of the fingers towards each other, as though they would fain be clasped

together in the instinctive gesture of grief.

“Wait for me a moment, Adam,” said Lucy; “I have something to say to

you.”

I waited upon the terrace while she went in. What could this portend? I

believed, and so did all the countryside, that their marriage was

delayed only until Charlie had a prospect of success in his profession.

He had told me so himself; it was an understood thing; yet Lucy had not

been told of his first brief.

She joined me almost immediately, having only gone in, as it appeared,

to throw the light plaid she usually wore, over her shoulders and head,

and I waited in anxious silence for her first words.

We had reached the water-side, and paused there together, the long

willow-boughs sweeping over us sadly, before she spoke,--

“Adam,” she said then, “have you had any conversation with my father

lately? Has he ever spoken to you about--about his own affairs?”

“No, Lucy,” said I.

“Adam, I may speak to you,” said Lucy. “There is some new calamity

hanging over us. I have seen my father receive letters of late--letters

that I could perceive were from lawyers--which have brought to his face

that white look of despair which you never saw. I mentioned Walter

Johnstone’s name to him once--when you told us he had gone into

partnership with some one in Edinburgh--because he was Hew’s companion,

and--and yours--and my father broke out into a curse upon him,

immediately adding, however,--‘Not him--why should I swear at a

packman’s son? but my own miserable fortune, that am doomed to be

tortured to death by these hired hounds of lawyers!’ I dared ask nothing

then, but I have been ready to catch at every word since; and my father

has vaguely intimated to me some intention that we should go to

France--at least,” said Lucy, hastily, with an indignant blush burning

on her face, and a painful heaving of her breast, “that he would

go--and, of course, I will not leave him.”

“But the cause, Lucy?” said I. “He can have no cause.”

“Alas, Adam, I cannot tell!” said Lucy, sadly, “for he never

has taken me into his confidence; but I think it must be some

responsibility--some--Adam, I do not need to hesitate--you know well

that we have always been poor.”

I did not know how to answer her; I leaned upon the old mossy wall by

Lucy’s side, eager to speak of herself--of Charlie, and yet afraid.

“Is there anything that I can do!” I said. “You can trust me, Lucy; is

there anything that I can do?”

“No, no, Adam! I do not mean that; no one must interfere with my father

or his purposes, you know; but I only desired to tell you that you might

understand as much as I do of why we went, if we do go away, and--I only

wished to tell you, Adam.”

Lucy turned her head away; one or two tears, so large that one could see

by what bitter force they had been restrained, fell softly on the moss

of the wall, but she thought I did not see them.

“Lucy, Lucy, this must not be!” said I; “tell me what I can do; I will

venture anything rather than that this should come upon us! If Hew were

only here--if you would but plead for me, Lucy, that your father may

remember that what I have is yours--yours with my whole heart.”

I saw her shake and tremble in the strong effort to restrain herself,

but it would not do. She pressed her hand across her eyes, and again the

tears fell singly upon the moss--a few large bitter tears, as if they

had been gathered long--an essence of intense pain too powerful to spend

itself in much weeping--deliberate drops wrung from her very heart.

“I thank you, Adam,” she said at last, “and yet I do not need to say, I

thank you--you know that--but this cannot be; you must do nothing; none

of us can do anything except submit. It was only a selfish desire to

pain you, I am afraid, which made me tell you this; for it will indeed

be very hard to leave Murrayshaugh!”

I could say nothing in return. Alas! there are harder trials than even

bidding farewell to one’s home. All was not well in this beautiful

world; there were other things among us than those I had dreamed of, and

my heart sickened as I tried to reassure myself.

By and by, Lucy turned along a quiet sheltered way, close by the

water-side, and I went with her--perhaps I should have left her there,

but I followed in spite of myself. We began to speak of Hew.

“Do you think we shall ever meet all together again, Adam?” said Lucy.

“Surely--I hope so,” said I, hastily. “We are all young, Lucy; we may be

changed externally perhaps, but that will be all.”

“If we are ever together again, we shall be changed in every way, Adam.”

“Nay, nay, Lucy,” said I, “I cannot let you take up that gloomy notion.

Why should we change? We know each other far too well to alter our old

likings. We will be the same, Lucy, when we are grey-headed.”

“Will _you_, Adam?--will all of us?--or are we indeed what we think we

are?--are we not clothing ourselves and others with some ideal of our

own, which hides the natural spirit from us?”

“Lucy!”

“Suppose one had done that,” said Lucy, hurriedly, turning her head

away, and speaking more, as I thought, to herself than to me. “Suppose

one had clothed another in an ideal so beautiful, so noble, that one

almost trembled at one’s own wondrous gladness beholding it; and suppose

that suddenly a blast came, and rent the glorious tissue here and there,

and revealed a hidden thing of clay below; and one came to know that

this noble spirit had never _been_ at all, save in the fancy that

created it. I dreamt of such a thing the other night; and dreams come

true sometimes. Adam, we all change--not one, but all of us.”

I could not speak then, nor did I try to answer her. What could I say?

it was the first check put upon my joyous confidence in all whom I

called friends.

“Has your father told Hew, Lucy, that he thinks of leaving

Murrayshaugh?” I inquired at last, eager to change the subject.

“I think not. I hope it is only _possible_, Adam; I know nothing more

than that; my father does not trust me; but we must know soon.”

I left Murrayshaugh sadly that day. When I had nearly reached Mossgray,

I met Lilias with some of her companions, driving her father’s little

four-wheeled equipage. They paused a moment to receive my eager bashful

salutations, and then drove on. The sunshine of that young face

dispersed the cloud of doubt and unhappiness that hung about me; for

anything false, anything sad, could not come near Lilias--

“I trow that countenance cannot lie

Whose thoughts are legible in the eie,”

I said to myself joyously as I went on. I repented me of my suspicions

of Charlie. Lucy must be mistaken. His conduct could be explained. The

bright mist fell again over the world, and I forgot my fears and

anxieties; they all fled before the smile of Lilias.

I did not see Lucy Murray again before Charlie himself arrived. He

reached Mossgray on the afternoon of another brilliant May-day. He was

very full of his prospects, and considerably elated with the successful

beginning. He even told me the particulars of this first case, I

recollect, in natural excitement and exultation, and very humdrum as

they were, they interested me too, for his sake.

He had been nearly an hour in the house. Mrs Mense, the housekeeper, was

preparing a magnificent dinner in honour of Mr Charlie, the great

advocate; and there he sat, lounging half out of the open window,

talking himself out of breath. I am nervous when I have any cause of

anxiety. I began to change my position, to walk about the room, to take

up and throw down everything within my reach. Charlie made no sign--he

lounged and talked and laughed; he discussed the things which he _would_

do, and which I _should_. I could bear it no longer.

“Charlie,” said I, “you intend to go to Murrayshaugh I suppose before

dinner. You should set out at once, and make haste, for Mrs Mense will

not forgive you if you spoil her trout to-day.”

“Trout!” said Charlie, “are we to have trout to-day? Mrs Mense is a

sensible woman, Adam. I would not endanger Fendie trout for the world.”

“You are illogical, Charlie,” said I, “you forget that the governing

clause in my sentence concerned Murrayshaugh, and not the fish.”

“Pooh--Murrayshaugh’s a bore,” said Charlie, hastily. “Do you angle yet,

Adam, yourself? you lucky fellow, who have nothing to do, and can choose

your own solacements!”

“But, Charlie,” said I, anxiously; “of course you intend to go some time

this evening. I will undertake to make your peace with Nancy. There now,

away with you, like a good fellow.”

“It’s ill talking between a fou man and a fasting,” said Charlie, with a

forced laugh. “Come, Adam, let’s have dinner first--you forget my

journey.”

He went off to his own room immediately, and I could say no more. I

trembled for him. I feared to see the glorious tissue rent, as Lucy

Murray said, and some other alien spirit appear below, which was not my

friend and brother--which was not the true and generous Charlie Graeme.

We dined alone, and there was a certain constraint upon our

conversation. Charlie, it is true, still spoke much, but he seemed, as I

fancied, to speak against time. How he lingered at table--how he spun

out his stories, and deliberated over every little change, and laboured

to fasten arguments upon me, as though endeavouring to shut my eyes to

the progress of those slowly darkening hours. I bore it as long as I

could, and I bore it in intense pain--I had never known so great a

trial.

“Charlie,” said I at last, “how we waste our time here. Come, I will

walk up with you to Murrayshaugh.”

Charlie muttered something between his teeth. I only heard

“Murrayshaugh,” but there was a syllable before which I blushed to guess

at. “Ah, don’t weary me out,” he said aloud. “You don’t think I am made

of cast-iron like your Herculean rustics. It’s too late now, Adam.”

I turned round and looked at him earnestly. He started to his feet with

the quick anger of one who knows himself in the wrong.

“Well, what do you mean, Adam?”

“What do I mean, Charlie? It is I who should ask that question. _You_

mean something by this--what is it?”

“By what?--come, come, Adam, this won’t do. Don’t assume the head of the

family, I beg. I can manage my own affairs without any interference from

you.”

I thought of Lucy Murray standing alone upon yon mossy terrace, without

one in the world who could know, or could lighten her grief, aware that

he was here, and looking for his coming in vain, and in the warmth of my

youthful feelings I was overcome.

“Charlie,” said I, “you will grieve Lucy sadly if you do not go till

to-morrow. Lucy is alone.”

“Well, I will save her the infliction,” said Charlie, with affected

boldness. “It is well I had arranged it so before. I return to Edinburgh

to-morrow.”

“Do you want to break her heart?” I exclaimed.

“I am not answerable to any one for what I intend to do,” said Charlie,

sullenly.

“Yes, Charlie,” said I, “you _are_ answerable--to one higher than we--to

Hew had he been here--even to me. What is this, Charlie? You do not mean

it--it is some passing quarrel which a few words will set right.”

“So!” said Charlie, with a sneer, “Miss Lucy has been complaining to

you!”

My mood changed in a moment; from the utmost sorrow it became the most

passionate anger. I had been labouring to prevent this inevitable

rupture--now I was only eager that it should be completed.

“No,” I exclaimed, “you have never known Lucy Murray. I, who have been

with you so long, only begin to know you now. You--you will never know

Lucy--it is well you feel yourself unworthy of her--it is fit indeed

that her true heart should not be wasted upon you.”

My own heart ached as I turned away from him. I had lost my friend. I

began to grope in a world of shadows where truth was not; and not even

the smile of Lilias could have woven again those fair ideal garments

about Charlie Graeme.

We were mutually silent and sullen after that. Charlie was the first to

speak.

“Adam,” he said, “I don’t want to quarrel with you, but I will answer to

no man for my conduct; my motives and purposes are my own--and there has

been quite enough of this. Walter Johnstone came out with me from

Edinburgh to-day. Will you go over with me to Greenshaw to see him?”

I shrank from him--that he, unveiled and disenchanted as he was, should

breathe the air which Lilias made holy--that her smile should fall upon

_him_! I could hardly restrain myself, but for my old affection’s sake,

and for Lucy’s sake, I did.

“I will follow you,” I answered, “at present I cannot go.”

He left the room, and, in a few minutes, the house, and I saw him go

down the water whistling a merry tune, and pausing now and then to look

round upon those peaceful home scenes, which his presence now desecrated

to me. Murrayshaugh was in the opposite direction. I hurried along

towards it under the trees, with an instinctive desire to see Lucy, and,

unseen myself, to carry at least one sympathetic heart to her vicinity.

It was a superstition of its kind. I had no thought of that--it was an

instinct with me.

And there she certainly was upon the terrace, with her soft light plaid

about her head, and her figure gliding strangely through shadows of the

trees, and of the quaint, fantastic gables of the house, which the light

of a young moon threw faintly on the ground at her feet. I saw her

threading the maze of these, as she moved like a spirit upon the mossy

garden path, and I began to fancy in the bitterness of my heart that it

was thus with us all; that those shadowy unreal forms of ours were but

wandering blindly through a shadowy world of pains and sorrows, which if

it were not all false, was yet involved in a miserable twilight, where

one knew not what was false and what was true.

The old decaying house, with its marks of gradual downfal and lingering

sorrowful pride, and the one faint light in the window of the library

where sat its aged possessor struggling with a young man’s strength of

haughty resistance against the slow ruin that was gliding upon him like

a thundercloud. The low cadence of those rustling willows, wooing the

answering murmur of the water--the silence of the waning evening, made

sadder and more spirit-like by the wan young moon, which gave to its

dimness a spectral light and shadow--and Lucy Murray in her early

youth, with not one heart that could or dared stand by her in her need,

wandering among those shades, with the dark sky above, in the dim world,

alone! I hurried away again. I could not look upon her.

CHAPTER VI.

Alas!

I do confess I thought all hearts were true,

As I did see the whole bright world--how fair!

For linked in happy fancies were the twain--

This beautiful--that pure--

And like the mountains of this noble land

Did Love and Faith and Honour stedfastly

Lift their high heads to the bright sun that crowned them,

As I thought, in my sight.

I do confess me--if it was a sin,

Behold these tears--for bitterly awaking,

I found I had but dreamed.

The parlour of Greenshaw was exceedingly bright when I entered it that

night--brighter in reality, for they were rejoicing over Walter’s

return--and brighter still in contrast with the scene I had left.

“Here he is at last,” cried Walter Johnstone, starting up to shake hands

with me as I entered. “Why, have you been seeing ghosts, Adam? One would

think that we were the rustics and he the townsman, Charlie.”

“You were always a contemplative man, Mossgray,” said Edward Maxwell,

greeting me warmly; “but take care--if you do not tremble for the

consequences of a prescription from me, I do, I can tell you.”

Edward’s manner was more manly than usual. In my yearning for something

to make up for the fatal loss I had sustained, I caught at this eagerly.

Perhaps I had neglected him hitherto. I resolved to do so no longer.

I tried to seat myself so as to shut out Charlie from the light of that

countenance, which made me forget even _his_ unworthiness. I grudged him

the slightest word from Lilias--I fancied how the pure soul within her

would withdraw itself in lofty indignation, did she know him as I did.

“Mossgray,” said Walter, “have you any message for your friend Hew

Murray? Maxwell is going to follow his example, do you know.”

“How?” I asked.

“Oh, that famous appointment we have heard so much of has come at last,”

said Edward. “The ---- regiment are to have the benefit of my learned

services, and they are lying at some heathenish place not far from Hew’s

head-quarters. The name I have learned to write after a day’s

practice--but the pronunciation--come now, Walter, be merciful--don’t

make me desperate by forcing these dislocated syllables over my lips--at

least not in Miss Johnstone’s presence.”

“Oh, never mind Miss Johnstone--Lilie is not such an epicure in sounds,”

said Walter. “Come along, Mixy. After all, man, I believe you don’t know

the true secret so well as I do. A professed lady’s man should never be

ladylike himself. What do you say, Mossgray? Do you hear me, Charlie--am

I not right?”

Mixy was our familiar contraction of Edward’s respectable surname--we

were rather proud of our ingenuity in manufacturing a diminutive which

suited name and profession alike so well; and he took it with wonderful

good humour. To-night however he seemed displeased a little. I did not

wonder; for who could endure to be exposed to ridicule in the presence

of Lilias?

“You’re right in the abstract, Wat,” answered Charlie, with perfect

coolness: “but wrong in this particular instance. To think of giving

counsel to Mixy in such matters--why, Mixy’s irresistible!”

Edward coloured and laughed.

“There now, Charlie, that will do. Don’t believe them, I beg, Miss

Johnstone; it’s mere malice, I assure you.”

“Take care, Lilie,” said Walter, “he wants to put you off your guard.

Ask Mossgray, if you don’t believe me.”

I coloured more deeply than Edward--this was carrying the joke too

far--that Lilias, in her unapproachable purity and loftiness, should be

so addressed was a kind of sacrilege. I started in jealous eagerness to

save her name from the careless _badinage_ which was profanity to me.

“All this has nothing to do with Hew Murray,” I said hastily, and I felt

my cheek burn as I turned away from Charlie. “Are you to be in Bombay,

Edward?--are you to be near Hew?”

“Yes, Bombay is my first destination,” said Edward. “I shall seek him

out of course--and I suppose I must go in a month or two, so you may

prepare your remembrances, Adam.”

“And will you be long away, Mr Maxwell?” said Lilias, softly.

I bent forward at the sound of her voice. I always did--but this night,

for the first time, I felt myself grow hot and angry when I saw Edward’s

head also inclined towards the speaker, and his face brighten to answer

her.

“Many years, I fear, Miss Johnstone--many sad years--if I ever do see

Fendie again.”

I thought the low fall of his voice was affectation. Then I repented

me--I was exquisitely uncomfortable; doing them all injustice except

herself and Charlie--my pure and beautiful star whom no imperfection

could cast a shadow on, and the untrue, detected man whom I had called

my friend. To these, in their extremes of honour and humiliation, I

could not fail to do perfect justice.

“Come, don’t be sentimental,” said Johnstone. “You’ll come home,

Mixy--not the least fear of you--and build a thing with pagodas, and a

verandah, and call it by an outlandish name, and end your history like a

fairy tale. Hew, poor fellow--I am afraid _his_ chance of seeing Fendie

again is worse than yours.”

“How is that?” I exclaimed. “Has anything happened, Walter? Have you

heard of anything adverse to the Murrays?”

“The poor old man has ruined himself,” said Walter. “I am afraid he must

lose everything--but to be sure that is not a thing to be discussed so

publicly.”

I turned round and looked Charlie Graeme in the face. He lifted his

coward eyes to me for a moment in quick self-consciousness, but they

fell before mine. This then was the pitiful reason--I turned indignantly

away. I could scarcely bear to look at him again.

We all rose to leave Greenshaw together. Walter accompanied us to

Fendie. I put my arm through his hurriedly, and kept him behind, while

Charlie and Edward went on before us. I was eager to question him about

Murrayshaugh, and eager to escape from the society of my cousin.

“If it is no breach of confidence, Walter,” I said, “I would be glad if

you could tell me, what this is that seems to threaten Murrayshaugh?”

“It is no breach of confidence now,” said Johnstone, “for I fear it must

very soon be public enough. Murrayshaugh undertook a heavy

responsibility long ago for some old friend, Adam; and many years since

this friend died, and the whole burden of the debt fell upon Mr Murray,

so that only the unusual forbearance of the creditor kept him from being

ruined. But now the original creditor, who knew the circumstances, is

also dead, and his heir will have no mercy, so that the old man I fear

must give up everything. I am afraid, Adam, they will think of me very

unfavourably--but that my partner happened, before I joined him, to be

their creditor’s agent, is of course no fault of mine. It annoys me

though, often; I wish you would just mention that when you write to

Hew--not that any sensible person would blame me of course--but only

there’s an uncomfortable feeling.”

“Hew will understand,” said I, “but of course I will do what you ask me,

Walter; and Murrayshaugh will lose all--did you say all?--and can

nothing be done to help him?”

“Nothing but paying the money,” said the man of business by my side,

“and it’s a very heavy sum, what with costs and interest, and other such

devourers of impoverished means--and besides, Murrayshaugh is too proud

to receive a favour, Adam, even from you. He would rather lose

everything, you know. I confess, harsh and repulsive as he has always

been, there will be something wanting in the countryside if that proud

old man does not decay peacefully here, like any other ruined tower--but

he would take assistance as an insult--you know he would.”

I did know it, and went on sadly, thinking of the desolate household,

and scarcely remembering my companion’s presence.

“And by the by, Mossgray,” said Walter abruptly, “you might mention

that--about my partner being this man’s agent--to Miss Murray; not that

she will care of course--but just--one does not like to be unjustly

blamed.”

“Lucy does not know,” said I, “but I will tell her, Walter, since you

wish it. Poor Lucy!--I mean,” I added, as I saw his keen eye shoot from

me to Charlie, who walked before us, with an intelligent glance, “I mean

it will be so great a trial to her to leave Murrayshaugh.”

Johnstone did not speak. I felt that this was not known to me only, and

I remembered bitterly then, that on _her_ the scorn would lie, the

stigma of being slighted and deserted; and that scarcely either man or

woman would think the worse of him--him, the faithless coward who had

thus failed in need.

I scarcely recollect how Charlie and I managed our brief intercourse

after that, but it was a very great relief to me when he departed next

day. For the first time since we knew each other, Charlie went into

Fendie to take his departure alone, with no one to bid him farewell. I

believe he felt in some degree the emphasis of the broken custom. I

almost believe he would have been glad then to undo what he had

done--but the die was cast--it was too late.

A few days after, I went to Murrayshaugh, anxious, if I could manage it

indirectly, to see Lucy, and yet afraid to meet her. It was a chill day

for summer, with a clouded sky and a loud boisterous breeze tossing the

long willow boughs into a sort of fantastic unearthly mirth, which moved

me, much as the unseemly merry-making of a mourner might have done. Lucy

was sitting in a favourite corner of hers, at the end of the terrace,

reading--at least she had a book in her hand. As I approached the stile,

and little bridge, over the Murrayshaugh burn, under cover of the

eldritch willow branches, she perceived me, and observing that I

hesitated to enter, beckoned me to her. I obeyed at once.

I do not think she was paler that day than she had always been, but

there was a grave composure about her face which made her seem so.

Whatever struggle there had been it was over--and I remember a

consciousness of something clear and chill about her, such as one feels

in the air after a storm--an atmosphere in which everything stands out

in bold relief, disclosing all its points and angles against the

distinct far-distant sky. Yet Lucy was no less benign--no less gentle

than she had always been.

“I wanted to see you, Adam,” she said. “I will write to Hew to-day--have

you anything to say to him?”

“No,” said I, stammering and hesitating, for I felt painfully the great

event, the era in our lives which had become known to me since I saw her

last. “No, Lucy--except what Hew does not need to be told, I hope--that

I constantly think of him as of my most dear friend, and that scarcely

anything in the world would delight me so much as to see him again.”

“I will tell him,” said Lucy; “one likes to hear such things sometimes,

Adam, even when one is in no doubt of them--and I will tell him any

other pleasant thing you know, to make amends for the sad news I must

send him--for I am afraid that is certain now, Adam, which I said before

was only possible--we must leave Murrayshaugh.”

“Is there no way of averting this calamity?” I exclaimed.

“You know my father, Adam,” said Lucy, “he does not trust me as he might

do; but I have almost been acting as a spy these few days, and there is

no hope I see; for one of the few trials that can really shake his iron

nature is this of leaving home, and if there was any hope of averting

it, he would try all means before he yielded.”

“Lucy,” said I, “help me to present my petition to your father--beg him

to remember how greatly I am indebted to you all, and entreat him to

consider me thus far as his son. If what I have will do, why should he

not take it, Lucy? I am a young man--I am ashamed of my own indolence--I

will go and seek my fortune like Hew, and will be far happier so than as

I am. Lucy--”

“Hush, Adam,” said Lucy, stopping me, as I eagerly pleaded with her,

“you must not think of this. I cannot suffer you to say another word,

and you know my father with his harsh pride would not be indebted even

to his own son for such assistance. No, no, he will bear his own burden

alone, and so must I--that it is not easy or light is a lesser

matter--we must bear our own lot; but, Adam, I am glad you have said

this--I am glad,” said Lucy slowly, a gush of sudden tears coming to her

eyes, which seemed to flow back again, and did not fall. “I am glad you

would have _done_ it, Adam. I will mind it when I am heavy again, and

sinking--and I will tell Hew.”

“But, Lucy, listen to me,” I exclaimed. “May I not speak to

Murrayshaugh? may I not ask your father?”

“Not unless you wish to make him desperate, Adam. Nay, do not look

impatient. To satisfy you, I will mention it to him myself, and even

urge it if I can. I know what the issue will be, but I will do you this

justice, Adam--are you content?”

I was compelled to be so. I hardly could have dared myself, under any

circumstances, to offer pecuniary assistance to Murrayshaugh.

We parted very soon. Lucy did not make the slightest allusion to

Charlie--there was not even a hint or inference which I could fancy

pointed to him. She was very composed--so much so, as to make it evident

to me, who knew her well, that there had indeed been some grievous

troubling of those quiet waters, before so dead a stillness fell upon

them--but no one who knew her or observed her less could have seen any

trace of a crisis past, or a great struggle completed, in the grave

composure of her manner. Whatever memorials of the storm there might be

within, there were none without.

I thought when I left her of an ascending road leading westward from

Fendie, which, when you look along its line at night, seems to go off so

abrupt and chill into the clear cold sky beyond, that its solitary

wayfarers mysteriously disappear there, into the luminous blank of

heaven, and you watch them with a feeling of desolate loneliness, as

they glide in silence away. I thought of Lucy on that road alone--since

then, whenever I recall her memory, I have fancied I saw her slight

figure there, travelling away steadily into the cold horizon, unwavering

and alone.

CHAPTER VII.

He speired at her mother, he speired at her father,

He speired at a’ her kin,

But he speiredna the bonnie lass hersel,

Nor did her favour win.--KATHERINE JANFARIE.

Walter Johnstone remained nearly a month at Fendie. During this time he

made two or three visits to Edinburgh, but as a new beginner, he was not

yet very much cumbered with business. He was the brother of Lilias--I

became interested in all his pursuits, and indulgent of all his foibles.

We were seldom separate; for if I was abroad with Walter almost all the

day, I sat in my especial corner in the Greenshaw parlour all the

evening, and that privilege was cheaply purchased by any fatigue or

inconvenience. I fancied I began to make some silent gradual progress. I

fancied Lilias was scarcely so shy as she used to be in my presence, and

I myself began to be a little more rational in my adoration. To the

devout homage of the age of chivalry, I endeavoured to add a little of

that more ordinary and slighter thing, which is called “paying

attention.” I adopted as much of it as the shyness of my deeper feeling

would permit, and almost envied, while I was offended by, the fluent

ease of Maxwell, who like myself was a frequent visitor at Greenshaw,

but who, unlike me, could be quite at ease with Lilias, and ventured to

treat her like any ordinary girl. Ordinary girl! what do I say? there

was no such being in existence to me. Unapproachable, above all others,

was my own queen and lady, but the light of her presence shed a

reflection upon _them_. I owed them all a reverence for her sake.

Maxwell was preparing to go away, he said. I wished him in India with

all my heart, and wondered audibly why he delayed so long. Not that I

was what is vulgarly called jealous; but while I did feel envious of any

sharer in my sunshine, I grudged that it should fall on one to whom it

was merely common light. I was angry because he did “pay attention” to

Lilias, and I thought meanly of him because, admitted as he was to her

society, he could be content with “paying attention.” Altogether his

presence irritated me. I heartily wished him away.

Walter Johnstone was a pleasant companion--even forgetting, had that

been possible, whose brother he was: we became great friends. He was too

acute not to perceive how matters stood, and I fancied he had no desire

to discourage me. We were out together on the last day of his stay at

Greenshaw: he had become very confidential, he told me his circumstances

with his partner, his anticipated income, his intention of taking a

house in York Place; and finally, the last and greatest of all, his

prospect of getting a mistress to the house. I listened with the

greatest interest, and congratulated with the utmost warmth--it was

impossible for any brother to have been more sympathetic than I--and

then, with sudden boldness, I poured out into his ear my own great

secret. When the first barrier was removed, the flood poured forth too

strongly for any diffidence to check it. I spoke very fervently, as I

felt. I fancy it must have been with some sort of natural eloquence too,

for Walter’s hand trembled when he grasped mine, and promised me his

help.

Before I recollected myself, while we were still in a kind of cloud of

excited earnestness, I found myself in Mr Johnstone’s presence; and

then, as there is no boldness like the nervous boldness of your shy man

when he reaches the needful heat, I made speedy conquest of him. Then I

was ushered into the well-known parlour, with its forenoon look of

quietness and new arrangement, to wait for Lilias.

The slow sunbeams stealing through the blinds, the chairs standing

formally in their places, the closed piano, the books replaced in their

shelves, the work-table withdrawn in its corner; how vividly I remember

all these homely usual things, and how solemn they made my waiting. She

came at last--and then I remember in a mist how the full tide of my

eloquence poured forth again, and how I was successful. Yes, successful!

I left Greenshaw triumphantly, the proud possessor of the plighted troth

of Lilias.

I returned home in happy unconsciousness of how or where I went. On the

way I met Maxwell, I recollect, and was too much elevated above all

ordinary things to do more than speak the briefest words of recognition

to him, overflowing though I was with the universal benevolence of a

light heart; and yet, withal, I remember how some faint ghost of

consciousness haunted me that I was not happy enough--that Lilias’s

consent was sadly mechanical, that it lacked--but no! I was not so

profane as that; I could see nothing lacking in Lilias.

I was not to see her again that night--she was engaged at some Fendie

party--and so I wandered the evening out by the water-side, flying from

less ethereal society. I had half an idea of going to tell Lucy, but,

like a miser, I chose to exult over my secret treasure a little longer

before I shared the joy of it with any one.

And I remember well what wondrous dreams glided before my eyes, in

bright processions, peopling yonder far-away glades and noble trees with

groups of fairy figures, more beautiful than ever dreamer saw before. I

saw her pass over the threshold of Mossgray with her bridal grace upon

her. I saw her dwell there in her gracious, growing womanhood, drawing

all pleasant things towards her as flowers turn to the sun; and though

my heart did indeed beat high with proud gladness, when I remembered

that it was _my_ name she shed so sweet a lustre on, and that it was _I_

who stood beside her in all the shifting groups of my fancy--even that

stood aside, as selfish rejoicings must always do, in presence of the

supreme joy I had in herself. That she was--that in our dim world there

shone this one especial star, as true, as pure, as gracious as the

heavens--whose constant outcoming must be beneficence and love; whose

constant meed--too poor a one for her lofty deservings--must be

blessings and honour. I could not fathom the depths of my own

happiness--I could but float upon its sunny stream.

The next morning rose brightly in all the brilliant joy of June, and as

early as I could venture, I set out for Greenshaw. The slight morning

traffic of those quiet Fendie streets--the cottage wives, upon its

outskirts, going about their cheerful household labour--the domestic

sounds that came pleasantly from the wayside houses--I remember them

with the sunshine of my own joy over all, giving harmony and finest

keeping to the homely picture. At last I approached the well-known holly

hedge. A woman stood at the gate looking down the lane; the

parlour-blinds were closed; there was a look of excitement about the

house, as if something unusual had happened. I hurried on, noticing

_that_ in my haste, but too pleasantly expectant to think of it.

The woman at the door was Mr Johnstone’s factotum--a sensible, matronly

person, who exercised the more laborious duties of housekeeper, for

which Lilias was too inexperienced and young.

“Good morning, Margaret,” I said, as I came up and was about to pass in.

Margaret stretched out her hand to stop me.

“Oh, Mossgray!”

There was evident distress and trouble on her face. A slight tremor of

alarm came over me.

“Has anything happened?” I said. “What is the matter, Margaret?”

“Ower muckle--ower muckle,” said the housekeeper of Greenshaw, lifting

her apron to her eyes; “oh, for onysake dinna gang in!--and yet he maun

ken--there’s nae use trying to keep it frae him.”

The last part of the sentence was spoken under her breath; I became very

much agitated.

“What is it, Margaret? Is Lilias ill? What has happened?”

“I’ll tell ye, Mossgray,” said Margaret, quickly, the arm which she had

extended to bar my entrance falling to her side. “It wad be dearly

telling her, she had been ill this day. She’ll live yet to ken, that the

sorest fever that ever chained a mortal to a sick bed wad hae been a

blessed tether o’ her wilful feet this woefu’ morning. Dinna think o’

her, Maister Adam. I ken it’s hard, but ye maun try; dinna think o’

her--she’s no wurdy o’t.”

I clutched the woman’s arm, angry and eager. I could not speak.

“Weel then, she’s gane--she’s away--her that was the light o’ our

e’en--that we couldna see ill in--that I’ve heard ye even to the very

angels, Mossgray. She’s gane--fled out from her father’s house with yon

young haverel o’ a doctor, that has neither wealth to keep, nor wit to

fend for her. Oh, guid forgie me, Mr Adam! what have I dune?”

My face alarmed her, I fancy. I pressed blindly in--Walter Johnstone

stood before me. I was close upon him before I was aware of his

presence; I looked in his face.

He turned from me with a burst of emotion, which seemed to wake me from

some terrible nightmared sleep.

“Mossgray, I did not know it--I had no suspicion of this. Believe me,

Adam, believe me, that I am blameless! She has deceived us all!”

I felt a hoarse contradiction struggling from my dry lips--still I could

not hear _her_ blamed. Then I turned away; I could hold no further

parley with any one; I hurried into the sheltering solitude of my own

lonely house.

The bright world without mocked and scorned me--the passers-by looked

wonderingly at my stricken face. I could not linger by the water-side

now, in the first shock of my vanished and ruined dreams. I fled into

this solitary room, within the silent walls of which so many slow years

have passed since then, and threw myself into my chair, and pressed my

throbbing head between my hands. It was only then that I realized what

had come upon me.

I am an old man now, and these passionate struggles of youth have faded

in the far distance, veiled in the gentler mists of memory. Yet I do

remember them--I do remember me of minute and trifling things--the open

book lying there upon this floor--the solitary lily drooping in its

vase--the snowy leaf that had fallen upon the window-ledge below; and

how the pale and fierce light of my calamity fixed the image of them for

ever on the tablets of my heart. I remember--it is not such seasons that

men can forget.

I had lost her for ever--alas! that was not all--she had never been. The

conviction forced itself upon me till I grew well nigh mad. I dashed my

clenched hands into the air; I could not restrain the wild fit of

passion, the irrational frenzy that possessed me. I was alone! the

things which I had worshipped and made my idols were things of

air--mists of my early morning, melting away before the stern and sober

light--and I was left here desolate, forlorn, and solitary, and there

was nothing true under the sun.

It is a bitter and a sorrowful thing to mourn for the dead--to lament

over those who have gone away out of this shadowy land into the brighter

country, where they yet are, and shall be, all the more sure in their

wonderful existence that we see them not. But to mourn for those who

have never been--to behold stars fall from your horizon, the glory of

whose shining was but a phantasm of your brain, a creation of your own

soul; to awake suddenly from your contemplation of some noble and

beautiful spirit, the fairest that ever gladdened mortal vision, and to

find that it _is_ not, and _was_ not, and that the place, which in your

dream was illuminated by its glorious presence, is filled by a shadowy

thing of unknown nature, which you never saw before--this is the

bitterest of griefs. If there is sorrow more hard than this, I bow my

head to it in fear and reverence; but this is my woe, and prince of

woes.

Drifting from false anchorage, surrounded by spectral ships and ghostly

receding shores, hopelessly driven over the treacherous sea; with no

light but an indefinite twilight, sickening the faint heart with visions

of shadowy haven and harbour, and false security. A world of mists--a

universe of uncertain, unknown existences, which are not as you have

dreamed, and among whom you must go forth alone, no longer devoutly to

believe and warmly to love, but to grope darkling in the brightest

noonday, to walk warily, shutting up the yearning heart within you, in

jealous fear. It is hard to make this second beginning--hard to fight

and struggle blindly against this sad necessity--yet the poor heart

yields at last; either to put on the self-wounding mail of doubt and

suspicion, or to live in dim and mournful patience, a hermit all its

days.

CHAPTER VIII.

Oh! wherefore should I busk my heid?

Oh! wherefore should I kame my hair?

When my true love has me forsook,

And says he’ll never loe me mair.

Oh, Mart’mas wind! when wilt thou blaw

And shake the dead leaves aff the tree?

Oh, gentle death! when wilt thou come

And take a life that wearies me?--OLD BALLAD.

I took little note of how months or weeks went after that era. I lost

that summer time. It has fallen entirely from the reckoning of my life,

leaving only some vestiges of what looks now like incipient madness

behind; for I was entirely alone; shut out as much from that ordinary

communication with the world, which painfully and beneficially compels

the suppression of one’s agony, as I was from all human sympathy, all

kindness, all compassion. I had lost all; my dreams of a brighter

home--my friends--all were gone. Hew Murray far away in India, and his

sad sister Lucy alone in Murrayshaugh--to no others in the wide world

could I look for any of those gentle offices which belong to friendship;

and the one was thousands of miles away--the other was no less solitary,

no less stricken than I.

I did not see her during the whole of that summer. Had there been no

cloud overshadowing her own lot, I believe I might have sought the balm

of Lucy’s pity, and perhaps been in some degree comforted; but as it was

I never sought to see her--I saw no one--I shut myself up through those

scorching summer days--I remember yet how their unpitying sunshine

sickened me to the very soul--in this solitary room. I wandered

ghost-like on the water-side at night; I neglected everything that I had

formerly attended to. I held no communication even with the servants of

my lonely household, which I could possibly avoid. It was little wonder

that they should think me crazed; the belief shot in upon my own brain

sometimes like an arrow--almost the consciousness that I was mad.

I might have been--how soon I know not--but that I was mercifully

snatched from the edge of the precipice.

The summer was over, the autumn days were darkening and growing chill,

and the wan water of Fendie carried showers of faded leaves upon its

bosom, and grew husky and dark with frequent floods. The transition from

the fierce summer sunlight soothed me. These six terrible months had

done on me the work of years. I was young--almost a lad still--but I had

always been older than my years, and pain brings with it unenviable

maturity. In my solitude I felt untimely age come upon me; I carried in

my youth’s frame a man’s worn-out heart.

My housekeeper, Nancy Mense, suffered no one to come near me but

herself; and her own services were rendered in silence, with something

of that compassionating awe, which we hear is paid to the victims of

mental malady in the East. I had never observed this until the day of

which I am about to speak.

It was a dim, cloudy October day, overcast with showers, and I was

subdued and softened; the drooping, disconsolate sky and damp air seemed

to hush the fiery pains within me. Mrs Mense entered my apartment, and,

without speaking, laid a letter upon the table. I noticed a painful

solicitude in her face, as she looked at me before she left the room; I

took up the letter--it was from Lucy Murray.

“We shall be far away before you receive this, Adam. I write, because

hereafter you might think I did you wrong in sending you no farewell. Of

our own affairs I can tell you little, even if _now_ you cared to hear

of them. I can guess that my father gives up almost all he has; all the

land, everything but a bare pittance that will merely maintain us--and

the house. He has not parted with Murrayshaugh itself. He vows he never

will--but utterly reduced in means as we must be, we must leave it

now--perhaps--perhaps sometime, if good days ever come, to return home

again.

“I dare not tell you where we are going; indeed, I do not even know. You

know my father’s harsh and haughty pride; he says no one shall see our

poverty who has ever heard our name before. He might have lingered

longer, I believe, had I not told him of your generous offer; he took

it, as I fancied he would, with hard and bitter anger as a humiliation.

Yet thank you again, Adam, for thus cheering me, when the world indeed

was black enough around us.

“For yourself, what can I say, Adam Graeme? that you are not alone; but

alas! that is small consolation. Who can tell the appointed place which

this trial has in the lives of each of us, the appointed purpose for

which it has been sent? Adam, let us not look upon those wrecks of the

vain dreams we fancied true; all is not untrue, though these are; all is

not dark because these lights have failed. The feverish flashing of

these meteors is gone for ever; but there remains the sober, stedfast,

healthful light of day, the sunshine of heaven over all.

“Adam, let us awake; let us think no longer of those who have done us

wrong, but of Him who took so grievous wrong upon Himself for our

deliverance. It is not meet that the lives for which he paid so

wonderful a price should go down ignobly to the grave; do I need to say

more to you? do I need to do more than bid you arise, Adam, for His

sake, and do the devoir of a man, whether He send sunshine or gloom, a

dark day or a bright.

“I have only one word to say more; be careful, Adam: look well to your

words and deeds, lest the tempter take advantage of them to bring more

sin among us. I cannot venture to speak more plainly, but as you would

have others--others whom both of us have held very dear--preserved from

a deadly snare and sin, look heedfully to yourself, and let this wild

grief engross you no more.

“Write to Hew; and remember us all if we never meet again. Farewell,

Adam, and farewell.

“LUCY MURRAY.”

* * * * *

I was roused by Lucy’s letter, roused in some degree to remember my

manhood, and to think how I wasted it; but one struggle does not

overcome a grief like this. So I fell into a bitterly selfish mood,

contrasting her lot with mine--her cold womanlike submission with my

self-torture--and while I thought of the conclusion of her letter, with

a certain degree of idle languid wonder, I hugged my calamity closer to

my heart. No one had fallen from so bright a heaven into so blank an

earth as I; no one had ever equalled my misfortune, and who but myself

could comprehend my grief.

The wailing breeze suited me; I opened the window and leaned out,

resting my brow upon my hands. Heavy raindrops fell from the eaves upon

my unsheltered head--I did not heed them.

The sound of voices below arrested my attention; I remember wondering

that they did. No later than the day before they would have made me

shrink into myself jealously, in fear of contact with the speakers; now

I only remained still and listened.

“My good woman, I want to see Mr Graeme,” said a strange voice; “I

assure you I will take no denial from _you_, so it is needless to keep

me here on the damp soil--my feet are quite wet enough already.”

“Your feet are nae concern o’ mine,” said Mrs Mense, with some

ill-humour in her tone; “nae doubt ye can change them when ye gang hame,

like other folk. But my maister’s no heeding about seeing strangers; and

sae I tell ye--no meaning ony disrespect--once for a’.”

“But your master does not choose to let you answer for him, I presume,”

said the stranger. “You can surely ask him at least.”

“And wha has as guid a right to answer for him, puir lad!” said Mrs

Mense, her voice sinking to an under-tone, “as me, that have fended for

him a’ his days? I tell ye there’s nae need for asking, Sir; I ken weel

enough he’ll no see onybody.”

“This is insufferable!” said the applicant for admission. “Here, my good

girl, do _you_ go and tell your master that I want particularly to speak

with him--I, Doctor Pulvers of Edinburgh.”

“Eh, I daurna for my life!” exclaimed the shriller voice of Janet, Mrs

Mense’s niece; “I wadna face Mossgray for--”

“Haud your peace, ye silly tawpie!” cried Mrs Mense. “Do ye mean to say

_that’s_ like a gentleman, speiring at the fuil of a gilpie, and me

here?”

“Don’t be afraid, my girl,” said the stranger. “What is it that alarms

you for Mossgray?”

“If you say anither word o’ your havers, I’ll fell ye, Jen!” exclaimed

my housekeeper, in a voice shrill with passion. Then I heard a slight

noise, as if the girl had made her escape.

“Well, Ma’am,” said the stranger, “I hope you’ll condescend to inform me

what special reason you have that I should not see your master.”

Mrs Mense seemed to falter.

“I’ve nae special reason, Sir; only if Mossgray doesna heed about seeing

strangers, it’s nae business o’ mine or yours either.”

“But why does he object to see strangers?” persisted the pertinacious

visitor.

“I didna say he objected; I only said he wasna heeding; and it’s no my

place to be aye asking the whys and the wherefores. Maybe you never were

no weel, or had a sair heart yoursel? and if a gentleman like the laird

canna be fashed wi’ a’ the gangrel bodies that come about the town,

naebody has ony business wi’ that.”

“But I am no gangrel body,” said the stranger. “Come now, you have kept

me out long enough; if the young man is unwell, that is only another

reason why I should see him--I’m a physician.”

“I didna say he was no weel.”

“Then in the name of wonder, what did you say?” exclaimed the stranger.

“I shall have serious suspicions, I assure you, my good woman, if you

answer me so. Why was the girl afraid to speak to her master? and what

do you mean?”

The heavy drops from the eaves had fallen one by one on my head--my hair

was wet with them--my brow damp with more painful dew. I rang my bell

hurriedly.

“Ye can bide till I come down,” I heard Mrs Mense say, as she shut the

door, “and I’ll ask the laird, since ye will hae’t; but ye’ll stay where

ye are till I come back again.”

In a minute or two after she appeared at the door of my study; her ruddy

face was paled by emotion, and her eyes turned upon me with a painful

solicitous look that smote me to the heart.

“What is the matter?” I asked as calmly as I could, “and why do you not

bring that man up to me at once, Nancy, instead of keeping him so long

at the door?”

Again she looked at me--a conscious, terrified look, which I trembled to

interpret.

“Oh, Mossgray! for the Lord’s sake tak tent o’ yoursel! you’re an

innocent lad--ye aye were an innocent lad--ye kenna what ill may be

brewing. I saw ane that saw Mr Charlie in the toun yestreen--oh, Mr

Adam, dinna look sae fearsome!--and if ye canna meet this man--if ye’ve

ony fear--just say the word, and I’ll send him away.”

I felt large drops of moisture burst upon my brow; I shuddered through

my whole frame; I felt an irresistible inclination to flee away, and

escape from all these miseries for ever. I had indeed awakened from my

frenzy of grief--and such an awakening!

“Why should I fear to see him?” I asked, the words refusing to come

plainly from my stammering tongue. “What is this? Do you think--do you

think I am mad?”

She did not answer; but with tears streaming from her eyes she continued

to fix that painful, terrified, conscious look upon my face.

I felt my nostril dilate--I felt some bitter scorching tears flood my

eyes. Then I became suddenly calm.

“God help me!” I exclaimed in my agony, and my prayer was heard.

I grew calm in a sudden consciousness of restored strength. I thought

steadily of Lucy and her warning; of this humble woman here, whose

honest heart sorrowed and laboured for me. I was roused--I put my wrongs

forth, out of my heart, and committed myself to God.

“Now,” I said, “let him come up.”

My kind housekeeper withdrew, wiping the tears from her cheeks. I saw

she had acquired some sort of trembling confidence from my bearing; then

I did what I could to make my appearance less conspicuously negligent,

and then with a nervous concentrated quietness, I waited for my visitor.

He looked me very steadily in the face, with a singular emphatic look. I

did not think at the time what was the meaning of this, or it might have

raised a ferment in my veins, and made me appear as they wished me. As

it was, I saluted him calmly, gliding at once into my usual manner, and

feeling with a consciousness of unspeakable relief, that I was myself

again.

“I have been residing in the neighbourhood for a week or two, Mr

Graeme,” said my visitor, after introducing himself as Doctor Pulvers of

Edinburgh, “and hearing that you were in delicate health, I took the

liberty of volunteering a call; that is to say--for I am taking too much

credit to myself--some of your friends begged me to do so, expressing

themselves very anxious about you.”

“My cousin, Mr Charles Graeme, I presume?” said I. “My friends are not

so many that I should have any difficulty in discovering them.”

Doctor Pulvers looked confused. “No, no. Mr Charles, whom I have the

pleasure of knowing, is no doubt much attached to you, Mr Graeme; but,

to tell the truth, the principal person was a lady--and a very young and

charming one, I assure you. Mrs Edward Maxwell.”

It was a lie, I knew, and I contained myself--the person who bore that

name was not my Lilias; but I would not have inflicted on Charlie such a

pang as shot through my heart, while these words were deliberately

pronounced in my ear, for all the evil he had done, and for all he

designed to do. This was the application of the touch-stone; my simple

unsuspicious wits were miraculously sharpened as I thought--I saw that

this was the test.

“Mrs Maxwell is very kind,” I said, and I did not falter.

Then he began to inquire into my symptoms.

“This is quite useless,” I said. “I cannot suppose, Doctor Pulvers, that

you can have been in the neighbourhood as you say, without hearing from

some benevolent friend the history and origin of any sufferings I may

have been enduring. Such as they are, they belong to myself alone, and

admit of no probing; but I am glad that I can authorize you to satisfy

the sudden anxiety of my friends, by an assurance of my rapidly

progressing recovery. I beg you will carry my thanks to all; but

symptoms I have none to tell you, unless it were of one or two swellings

of indignation which I have been sensible of lately--and that I presume

is a tolerably healthful emotion, and one which you are not accustomed

to class as a symptom of disease.”

Doctor Pulvers looked annoyed and discomfited, and I became sorry for

him; however he changed the subject with admirable art, and had plunged

me into a long discursive conversation before I was well aware. He was

an intelligent, agreeable man, and I had shut myself out from all

society so long, that I forgave him the object of his visit, and would

have almost forgotten it, had he not with most delicate tact and

_finesse_, when he fancied me completely off my guard, suddenly

introduced that name again, which made my whole frame thrill as with a

wound, and brought the moisture in cold showers to my brow. He repeated

this again and again, but each time I conquered.

At last he rose to leave me.

“Mr Graeme,” he said, offering me his hand, and looking again in my

face, but this time with a less singular steadiness of gaze than before,

“I assure you I am most happy that I have found you so much better than

your friends imagined. I congratulate you heartily on your evident sound

health and good constitution; but, if you will permit me to advise, do

not try it so severely as you have done, and come yourself, and let all

interested in you see how perfectly competent you are on this, and all

other matters, to judge for yourself.”

His tone was grave and significant--I believed the man. He was glad that

his mission had failed; he was glad that I was not added to the list of

his miserable patients. I had strength enough left to part with him in

firm calmness--nay, I went further; I accompanied him to the door, and

saw him leave Mossgray.

And then--those bitter, scorching, desperate tears of manhood that

burned upon my cheek--those convulsive sobs that shook me with their

fierce strength--this fearful loneliness, which left me a prey to all

the fiery fancies within, and all the secret foes without--“God help

me!” I had need.

A sudden fancy took me, as I wrestled fiercely with this fierce

affliction. I left the house, and hurried along that side of the grounds

of Mossgray which immediately skirts the road--where there was a wall of

four or five feet high, lined by old trees, which hung their high

foliage over, shadowing the highway below. They were nearly bare then,

but under the sombre covert of a group of firs, and taking advantage of

the stump of an old ash tree, I ventured to look over. Doctor Pulvers

was proceeding at a dignified slow pace along the road, while some one

approached hurriedly in the other direction--I looked again; it was

Charlie. They must meet immediately beneath the spot where I stood--I

drew back among the firs and waited.

“Well, Doctor?”

“You have fortunately been quite misinformed, Mr Charles,” said the

constrained voice of the physician. “Your cousin has as perfect

possession of his faculties as either you or I. I am glad to be able to

inform you of his perfect health. He is not either very robust or very

happy, I dare say, and has the good sense and courage not to veil the

latter, with false pride or levity, as I have seen many young men do,

but his constitution is sound, and his mind elastic. I have not the

slightest fear of him.”

There was a dead pause; for a moment or two after, Charlie said not a

word. Then he exclaimed, somewhat loudly,--

“Well, of course I am very happy to hear it. The more fool he, to give

these gossips the chance of speaking of him so; but Adam was always a

sentimental fellow. Of course it is a great satisfaction to me to find

it all groundless.”

They passed on. I heard no more of their conversation, nor wished to

hear; and I was too thoroughly worn out to be moved by my former

passions, either of sorrow or anger. So I took rest--not very quiet nor

peaceful, but still more natural and refreshing than I had known for

many nights and days.

CHAPTER IX.

There is no light in earth or heaven

But the cold light of stars,

And the first watch of night is given

To the red planet Mars--

Is it the gentle star of love?

The star of love and dreams?

Ah, no! from that blue tent above

A hero’s armour gleams.--LONGFELLOW.

I was roused. I began to understand the necessity of that ruling one’s

own spirit which is greater than taking a city. I began to see that my

self-martyrdom, with all the indulgence of its pain, was but, in its

kind, a selfish pleasure after all, and that the duty before me was not

any shutting out of the common mercies of the world, or lingering act of

self-torment, but a firm and manly subduing of my sorrow. It is a trial

even to make this discovery. It is a hard test of patience, when the

soul quivering with its own suffering yearns to plunge into some great

matter--to endure, to do, to sacrifice--and feels within its aching

veins the spirit of a Xavier, eagerly flying to the painfullest labour,

and refusing the solace of usual comfort--to have the blank of a steady

endurance offered to it instead; to be compelled to yoke its turbulent

might of grief again to the common toils of every day; to put on the

usual smile, to draw the usual outer garment of ease and seeming

peacefulness over the wild pulses of a wounded heart. I say you shall

find more scope for desperate bravery in this than on any louder field

of battle; for true it is, and of saddest verity, that there be many men

to whom taking a city is a small and light matter, in comparison with

the firm ruling of this precious stronghold and violent garrison within;

many men who, like the proud Syrian of old, would willingly dare the

fiery process of some sudden miracle, but with hearts full of bitter

disappointment and pride, would turn from the placid Hebrew waters in

which the blessing lay.

I was bound to the stake. I was compelled to rule myself with the iron

hand of a despot; to return to all my ordinary occupations; to come and

go as I had been wont; to listen and to speak of things and persons

whose names sent my blood flooding back upon my heart, in the shivering

heats and chills of agony, with an assumption of calm ease and

indifference the while terrible to bear. And I did all this, that my

only relative might be prevented from dooming me to the prison-house of

madness--might be preserved from the sin of unrighteously making himself

master of the lands of one by whom he had been regarded as a dearly

cherished brother. My lands! I would have given them gladly for the joy

of believing that Charlie had not meditated a cruelty like this; but for

the sake of my good name, and for his own miserable sake, that his sin

should at least go no further than intention, I constrained myself to

bear this hard and painful discipline of ordinary life. I could not go

away as I longed to do, and in strange lands and among new faces

endeavour to forget myself, and the loneliness which was my fate. I was

bound first to vindicate myself to our little world, and remove all

occasion of evil speaking; for my liberty and my means were both

concerned. Had Charlie established his case, I must have lost all.

Edward Maxwell had not gone to India. After _her_ fate was united to

his, her father made some exertions to establish them at home. They were

shortly going to Glasgow I heard, but as far as I could I shut my ears

to their name; and though many mentioned them before me with cruel

smiles, there were some who knew more truly the nature of my feelings,

and tried to hush the rest. But it is hard to do what I laboured to

accomplish. To convince one’s self that the being held highest and most

loveworthy through all one’s lifetime has altogether vanished from this

earth, though there still remains the external form in which the

imagination shrouded so fair and beautiful a spirit. I knew indeed that

the Lilias of my fancy had never been, but I could not mourn for her as

for one dead.

No, the dead are sure. Our most jealous fears cannot think of

change--our utmost misery of grief cannot suppose end of existence to

them. I fancy the very death makes them more peculiarly our own; but far

other and far bitterer is such a calamity as mine.

I was shortly to prove both.

The Murrays were gone, no one knew whither; a single servant remained in

the house, but she could give me no information as to the retreat of her

master. I felt that I did wrong to ask her, and when I wrote to Hew, I

did not repeat the question.

In the beginning of the year, Hew answered my letter. I remember

noticing with sudden fear that the address was not written in his hand;

but the long letter within reässured me, and I did not observe, in my

eagerness to read it, another brief note which dropped from the

enclosure upon the table.

There was a tone of subdued and unexpressed sympathy in the letter which

touched me deeply. No one in this world, not even Lucy, could enter into

my feelings as Hew could, and what he said was the inferred sorrow of

closest friendship; the sympathy which does not speak of your grief, but

which enters into your heart, and stands at your own stand-point, and

thinks as you think--as you think, but more gently--as you will think

when your grief is further away, and in the hushed and quiet land of

memory it has become dim and calm.

“Cheerly, Adam,” wrote Hew Murray, “we are becoming men; and if there

are harder processes involved in that than in the old disciplines we

used to share together, we must nevertheless bear the heavier means for

the sake of the greater end. Manlike and masterful as our fathers were,

when the old steel breast-plates at Murrayshaugh and Mossgray covered

brave hearts beating high to the natural warfare which they carried over

the Border. They too must have had foes, less tangible than the rough

barons and yeomen of Cumberland, those fighting men of other

generations; and I begin to think, Adam, that the natural element of us

all is war--active contention, strife of one kind or another--and that

we depart from our most healthful state when we lay down our weapons,

and endeavour to halt in the inevitable contest. No longer for

imprisoned princesses--though there is right good meaning and simple

wisdom in these stories of our youth--nor yet any longer for _los_ and

fame, but because there is true life and health in the warfare, and

because--

“Adam, we have had much and intimate intercourse, but scarcely ever have

we spoken together of Him who is the centre of this world’s history, the

wonderful Presence that pervades all the changes of its many ages past

and to come. But, Adam, because He bids, because He leads, because He

himself for the strife and for the victory’s sake was clothed as one of

us. It is a wonderful history, that, of this long struggle ascending up

to the very source of time, of the good and the evil, the righteousness

of heaven, and the sin of earth; and now to mark the individual ways by

which we solitary units, thus far down in the stream of the world’s

existence, are wakened by so many different obstacles, each in his own

separate course, to carry on the warfare. To turn from our idolatry of

the false beautiful here, to lawful worship of the true sublime yonder;

to take up arms for the Lord’s sake and do valiant service against His

enemy and ours, that ancient Titan, Sin. The true work of a man, the

great war worthy this humanity, which He shares who saved it.

“I think it is a gracious and blessed thing, Adam, that this natural

propensity to strife within us should have so noble an outgate. Do you

ever think how we used to dream long ago of delivering Scotland? and

there are foes greater than the old Edward scheming against her purity

and freedom now. Ah, Adam! you are happy, you are at home, and can do

your devoir for our own land and people, while I, a stranger and a

sojourner here, can only strive to maintain the ancient honour of our

name, and commend our faith to minds which know not how to receive the

one religion--the one Lord. I think I am not the kind of stuff which the

mission-man should be made of, for continually I yearn for home.

“You do not tell me if you saw Lucy before she left Murrayshaugh; and I

want to ask you a delicate question, Adam, which I should not put to any

one whom I trusted less entirely--Charlie Graeme--what of him? Lucy does

not speak of him as she once did; her last letter indeed intimates

vaguely, that from the change in her own feelings towards him she has

seen it necessary to break the engagement between them. Do you know

anything of this? Whether Lucy is sinned against or sinning, I cannot

tell--from her letter I should fancy the latter; though certainly she is

the last person in the world whom I could think of as likely to change.”

* * * * *

Poor Lucy!--in her solitary bravery, her woman’s pride, she was stouter

of heart than I.

My spirit rose to the encouraging words of Hew. I too had been thinking

more of late of the true end and aim of life; that momentous matter

which always stands out in the twilight of grief, sometimes indeed

arrayed in fantastic lights and shadows, but sometimes distinct and

clear as it has been revealed. I had begun to discover how much my

wayward soul was out of tune with the infinite mind disclosed to us in

revelation, and the harmonious universe around. The warfare was begun

within me. Hew Murray’s letter was such as I needed; it stirred me to

better things, it made me ashamed of my indolent brooding, my cumbering

of the ground.

As I laid it down, I remarked the note which had fallen from its

enclosure, and took it up with some curiosity. The handwriting was

strange to me, and the first words made me start in the utmost alarm and

terror--the remainder smote me down into the blank of utter grief.

* * * * *

“Sir,

“Finding the enclosed letter addressed to you among Mr Murray’s papers,

and having heard him speak of you often as a much-valued friend, I think

it my duty to inform you of a most unhappy occurrence which, if it has

not already resulted in death, must have placed him in the utmost

danger, and made his ultimate fate almost certain. A short time ago, Mr

Murray was despatched on a political mission to the Rajah of ----, whom,

it was thought, his firm and energetic character would especially

qualify him for dealing with. The Rajah is an artful, wily, dangerous

man, and Mr Murray knew before setting out that the mission was of a

perilous nature. But our unfortunate friend has not been able to reach

the place of his destination. Two or three days ago one of his native

servants returned here, worn out with fatigue and want. He states that

his master has been made prisoner by one of the predatory parties that

infest that district, and that when he himself contrived to make his

escape, Mr Murray, who had made a very desperate resistance, was

entirely overpowered by his captors, who were stripping him of

everything he possessed, including costly presents intended for the

Rajah. He was severely wounded, and Doolut (the servant) believes that

these fierce native bandits would not encumber their retreat with a

prisoner so helpless. At the same time, there is a possibility that his

life might be preserved (though, I fear, the chances are all against it)

in expectation of a ransom. Every effort has been, and will be made, to

discover if he still exists, and the place of his imprisonment; though I

can give you very little hope of a favourable result. This most unhappy

event has occasioned much regret in all circles here, Mr Murray having

been, for so young a man, very greatly respected; and I can again assure

you that every exertion will be made to discover his fate with

certainty.

“I have the honour to be,

“Sir,

“Your most obedient servant,

“R. CHURCHILL.”

* * * * *

The letter dropped from my hands; I was stunned. I had thought of

death--in my thankless folly I had almost wooed it for myself--but never

had it occurred to me in connection with my young, strong, life-like

friends; and Hew--Hew, the dearest, truest, most noble of them all! I

groaned aloud in the bitterness of my soul; I had held lightly this

terrible hopeless might of death, and now I fell prostrate under its

power.

Then I started in a frenzy of hope, to write to the stranger who had

sent to me this sad intelligence. I do not know what I said to him; but

I remember how I begged and prayed, with involuntary unconscious tears,

urging my entreaty aloud in the intensity of my emotion, that nothing

should be left undone; that every means that could be used, should be

put into immediate operation--that my unknown correspondent would employ

agents for me to prosecute the search for Hew. When I had finished, I

thought it cold and indifferent--it would not do--I could not be content

to depute to mercenary hands such an undertaking as this. I resolved to

go myself to India, to seek for my dearest friend.

But in the mean time there was much to be done. I could not leave home

without making many arrangements, and losing precious time. So I sent

off my letter, and began immediately to prepare for my journey.

CHAPTER X.

No hope--no hope! let calm lips say, No hope,

To whom hope never was; but as for me,

This possible is life--

And if you say it is impossible,

Yet up, up to your highest cliffs of ice

I go to light my watchfire--so perchance,

As he may see it from afar. No hope!

There never is but hope where there is love.--OLD PLAY.

Land! our voyage is just ending, and softly before us in the dawn of the

morning rise the shores of India; the mighty, impotent, fabulous, golden

East.

But I was in no mood to indulge in the pleasant excitement and curiosity

of a stranger. My anxiety, like other torments, became intolerable as it

approached its end, and in feverish haste I hurried to seek the Mr

Churchill who had written to me of Hew.

He was a civilian, with something of that stiff, well-drilled military

look, which such officials acquire from their contact, I suppose, with

their warlike brethren. He was a middle-aged man of indefinite years,

endowed largely with the grave politeness of tone and manner which

belongs to your sober, retired major or captain; perfectly urbane, and

not without its considerable mixture of kindliness, but presenting to a

stranger an unimpressible blank of courteous gravity, which to your shy

man is, in most cases, an invincible barrier. I was very much

agitated--I told Mr Churchill my name. He looked politely puzzled and at

a loss. “He was not aware--” I interrupted him with a statement of my

errand, and an anxious inquiry for Hew.

The polite, grave man was melted; the muscles of his face moved. “Ah,

poor Murray!” he said, in a tone which told me there was no more to

hope.

And so it was. Every exertion had been made to ascertain the fate of my

unfortunate friend, and it was now certain, Mr Churchill said, that all

hope or chance that he survived was at an end. Nothing had been left

undone, for in Bombay Hew had many friends; but there could be no doubt

that he had fallen by the hands of these assassins, and now lay in some

unknown desert grave. It was now certain, there could be no doubt. I

eagerly asked if this was all; if they had no positive information of

Hew’s death.

Mr Churchill did not comprehend the extreme agitation of my grief. He

thought me excited in my intense anxiety, and became again as blankly

polite as before. They had no positive information; but the want of it,

to those who knew India, was quite enough, he said, and all further

search was hopeless.

I was not sufficiently indifferent to be content with this. I left him

to seek Hew’s servant, and to make another desperate effort to discover

his fate. The man Doolut was a Parsee, and professed attachment to his

master too extravagantly to satisfy me, but I took him into my service

and immediately began my search.

How long I remained engaged in it, and the travels and perils, and vain

hopes, and blank disappointments, which I passed through while pursuing

it, I cannot record. I become faint again, as I recall that time, when

day by day the deferred hope sickened my very soul within me--I failed;

most sadly and utterly failed; yet though the shadows of some thirty

years have darkened over Hew Murray’s fate, and increased its mystery, I

cannot think of it yet without a flicker of hope, a throbbing sickness

of desire, that has well-nigh power to send me forth on the vain quest

again. Living or dead, in earth or in heaven, Hew Murray, no man has

ever filled your place in your old companion’s heart; and though I have

had darkness enough in my own life to make me think an early deliverance

from these earthly cares a blessing, yet would I give almost all that

remains to me to know that you yet lived and breathed upon this lower

world--to hope that I might look upon your face and hear the voice of

your brotherhood again!

For years after that I wandered about the face of the earth, in all

lands and countries, a solitary man; snatching here and there the solace

of congenial companionship for a brief space, but only passing forth

again to be forgotten. Murrayshaugh and Lucy I never could discover

though I have lingered on the outskirts of many a little French and

German town, vainly endeavouring to find some trace of them. Once only

have I had any communication with the family, and that was immediately

after Hew’s mysterious disappearance, when a few hurried blotted

incoherent words came to me from Lucy, bidding me pity her in her

misery; she had no one in the wide world, she said, to tell it to but

me--and then in her generous gentleness, as if the words of her

complaint had burst from her unawares, she essayed to comfort me, and

spoke of consolation and hope. Hope and consolation! yes, so wonderful

is the fabric of this humanity, that there is no sky too dark for those

stars; and our sorrows lie softly on us when they have grown old with

us, and become a part of our lives.

With Charlie Graeme I had no more intercourse. He took guilt to himself

and never attempted to renew our former intimacy--but the sin that he

had clogged his course withal, found him out ere it was far spent. He

married the daughter of a Glasgow merchant reputed to be rich, whose

great pretensions collapsed immediately after Charlie became connected

with his family. This wife had the expensive tastes of her class, I have

heard, but it happens singularly that all unsuccessful men have wives

with extravagant tastes, so I give little credence to that rumour:

however it happened, or whatever were the procuring causes, it is

certain that Charlie Graeme, with all his gifts, was in a very short

time a shipwrecked man. He died young, in poverty, and debt, and

discomfort--his helpless wife did not long survive him, and they left

one child--a boy--on the world’s hands and mine.

This child I left, during his infancy, under the care of a servant of

his mother’s, and some ten years ago I had him sent to a school in

Aberdeenshire, a private place of respectable standing conducted by a

pragmatical Aberdeenish man, called Monikie, who was with us at college.

The boy’s name is Halbert, our most famous family name. He must have

nearly arrived at man’s estate, but I have never seen him.

I am drawing near the end of my course. I earnestly desire to have my

mind preserved from the resentment and pain of being again brought into

immediate contact with those who have so deeply injured me, or with

their representatives. For this reason I have never seen Halbert

Graeme, and am firmly resolved not to see him. The lad shall have full

justice; I will refuse him no needful help in any profession he may

choose; but though he is the last representative of our ancient name, he

shall not be the heir of Mossgray. I have given Monikie all freedom in

providing for him, in a way becoming his father’s son--but he is not

mine. I do this with no feeling of revenge towards the dead, but I

cannot adopt or cherish the son of Charlie Graeme.

And Lilias--I have heard that she too has one child--a girl called by

her own name--but these also I cannot dare ever to look upon. Edward

Maxwell is dead; he has lived the life of a weakling, and his widow

remains in England where he died. I have learned now, in my old age, to

think of the Lilias of my imagination as of one who died in the early

fragrance of youth, and almost to dream that her gentle, shadowy

presence hovers near me, in the twilight of summer nights, when the

stately flowers which bear her name shine like gleams of moonlight in

the dim borders of my garden. I can bear the neighbourhood of these

lilies now; their pensive beauty soothes me; but though the softening

shadows of memory and years have enshrined this lily of my youth, in

that radiance of tender melancholy with which we surround those who have

gone down early to peaceful graves, I yet cannot and dare not enter the

presence of that Lilias who has made me a solitary, joyless man. Let me

be kept from them and from their children. I cannot endure the pain

which their very names inflict upon me--I must always avoid and shun

them. I wish them well--all health, and peace, and happiness be with

them, and a brighter lot than mine; but let me be left with my dreams;

the sole remaining companions, which are with me in my old age, and were

with me in my youth.

Walter Johnstone is the only surviving member of our joyous boyish

party. He is struggling still in the Maelstrom of care and business,

maintaining his place well, as I hear, among his compeers, and training,

as he can, a large family of sons and daughters. He still retains

Greenshaw, but never visits it; for Walter’s wife and children are

fashionables in their degree, and think it expedient, as my good friend

Mrs Oswald tells me, to leave the gentle enchantment of distance and

ignorance about the very minute property from which their father

acquires the landed designation to which we attach a considerable share

of importance in Scotland.

Greenshaw is let to strangers--I hear it is greatly altered; but I avoid

it in my limited walks, the last association of deadly pain it has

having obliterated in my mind all the former ones of youthful joy and

sunshine. It is not in my way indeed, for the water and I travel

together--I seldom leave the green line of its banks; I pursue its

windings up and down with constant interest and pleasure. We never weary

of each other; those ripples which I have heard all my life have an

articulate tongue to me--they are connected with all the gladness I have

dreamt, with all the grief I have undergone; and there are creeks and

sunny promontories there which recall the shining thread of youthful

visions till I can almost think I am weaving them again--

“My eyes are filled with childish tears,

My heart is idly stirred,

For the same sound is in my ears

As in those days I heard.”

This spell of local association has always been strong upon me. As I

pass along the banks of my ancient and well-beloved companion, the wan

water, the changes of my life rise up before me, each with its separate

scene and dwelling-place--these dells and pensive glens--these broad

glades, and grouped brotherhoods of old trees--they are peopled with the

things that have been; they bear upon them, as upon so many several

pages, the story of my life.

And so I dwell among them, and at my pleasure am again a solitary child,

a dreaming youth, a stricken man--I feel myself of kin to myself in all

these changes. Swiftly these years have carried me over the world’s

broad highway, but with this white hair upon my head I am still the

child to whose first dreams this water murmured its plaintive symphony.

I know myself little wiser, and in nothing more thoughtful. It is the

things around us that change--it is not we.

For I confess myself as credulous still of ideal generosity and truth,

as I was when I had counted only twenty summers. I have not been able

yet to tutor myself to suspicion--the vision splendid has not quite

departed--I cannot put the lustre of that celestial light, which once

apparelled all things, away out of my eyes, even when those eyes are

old; and Nature in her grave nobleness is not less, but more dear now,

when I remember that I shall soon bid her good even, to enter into the

presence of her Lord and mine. New heavens and a new earth--I cannot

sever my human heart from mine own land; and who shall say that those

noble countries, casting off all impurity in the fiery trial that awaits

them, shall not be our final heaven?

I love to think that it may be so; I love to think that the Lord, in His

humanity, looks tenderly upon the mortal soil on which He sojourned in

His wondrous life, and that here, perchance, in these very lands, made

holy by His grace and power, our final rest shall be. It may be but a

fancy; but it comes upon me with gentle might, like the whispered

comfort of an angel. A new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness--a

glorified humanity which, remaining human, is mortal no longer! with the

judgment, and the condemnation, and the wars of the Lord over-past, and

the earth and the heaven one fair broad country, and Himself over all,

blessed for ever. These are the old man’s dreams; and they shed new

glory over the pleasant places in which my lines have fallen--

“Oh, ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves!

Forbode not any severing of our loves!

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might.

I only have relinquished one delight,

To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the brooks that down their channels fret,

Even more than when I tripped, lightly as they;

The innocent brightness of a new-born day

Is lovely yet--

The clouds that gather round the setting sun

Do take a sober colouring from an eye

That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality.”

END OF BOOK I.

BOOK II.

RESOLUTIONS.

CHAPTER I.

There was a hardness in his cheek,

There was a hardness in his eye.--PETER BELL.

“I beg you will not misunderstand me, Mrs Oswald; I vow to you that this

girl shall never cross my threshold, and if William persists in his

folly he must choose between her and me; for assuredly he shall not keep

his place with both. I tell you her father was a fool and a weakling,

and you know the injury he did me. My mind is made up; before I receive

this girl (I care nothing for her own good qualities--they do not

concern me in the slightest) as my daughter, I will disown my son. If he

wants to prolong her poverty, and to make himself a servant all his

life, let him persist in his madness; and if you encourage him further

in it, the consequences lie with yourselves. I have toiled and laboured

to enrich him, and if he thwarts me thus, he shall rue it!”

The speaker was a wiry, dark man, about the middle height, with a face

in which you could read habitual obstinacy. It had redeeming qualities;

you could see how a great enough matter might elevate the constitutional

pertinacity into brave determination, and the eyes were intelligent and

clear; but the rigid muscles of his mouth wore their sternest expression

to-day, and a cloud lowered darkly upon his face. He was standing with

his back to the fire in a good-sized, comfortable dining-room, the front

windows of which looked out upon the Main Street of Fendie. The house

was withdrawn a little from the line of the neighbouring buildings, in

modest dignity, and bore over its portico and stone pillars the

important title “Bank;” and the obstinate gentleman in the dining-room

within was Mr George Oswald, at that time the sole representative of

banking interests in the borough of Fendie.

The very emphatic speech which we have already recorded, was addressed

to his wife, who sat opposite to him. She was very calmly engaged with

her sewing, though her face was sufficiently grave to show that her

husband’s words were not mere empty breath. When he had concluded, she

raised her head.

“I cannot see what necessity there is for making any vows to me, George.

If you are determined not to hear what I say, and what William says

about this very sweet and innocent girl, of course you must have your

own way, as you always have; but as for your vows--you know that is

quite unnecessary.”

“I know no such thing!” said Mr Oswald, imperiously. “You fancy I will

forget by and by, and that you may renew this subject again; but I

protest to you, Jane, that neither your son nor you shall ever move me

on this point--that--”

“George,” interrupted his wife, “I hear Hope coming down-stairs; pray do

not let her be a party to this discussion. I am reluctant that she

should even know how you regard the Buchanans, for Hope is inclined to

have an opinion of her own, and to express it more freely perhaps than

she should at her years. Let us drop this subject, I beg; I promise you

_I_ will not renew it.”

The cloud passed from the banker’s face--his stern mouth relaxed. It was

the young voice without, singing so gaily as its owner came bounding

down-stairs, “Hame, hame, hame! oh, it’s hame fain wad I be--” that

chased the mist from his face and from his mind. He was kind enough in

all his relationships, if somewhat exacting and rigid; but he was

indulgent to an extent, which only the stern and vehement nature can

reach, of all the whims and caprices of his favourite child.

Hope Oswald was fourteen, and had been for two or three years at a

famous educational establishment in Edinburgh. Her father looked with

natural satisfaction on the houses and lands which his industry had

acquired, read with satisfaction his own name high in the list of bank

shareholders in his own private office; was pleased when he saw “George

Oswald, Esq., of Fendie,” figuring in his local newspaper as connected

with some county or borough reform, or public good-work; but the

banker’s eye looked never so proud as when a metropolitan broad-sheet

informed him how, at the examination of the famed establishment in

Edinburgh, “Miss Hope Oswald, Fendie,” had carried off prize on prize.

The stern man read the half-yearly list of school-girl honours with

secret exultation. It was a matter of genuine happy pride to him; and

Mrs Oswald smiled within herself, as year after year her husband

expressed in joyous terms his wonder, that the name of Miss Adelaide

Fendie of Mount Fendie, the daughter of their aristocratic neighbour

“up the water” did never by any chance make its appearance among this

honoured number, while “our Hope” had won almost as many distinctions as

there were distinctions to win.

But Hope was weary of gaining prizes, and longed exceedingly to return

home; so she was granted an interregnum. Six blithe holiday months were

to pass before she returned to Edinburgh, and on this same day she had

arrived in Fendie.

The age of awkwardness had scarcely commenced with Hope. She had not

begun to be self-conscious, and in consequence escaped the inevitable

physical attendant of that unpleasant mental state. She did not yet

think of people seeing her when she danced about through the rooms and

passages, and ran races in the garden, and waded secretly in the water;

nor of people hearing her, as she went about everywhere, singing aloud

in the exuberance of her joy. She was only a girl yet: she scarcely felt

the budding woman begin to stir within her healthful breast.

So the dining-room door swung open, wider than it needed to do, and Hope

came in with a bound. She had hazel eyes and auburn hair, and an

animated blithe face, whose claims to beauty, if it had any, no one ever

thought of deciding. She was tolerably tall and tolerably stout, and

exceedingly firm, and active, and vigorous. The “Misses” in Edinburgh

whispered among themselves, that Hope had a predilection for masculine

games, and was as strong as a boy; but Hope denied the slander stoutly,

affirming that its solitary foundation was one unlucky slide, and two or

three snowballs, in both of which the stupid and docile Adelaide Fendie,

whom no one thought of blaming, was as much implicated as she.

Hope was rather talkative; she had a great deal to say about her

Edinburgh experiences, and both the father and the mother were good

listeners; the sterner parent however being by far the most indulgent

now.

“And what did your friends say when you came away, Hope?” asked Mr

Oswald; “was there much lamentation?”

“They were all very sorry,” said Hope, “and they all wished they were

coming too; only big Miss Mansfield that’s going to India, she did not

care, for she thinks we are only girls and she’s a woman, and she’s

always speaking about Calcutta--as if anybody was caring for

Calcutta!--and little Mary Wood would hardly let me go, mamma--she

wanted to come too. Will you let her come at the vacation, mother?--for

when all the rest go away, Mary has to stay with Miss Swinton, because

she has no friends.”

“But Miss Swinton is very kind, is she not?” said Mrs Oswald.

“Miss Swinton is always good to everybody,” said Hope promptly, “but

when little Mary sees us all going away, and nobody coming for her, she

greets--”

“She _greets_, Hope!” said Mr Oswald, holding up his hand in reproof.

“Well, father,” said the brave Hope, “it is a far better word than

cries:--cries! as if folk had only cut their finger! and Miss Swinton

says our tongue is as good a tongue as the English, and we need not

think shame of it.”

Mr Oswald submitted to be defeated, well-pleased and smiling--

“And what does Miss Swinton do at the vacations, Hope?” asked her

mother.

“I don’t know, mother; sometimes she stays at home, sometimes she goes

away to some of those places that the Glasgow girls are always talking

about--Rothesay, or somewhere about the Clyde. She was there with Miss

Buchanan last year; and oh, mamma, I had almost forgotten--how is _our_

Helen Buchanan? I must go to see her to-day.”

The banker’s brow contracted suddenly. His wife was wary, and a good

politician; she took no notice of Hope’s unsuitable inquiry.

“Miss Swinton went to stay with one of the young ladies, did she? does

she do that often, Hope?”

“Sometimes, mother; they are all so fond of her--and I don’t think she

has ever been in the south country. Perhaps she would come to Fendie, if

you were to ask her, mother, and bring little Mary Wood.”

“Well we shall see,” said Mrs Oswald; “and what about Adelaide Fendie,

Hope?”

“Oh, Adelaide Fendie is coming home; the school is not good enough for

her; and they’re going to have a governess at Mount Fendie, for her, and

Victoria, and little Fred--Poor governess! I am very sorry for her, I am

sure, whoever she is. I would far rather keep a school like--”

Mrs Oswald interposed hastily, “Is it some one from Edinburgh, Hope?”

“No, indeed, mamma. Only somebody from England that Mrs Heavieliegh

knows; and I almost hope she will be as stupid as they are, for if she

is not, they will kill her. I would not live at Mount Fendie for all the

world; and no one can teach Adelaide anything, except to do Berlin work,

and thump, thump upon the piano.”

“Come, Hope, this is too bad,” said her smiling father. “I hope you can

thump upon the piano to some purpose yourself. We must hear you

to-night, you know.”

“I don’t care about it, father,” said Hope; “it is very dreary, except

folk will just let me play my own tunes; but then there’s these awful

waltzes and things, that were never made for anything but people’s

fingers. Adelaide could play them for days, father; but they make me

dizzy; for there’s nothing but noise in them.”

“I am afraid you are quite giddy enough already, Hope,” said Mr Oswald.

“Miss Swinton says I am sensible,” said Hope, with offended dignity.

“Miss Swinton says she can trust me with the little ones better than

Miss Mansfield,--and Miss Mansfield’s seventeen!”

The father and mother laughed; but Miss Swinton’s testimony to Hope’s

good sense pleased them nevertheless.

“Adelaide is coming home in a week,” said Hope, “and she said the new

governess would be at the Mount before her. I am to go up every day,

Adelaide says, if you will let me, mother; and I would like to go

sometimes, but not so often; and I want to go to Mossgray, to see old

Mrs Mense, and the Laird; and up to Friarsford to Maggie Irving, and

down to the Waterfoot to see the Flower of Fendie; but first of all--”

“That will do, Hope,” said her mother, fearful that the interdicted name

might fall from Hope’s gay lips again; “but I think you might show us

those drawings of yours that you used to write so much about:--you can

arrange your visits to-morrow.”

“But I want to go into Fendie to-night, mother,” urged Hope, “to see--”

“We cannot part with you to-night, Hope,” said Mrs Oswald; “and now go

and bring your drawings and let your father see them.”

Hope obeyed. Mr Oswald began to walk about the room, almost inclined to

be angry with his daughter; this pertinacious attachment to the one

person in Fendie whom he tabooed, and the constant recurrence of her

name, annoyed him greatly; and the banker had a consciousness that his

wife and his son William were much more likely to submit, so far as

external action went, to his stern will, than was the much privileged

girl-daughter, who appeared fully as much inclined to sway him as he was

to sway her, and did it as effectually. The grave and painful constraint

with which William curbed a will as strong as his father’s, raised in

the banker’s mind an angry feeling of antagonism; but the frank

resistance of Hope was much less easily managed. Mr Oswald began to feel

an involuntary “_drither_” as to his success in this part of the

contest--a dubious consciousness that Hope might be too many for him.

The exhibition of drawings did not succeed. Hope perceived that there

was something wrong, and with eager girlish curiosity could not rest

till she had fathomed it. William was strangely grave and taciturn, she

thought; she seized the earliest opportunity of questioning him.

By the dining-room fireside, the brother and sister sat in the twilight

alone. Hope took advantage of the propitious moment.

“William, is there anything the matter?”

William stirred the fire thoughtfully and sighed. The light threw a

gleam upon his face, and made it look very grey and grim, as his sister

thought. Hope was not inclined to wait for his tardy answer; she plunged

into the middle of the _questio vexata_.

“William, I want to know about Helen Buchanan.”

William started.

“Hush, Hope--do not speak of her, I beg.”

“Why?” said Hope. “I like her better than anybody else in Fendie: why

should I not speak of her?”

There was no point on which Hope and her taciturn brother agreed so

perfectly. He smiled a momentary smile, and then answered gravely,--

“Because you do like her better than any one else in Fendie, you must

not speak of her, Hope--and especially recollect that her name must not

be mentioned before my father, unless you wish to hear her spoken of

with anger and disrespect, which I am sure you do not.”