CHAPTER XIX.

Through the earth there runs a sound

Music of green nooks and hills,

For Spring, soft-handed, frees the bound

Rivers and sweet rills;

Trickling, singing, from the fountains,

All day long they cheer the mountains.

So the warm streams of the heart

Sometimes ’neath the ice grow chill,

Till the Spring with kindly art

Wakes the sleeping rill,

And like the brooks, old loves, new flowing,

Stir all fair things to happier growing.

The spring sunshine began to dawn on the waiting world again. The gentle

days prolonged themselves, lingering out in long, soft, poetic

twilights. Lilias Maxwell had been nearly a year at Mossgray.

And Halbert Graeme began to feel himself in great want of some outlet

for his young activity. He said little now about the momentous matter

which had brought him to Mossgray, and though he did sometimes complain

in his letters to the North that the fortune which it was so very

necessary to make was as far in the distance as ever, and that there

seemed no prospect of being able to reach even the beginning, Halbert

was by no means discontented; this genial country life was natural to

him: he only wanted something to do; and after a considerable agitation

he attained to that. Mossgray graciously permitted himself to be made an

experimental farmer, and with great glee Halbert plunged into the

desired labour.

“Nae fears,” said the sagacious Saunders Delvie, Mossgray’s man, as Mrs

Mense expressed her fears to him, that the strength of “the young Laird”

might be taxed too greatly; “it’s naething but a maggot. I’ll just gie

him till he wearies; when he’s dune out, he can aye rest when he likes,

and that’s mair than ye can say for mony a hard-working man. Gie him the

length o’ his tether; _he’ll_ tire sooner than anybody else.”

“Ay, but Mr Halbert’s an active lad,” said the housekeeper; “and so was

his father before him; if the tane had but been as innocent as the

tither; but ane canna mend what’s past.”

A frown came darkly over the face of Mossgray’s man.

“Ye say weel, neighbour; but an folk canna mend their ill deeds they

maun tak the penalty. If it’s but in this world it’s weel for themsels,

and if it’s in another pairt than this, it’s a’ the mair just and

righteous.”

“Oh, Saunders Delvie,” exclaimed Janet Mense, “ye’re a hard man!”

“Maister Charlie Graeme did sair ill to this house,” said Mrs Mense

emphatically, “and meant mair than he could do--but for a’ that, look at

the Laird, Saunders, and learn by him. Is he no making this lad like a

son o’ Mossgray? is he no doing a’ that the kindest father could do for

him? but no to speak o’ the Laird, Saunders, there’s mysel. I likit Miss

Lucy Murray weel, and there was never ane but likit Mr Adam; and baith

o’ them did that lad’s faither do his warst to bring to misery. I am a

lone woman, and have nae bairns o’ my ain; but the time my heart was

warmest and fullest, thae young folk--though they were gentles, and no

like me, were gaun and coming about the house, and I thought mair o’

them than ever I did o’ mysel. But for a’ the ill he did to

them--Saunders, I mind that we need mercy oursels every day, and I can

say, Charlie Graeme, I forgive ye.”

“Ay,” said Saunders Delvie sternly, “but he didna dishonour the honest

name that your forbears and you had laboured in puirtith and hard toil

to keep free of offence in the sight of God and man. He wasna that near

to you, that his shame should be yours to bear, the very time that your

ain misery for his sin was rugging at your heart; ye dinna ken--and I

seek nocht but to bear my ain burden out of the sicht of man.”

His bushy gray eyebrows twitched--his face was moved; this man too had a

history.

“Eh, but Saunders, man!” continued the good old housekeeper with some

timidity, “it’s no like you--I’m meaning it’s no like what we should do

to be so hard on the puir lad; mind how young he was; and for a’ that he

did ance ill, mind that he’s your ain.”

“I mind,” said Saunders emphatically, while a sudden yearning seemed to

contend on his harsh face with the stern condemnation of justice;

“woman, ye dinna ken! If he had been less to me--ay, if he _was_ less to

me now, think ye I wad have done what I have done. It’s nae use

speaking; do I no see the tears in the wife’s auld e’en morning and

nicht? do I no ken wha she’s aye thinking o’ and yearning ower like a

weak woman as she is? but I say he shall never cross again the door of

the honest house he has brought shame upon--never!”

There was a stern fire in the old man’s eye, and he went hastily out to

his work as if he felt ashamed of having been drawn into this revelation

of his household grief. He was, naturally, a man with very strong and

passionate feelings, and one of those harsh and powerful minds, which at

any cost of misery to themselves will cling to their severe and abstract

conceptions of justice. His only child, a youth of some promise in their

humble sphere, had fallen a few years before into the brutalizing

practices of rural vice. He had formed discreditable connections,

involved himself in the worst company that Fendie could afford, and to

crown all his offences, had finally, in a moment of temptation, stolen

some trifling sum from his master. Saunders and his wife were in the

sober meridian of life when they married, and this lad Peter was the son

of their old age, the secret idol of the old man’s vehement heart. But

no one knew the might of love which the somewhat stern father lavished

upon the son; and when his criminal folly came to its climax, the

mother, the neighbours, the injured master himself, stood aside with awe

while Saunders repudiated and disowned the unhappy culprit. _They_

called him harsh and cruel; but the guilty youth himself, even while he

trembled under his father’s sentence, discovered for the first time the

strong love which in its agony banished him from its home and presence.

A kindred strength awoke in the son’s undisciplined spirit. Seeing how

bitterly the hopes set on his head had been disappointed, in bitter

repentance he turned from the closed door, eager to leave the place of

his early sins, and in some strange unknown country to conquer, by the

help of God, himself and his fate. For two long years now he had been

absent--where his father did not know, nor would inquire; and still in

the bitterness of the strong love which burned within him, the old man

repudiated the prodigal.

Mossgray and his ward were together in the garden: Saunders hastily

avoided them, and went to work alone, where no one could see the stern

swelling of his heart. It was the great fault of Saunders’ own class,

that they were obtuse to notice and slow to punish those sins of youth,

so fatal to all goodness, which the world is content to call follies.

Saunders himself was harshly pure and just; he thought it was something

of this moral blindness, so common among his humble neighbours, which

made Mossgray receive so kindly the son of Charlie Graeme.

Lilias was leaning on her guardian’s arm; they were going to the

water-side.

“Halbert will make us rich, Lilias,” said Mossgray; “I am glad the lad

likes work; but I fancy we must come to some decision about him; let me

hear what you advise.”

“You suffered me to speak of Halbert once before, Mossgray,” said

Lilias, “while he was as much a stranger to you as to me.”

“Yes, I remember I did,” said the old man, smiling, “and you were very

foolishly generous as youthful people are. Must I fall back on my memory

for the arguments you used then, Lilias? have you nothing new to

advance: are your opinions still the same?”

“I have nothing new to advance save the good qualities which now you

know, Mossgray,” said Lilias, returning the smile. “Halbert himself--so

frank and simple and manly; there could be no better representative of

the old Graemes.”

The old man shook his head.

“You are a special pleader, Lilias; you want to rouse what family pride

may be in me. Well, granting that Halbert is all you say--manly and

frank and simple--and he is so: I acknowledge that my old friend

Monikie, and the good healthful atmosphere of the North, have done

credit to themselves in their pupil--what then? does it follow that

Halbert must get my land; must be my heir--my heir--is he like my heir,

Lilias?”

“You could not have an heir like yourself, Mossgray,” said Lilias. “I

think you must be alone, and have no successor to rival you; for nature

does not seem to do it. Nature only makes one in a race here and there

who would take up orphans like Halbert and me, and set us in families,

under the shelter of his kindness--therefore you will have no heir,

Mossgray--none but humanity; and on some other spirit, in some other

country, your mantle will fall when you yourself use it no longer; for

you will have no heir.”

“Hush, Lilias,” said Mossgray; “shall I have to train you to more

philosophical modes of thinking? I did not think you were so heterodox.

We must bring Reid and Brown and Dugald Stewart down upon you. Halbert

himself has some metaphysics, dogmatical as their parent, Monikie. We

shall have a regular breaking of spears, Lilias; though I think your

friend Helen and you, on behalf of the poets, might rout the

philosophers if you looked well to your weapons. By the by, I like that

friend of yours--you suit each other well; and how does it fare with Mr

Oswald’s resolution? Has he learned to break it yet with a good grace?”

“I do not hear now, since Hope is not at home to keep me informed,” said

Lilias; “but I think he must be melting; only his son is absent, and

there is no visible progress. Mr Oswald is an obstinate man, and Helen

is proud; I see that there is an evident consciousness both on her side

and his; but, Mossgray, you have done William Oswald harm; you have

given him a rival.”

“I, Lilias?” said the old man; “is it Halbert? I should regret that.”

“No, it is not Halbert,” said Lilias; “I think Halbert is not eligible

at present to be any one’s rival at Fendie: it is Mr Insches, Mossgray.

I think your kindness to Helen when they were all with us has encouraged

Mr Insches to look over her low degree. It is your fault: if you had not

noticed her, he would have given up what incipient admiration he had of

poor Helen; but you gave him the countenance he needed.”

“You are severe, Lilias,” said Mossgray; “but I like the lad. He has a

young man’s natural weakness on some points, but there is good stuff in

him; and who is to be successful--our grave friend William, or his

handsome rival? I should think there was some danger. I fancy I must

come to the rescue myself, and explain to Mr Oswald, by my own

experience, that resolutions were made to be broken. Does that suit

Hope’s tactics and yours, Lilias, or are you working more artfully?”

“Hope is my captain; I must wait for further orders,” said Lilias,

smiling; “but, Mossgray, this has nothing to do with Halbert.”

“Very true,” said the old man. “I see you can hold to your original

premises, Lilias; well, then, what of Halbert?--let us return to our

disputation.”

“I think, Mossgray,” said Lilias, gravely, “since you suffer me to think

on the subject, that it would be far better for Halbert if you made your

decision soon.”

“It is very sensible,” said Mossgray, looking at her with his gracious

smile. “I acknowledge that if I did not suffer you to think on the

subject--which I fear would be difficult to do--I should lose a good

counsellor; but do you know, Lilias, Mrs Mense tells me that matters

might be so arranged as to make your inheritance and Halbert’s

one;--could that be accomplished, think you?”

It was very evident that Mossgray did not think it could, and the

supposition was too harmless to call more than a passing shadow of

colour over the pale cheek of his ward.

“No, indeed, Mossgray,” she said, simply; “did I not say that Halbert

was not free to be any one’s rival? I mean,” continued Lilias, with a

deeper blush as she observed the inference to be drawn from her words,

“that Halbert is very faithful to the northern Menie, and that I am

Halbert’s very grave and elderly adviser and friend, and must always

remain so, did we live under the same roof all our lives.”

Mossgray desired to have his ward’s confidence; he did not smile at her

inference nor at her blush; neither did he ask what they meant; the

delicate old man felt it was meet that Lilias should be shy of such

confidences, even to him.

“Well,” he said, “I will give up that; it would be very desirable no

doubt, Lilias, and would solve our problem beautifully. If Halbert and

you were good bairns I have no doubt you would adopt this solution for

my particular convenience; but if, as you say, Halbert is already in

bondage, and you are so wise and old as you tell me you are, there is no

more to be said on the subject, and we must think of some other plan.

Let me hear your proposal, Lilias.”

Lilias looked up in some surprise.

“Did you think I was Helen Buchanan, Mossgray? No, indeed, I do not make

plans. I only do what I am bidden when they please me, and dissent when

they do not; but I am no originator, Mossgray--you know I am not.”

Mossgray smiled again.

“Well, Lilias, we shall suppose that I myself form the plan, according

to your counsel, and that we make Halbert heir of Mossgray; and now

there comes a grave consideration: what am I to do with you, my good

Lilias? Will you be content with the little provision I can make for

you, independent of these lands? Nay, if you are not like your friend

Helen in making plans, I cannot have you resemble her in pride. I speak

to you, you know, as if you had been Lilias Graeme; and your

future--must I not provide for that?”

“No, Mossgray.” Her head was bent down, but the animated unusual light

played about her face like sunshine--her voice was very low, and

trembled as with some hidden music. She did not meet the kindly

inquiring look which her guardian turned upon her; she only

answered--“No, Mossgray.”

“The future is cared for then?” said the gentle old man, in his delicate

tenderness. “I must not ask how, Lilias, but I may believe and infer,

may I not?--and guess that there is some one labouring under warmer

skies for my good child, and hope that he is wise and generous, and

worthy of her. Tell him that I too will grow jealous for his honour and

good report, though I am not told his name, and that together, you and

I, who alone know him here, will bid God speed to his labour:--shall it

not be so?”

Lilias could not lift her eyes just then, for the tears’ sake that were

under their lids; but when she could, she looked up in simple confidence

into the face of her guardian. She did not speak, and they went slowly

on, for some time, in silence. Her mind was in a pleasant, grateful

tumult; she thought of the time when he to whose labour Mossgray bade

God speed should thank the old man for his generous care of the orphan;

and over the fair future she looked forth through the sunny haze of

hope--the indefinite golden mist which has in it a charm wanting to the

clearer landscape--the magic of the unknown.

But as they continued their walk, shy half-sentences fell on the ear of

Mossgray--conveying a confidence which he received gladly, though he did

not ask it. How the unsettled family, in one of their short sojournings

in a great, bustling, commercial town of England, had met this

unknown--how he came from an Orcadian island far off in the vexed

Northern seas, and in his youthful energy was bound for the golden

East--how he did so tenderly regard and honour the mother over whom

Lilias still wept tears, because he also had a mother in his solitary

home by the sea, and, except this one nearest friend, was alone in the

world; but Lilias did not tell Mossgray how her heart throbbed in glad

wonder at sight of the ancient portrait, and in sound of the pleasant

name in the old house at Murrayshaugh. It was but a fanciful

resemblance, and the name was not an unusual one. The pleasure she had

in this, she kept as one little secret gladness to herself. It was but a

girlish, affectionate fancy; for the son of the far Orcades could have

no connection with the old southern family, whose last representatives

were wandering on foreign soil, or laid in strange graves. She smiled at

herself for setting so great store by the shadowy resemblance of the

portrait; it was too small a thing to tell Mossgray.

END OF BOOK II.

BOOK III.

CHANGES.

CHAPTER I.

The merry ploughboy cheers his team,

Wi’ joy the tentie seedsman stalks.--BURNS.

“Mossgray,” said Halbert Graeme, as they sat next morning at their

cheerful breakfast-table, “I wish you would come out with me to-day, and

see these fields at Shortrigg--they are in a very bad state: small,

oddly-shaped fields, ‘three neukit,’ as Saunders calls them, with quite

a superabundance of hedges. I should like to sweep those encumbrances

away, and bring them into better working order. Will you come and see

them, Mossgray?”

“Halbert, my man,” said Mossgray, smiling, “I am too old to learn--even

your training will scarcely make a good farmer of me, I am afraid; and I

give you full discretion, you know.”

“But, Mossgray,” persisted Halbert, “I am sure you have no concern for

those thriftless hedges; and good agriculture--”

“Is a very necessary, noble, and honourable art,” said the Laird,

“perfectly so, Halbert; and I am by no means a sentimental admirer of

thriftless hedges; but I am old, you know, and not a good judge: you

must take it into your own hands.”

Halbert was not quite satisfied.

“Still, Mossgray, if you are not engaged--”

The good Mossgray could not deny the youth his request.

“Well, Halbert, if it must be. Come then, let us set about this business

of yours.”

Halbert was very full of his undertaking. He began to tell Mossgray what

his crops were to be, and the measures he would take with obstinate

land, which was not naturally obedient to the discipline of the plough.

The country looked very cheerful as they passed on. Round about,

skirting the horizon on every side were ranges of low hills, some rich

with fir trees and softer young spring foliage to the very top; some

dark with moss and heather unbloomed. Winding roads, white far-seen

lines, lost themselves among the hills, and through the trees, which

divided their path from the river, glimpses of the wan water, flowing on

full and broad to the sea, glimmered through the soft, gay, fluttering

leaves of spring. Turning back on the elevation which they had reached,

the full Firth, quivering like molten silver, stretched between them and

the clear creeks and villages of the English shore, over whose stillness

muffled mountains watched in the background; and looming out against the

pale sky in the West, his broad sides darkened here and there, as if

with stationary shadows, rose the bluff Scottish hill, whose strong brow

every night was crowned with the glory of the sunset. There was a hum of

voices in the pleasant air, and ploughs were turning up the rich, dark,

fragrant earth, and the “tentie seedsman” stalked about the fields. The

sky and the leaves were soft and fresh, so fresh and soft as they only

are in the early year, and the refreshed land seemed to open its moist

breast with gladness to the kindly processes of spring.

“I think there is something grand, Halbert,” said the old man, pausing

to look back, “in the art, which out of that bare earth can bring seed

and bread. I should rather have myself endowed with this wealth of the

soil, were I young like you, than choose the barren, metallic fortune

you were aspiring after a short time since. This, you know, pleases me;

to inherit the soil and the sky, the seed-time and harvest, the sunshine

and the rain of heaven; it seems to place us in more immediate

dependance on the Maker of all, the great Suzerain above, of whom we

hold this feoff, for the honour of His kingly name and the service of

His people. I like it, Halbert--it is a greater gift than barren wealth.

It pleases me to feel myself, with Paul, a vassal--a _Knecht_, as your

German has it--holding my lands under the fealty vow and oath of true

service. I would we did but better remember that we stood here

feudatories of high Heaven.”

The youth assented modestly; he thought it did not become him to do

more.

Mossgray stood for a moment longer, looking with loving eyes over his

fair country, as it lay below the sunbeams, stirred with the spring; and

then he turned to take Halbert’s arm, and they went on again, resuming

their former conversation about crops and ploughs and draining. The old

man was not so ignorant of these matters as he called himself, and could

give valuable counsel to the young experimentalist.

“But, Halbert,” said Mossgray, “Lilias tells me I am injuring you in

keeping you here so long, where you cannot pursue your own course as you

desire to do; we should rather talk of it than of those rural matters.

What say you, Halbert?”

Halbert was rather startled; he did not know what to say, for, to tell

the truth, he had quite forgotten the “course” which his kinsman assumed

he was so eager to begin, and at present was perfectly content, and had

no wish for change.

“I will be glad to do what you think best, Sir,” he said, with a little

hesitation.

“But the question is not what I think best, but what you wish,” said the

old man. “Is it the case that you are impatient of losing time at

Mossgray, Halbert?”

Halbert was very honest.

“Well, Sir, to speak truly, no--I have not been thinking of losing time;

but no doubt it is very necessary that I should begin.”

“Begin what, Halbert?”

“To maintain myself, Sir; to cease to be a burden--”

“My good Halbert,” said Mossgray, interrupting him, “I should never have

spoken of it, if that were all; but Lilias does not hesitate to tell me

that I do wrong to keep you undecided so long; so you must let me know

what your own views are, and how I can help you most agreeably to

yourself. Be honest and tell me frankly; and when I have heard your own

ideas, you must give me the privilege of my age, and let me decide.”

There was a pause.

“I suppose,” said Halbert, hesitating a little, “that it must be

business?”

“Does your gift lie in that way?” said Mossgray, smiling.

Halbert was a little annoyed, and jealous of ridicule.

“I think I might be able to do as much as I undertook,” he answered,

with a little warmth. “All sorts of men succeed in business. I do not

think, with submission to your better judgment, Mossgray, that, except

perseverance and industry, and a stout heart, there is any very special

gift required.”

“Bravely answered, Halbert,” said Mossgray; “but these are invaluable

qualities all, and as necessary for a conscientious country Laird, as

for your great merchant of Glasgow or Liverpool. But let us speak more

gravely; before you were so wise and sensible as to come here to me, it

was my custom to consider myself the last Graeme of Mossgray. Now,

Halbert, supposing that our ancestors had entailed these lands, in what

position would you have been?”

Halbert blushed and was embarrassed; it was impossible that such a

thought should not have sometimes entered the young man’s mind; but he

really had not self-interested views; and now he remained silent with

too much good taste to disclaim, while he yet felt awkwardly

uncomfortable under the fear of such an imputation.

“The race would have been resuscitated in you,” said the old man; “you

would have brought new life to the withering stock; for, Halbert, you

are the only remaining heir of the Graemes of Mossgray.”

“I have the name, Sir,” said Halbert quickly, his embarrassment growing

on him as he met his kinsman’s eye; “it is the share of the family

inheritance which comes to me; and the provision which you made for the

helpless portion of my life, Mossgray, is more than a cadet’s share. Now

that I am able to make use of the faculties which your kindness and my

good master’s have trained and made available, I hope to do no dishonour

to the name.”

The Laird of Mossgray looked steadily into his young kinsman’s glowing,

animated face; the natural diffidence which subdued its expression, and

the charm of its simple, frank manliness were very pleasant in the old

man’s eyes. He held out his hand and grasped that somewhat astonished,

irresolute one of Halbert’s.

“I have no fear,” he said, kindly; “I believe you will be a good steward

of your name; but remember, Halbert, that there devolves upon you an

inheritance of old duties, old kindnesses, old generosities, along with

the old lands; and that I will as surely leave you heir to all the good

purposed and planned by your predecessors, bravely and faithfully to

fulfil and increase it, as I leave you heir of Mossgray.”

Halbert looked up with a sudden start; the words did not carry their

proper significance to him, for he had expected nothing like this.

“If I had thought you would weary of the lifetime which remains to me,”

said Mossgray, “I might have kept this secret from you, lest you should

be tempted to wish my few remaining days shortened; but I have all

confidence in you, Halbert, and what I give you is your right.”

Halbert said something now; but it was said in so strange a tumult that

the words would not bear recording. Nevertheless they answered their

purpose, and Mossgray did not think the less either of them or of the

speaker, because they were by no means elegantly put together, or rather

were not put together at all.

And then the old man, more openly than he had done with Lilias, sought,

and after some happy hesitation, received, the confidence of Halbert;

and then some arrangements were made, very much to the satisfaction of

the heir of Mossgray. The old man decided that Halbert’s “being settled”

should be for some time delayed, but did by no means say anything to the

detriment of Menie Monikie. To wait a little was all the condition he

asked.

The fields at Shortrigg were unfortunate on this particular day. The

young farmer had things in his head of more immediate interest than

draining, and while he tried to keep his mind awake to the question of

the superabundant hedges, incipient sentences of the triumphant letter,

which should convey those wonderful tidings to the North, floated

through his joyous head, to the entire bewilderment of himself and his

companion. It would not do; the young Utopia routed the sober science of

agriculture, and Mossgray, with secret smiles, invented some kind

pretext for sending Halbert home. It pleased the old man that the youth

should be so pleasantly disturbed, and his eagerness to communicate his

joy to the only home he had ever known gave additional satisfaction to

the gentle heart of Adam Graeme.

“I did not think,” said Mossgray to himself half-aloud, as he lingered

at the corner of one of the condemned ‘three-neukit’ fields, watching

the rapid progress of Halbert, as, bounding over all manner of

obstacles, he carried his exulting heart home to Mossgray, “I did not

think that my old pragmatical friend, Monikie, could have succeeded in

producing such a lad as Halbert; and I fancy I must see this Menie of

his, and renew my acquaintance with her father. And I too have children.

Resolutions, resolutions! what mockery they are; that I might have

debarred myself such companions as these for the sake of words rashly

spoken!”

He turned round, shaking his head with a smile. Saunders Delvie was

standing near, evidently listening. He had heard the conclusion of the

soliloquy.

“Well, Saunders,” said Mossgray, “I believe you do not agree with me?”

“Na, Mossgray,” answered Saunders, harshly, “I haud by the auld law.

Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine

oath.”

“But I am speaking of resolutions, Saunders,” said the Laird, “uncertain

mortal resolves, ignorantly made, which better knowledge shows us were

foolish and wrong. You would not have me hold by anything so weak as

that?”

“Ay, Mossgray,” said the stern old man, holding his ground decidedly;

“but an ane was wise, ane would make nae vows in ignorance; and when a

vow was made, would keep it, if it was to the very death.”

“But, Saunders, my man,” said the good master, kindly, “you know me well

enough to know that I am not so wise as that; and I am too old to

learn.”

“Mossgray,” said Saunders Delvie, “I’m just your serving-man, but I’m in

years mysel’--and I can take nae rule but Scripture, though I would do

as muckle to pleasure my maister as most folk; but the Word’s positive

and clear. Vow unto the Lord and pay.”

“You are more skilled in argument than I am, Saunders,” said Mossgray,

“but I think we can settle that point between us. The vow was a vow of

offering--of special service, or special gifts, or of the sacrifices of

that grand old symbolic Hebrew law. It did not by any means refer to

such frail, inconsiderate resolutions, Saunders, as are common to this

humanity of ours.”

“Ay, but if it was a vow before the Lord,” said Saunders, in his strong,

harsh, emphatic voice; “if before the Lord, Mossgray, ye had spread out

the ill that troubled ye, as the guid King Hezekiah did the proud words

of the Assyrian langsyne, and put forth ane--I’m saying nae man in

particular; it’s a case just like what micht happen wi’ onybody--put

forth ane, I say, solemnly out of your heart and out of your house, as

an ill-doer and a reprobate; would the man that daured to break that no

be man-sworn, Mossgray, having vowed before the Lord?”

There was a certain huskiness and tremor in the harsh voice of the old

man. They stood together strangely contrasted; the master in his benign

and gentle humbleness, the servant in the stern and rugged strength of

his pride.

“Saunders,” said Mossgray, “the utmost vision of our wisdom, you know,

is very poor and dim; and will the Lord hold you, do you think, to an

oath made in ignorance, and dimly, as are all things mortal, even though

you place it in His keeping? If what you vowed in His presence was an

ill vow, Saunders, be thankful that this privilege of humanity is left

to you, and that God gives you power to change--to change; it is a great

gift this. That when the purer light comes upon us we may follow its

course wherever it travels, and that all our vain purposes and foolish

vows are not bound on us, but that gratefully in sight of heaven we may

throw our old encumbrances away, and change. We are growing old,

Saunders, we are travelling towards the setting sun; and by and by we

will lose this power. Think of it before it leaves your hands--mind what

a gracious thing it is, given of God--and make merciful use of it while

you may.”

Mossgray turned round as he concluded, and bent his steps to his

favourite Waterside. He had not unfrequently had such controversies with

his stern old serving-man; and pitying the forlorn heart which, out of

its very excess of harsh, strong love, could debar itself so

relentlessly from the mild humanities of nature, he had taken pains to

leaven the mind of Saunders with his own gracious philosophy. But it

would not do; the rugged, intense spirit buckled its harsh vow upon

itself like armour, while the wiser poet-man opened the heart which

could not be old to all the gentle influences of the earth and of the

heaven.

CHAPTER II.

Close by the sunshine is the cloud;

And yonder o’er the hills, the shadows pass

Like breath; across this field they flit, they hover--

And now ’tis bright, and now ’tis dim, and now

There’s not a cloud in heaven. Look up again;

Lo! all the sky is veiled, the sun shut out--

There’s nothing here but sadness.--ANONYMOUS.

Mrs Buchanan was in high spirits. The friendship of Lilias, and the

honour intended for her by the Reverend Robert Insches, had opened a new

life to Helen. She was no more the neglected and solitary

schoolmistress. The young lady of Mossgray was a frequent visitor at

their humble house. Mrs Whyte of Kirkmay had called to make a definite

beginning of their friendship--the plaintive Mrs Gray became a regular

visitor. Mr Insches took every possible opportunity of stealing into

William Oswald’s vacant corner in the quiet parlour. It pleased the good

mother “to see her bairn respected like the lave.”

And the change was also very pleasant to Helen. She had been at Kirkmay,

and much enjoyed the hospitalities of the Manse--she saw Lilias

frequently; and even the handsome head of the Reverend Robert was an

agreeable variety, breaking the blank of the dim wall, which for whole

years of past evenings had been the only thing she had to look across

to. She was still much alone; but the much was not always, and the

monotony thus occasionally broken became monotony no longer. The

firmament of their quiet life was brightened; it was a pleasant change.

But other changes were progressing; as the spring grew into summer some

shadow fell upon Lilias Maxwell. No one knew what it was, nor how

produced, but the old paleness returned to her cheek, and the old

sinking to her heart. There was no external sign of sorrow or suffering.

The change fell upon her like a cloud--such a cloud as does sometimes

glide across the sun in the early glory of his shining. She was very

calm, very quiet, very thoughtful, but in moments when she fancied no

one saw her, her fingers sought each other painfully, and were clasped

together, as hands are clasped only in grief or in prayer. But the cause

of this she told to no one; and even to her guardian’s affectionate

inquiries, she only answered, “It is nothing, Mossgray; indeed it is

nothing.”

Very early on a bright May day, Lilias went hastily up along the banks

of the wan water, to the house of Murrayshaugh. She had been up that

morning earlier than even the wakeful Janet Mense, as if she could not

rest; and now she had stolen forth, avoiding any company. She walked

more quickly than was usual to her, and over the face, which still wore

its look of constitutional calmness, shades of unwonted colour were

wavering to and fro; for the Lily of Mossgray was sick at heart--sick

with the fever of anxiety--the hope and the fear.

She had become a frequent visitor of Isabell Brown; the old woman was

fretfully kind to Lilias; and when the days were warm enough to permit

her to receive those calls in Miss Lucy’s parlour, Isabell was very

communicative, and told tales of the Murrays, their old grandeur and

their present exile with much satisfaction to herself. Lilias meanwhile

sat on one of the faded high-backed chairs, opposite the wall on which

hung the portrait, and listened pleasantly. Isabell took the young lady

of Mossgray’s admiration of the picture as a personal compliment to

herself, and there began to spring up a genuine liking for her in the

breast of the little sharp old woman; she almost thought Lilias worthy

to take rank next to Miss Lucy.

On this particular day Isabell’s dissertation began as usual.

“Ye see, I canna tell what gars Murrayshaugh stay away in thae foreign

pairts, and him has a guid house o’ his ain to bide in; but there’s nae

accounting for folk’s tastes. For my ain pairt, I wadna gie Murrayshaugh

just where ye’re sitting this minute, for a king’s palace; but he’s an

awfu’ proud man, Murrayshaugh, and nae doubt he has a guid richt.”

Lilias made some indistinct response; it did not much matter what it

was, for Isabell desired a good listener more than anything else.

“It’s maist folk’s pride to be thought rich,” continued the little old

housekeeper, with some ostentation; “but Murrayshaugh’s a man far frae

the common; it’s his notion to hae the house bare, like as he was puir.

It’s naething but folk’s fancy--ane likes ae thing, and ane anither. I

wadna wonder noo but ye’ve heard that the Murrays were gaun doun the

brae? there’s aye some havers rattling at the heels o’ a gentleman’s ain

fancy; as if it was needcessity, when it’s naething but his pleasure.”

Lilias involuntarily glanced round the faded bare room; its look of

decayed gentility made a dreary comment on the assumption of the old

adherent of the ruined family; but her eye rested again, where it rested

so often, on the portrait, and she sighed and did not answer.

“You’re no weel the day,” said Isabell, sympathetically; “and yet it’s

bonnie cheerie weather that should be guid for young folk. Eh Miss

Maxwell! ane wad think ye kent that picture, ye tak sic weary looks at

it; but ye wad never see onybody like that?”

“I think I have,” said Lilias, with a faint smile.

“Like the auld picture that was like Mr Hew? tell us where. It bid to be

himsel; there’s only the twa o’ them in the world, and wha should hae

the kindly face but their ainsels? I’m saying tell me where ye saw

him--for charity tell me where!”

“It was not Mr Murray, Isabell,” said Lilias; “it was a friend--a person

I knew in England.”

“And he was like that!” said Isabell. “Do ye think I dinna ken that nae

fremd man could be like that? will you tell me what they ca’ed him?

Ye’ll read in books whiles, o’ gentles for their ain pleasure taking

anither name--it bid to be Mr Hew.”

“His name was Grant,” said Lilias, “he was not Mr Hew; he was a young

man--quite young.”

“And what should he be else but young?” said the little old woman,

pattering up and down with her short, unequal, agitated steps. “Div ye

think he’s withered and auld like me? I tell ye he’s the gallantest lad

ye ever set your e’e upon; ye may ca’ that like him, but it’s naething

till him--the spark that was in his bonnie e’en, and his brent broo--as

if I didna mind! If he was far blythe and lightsomer like than that, and

yet had a face that could be wae when need was, for ither folk afore

himsel; and if he had a presence o’ his ain that gar’t ye bow, and a

smile that made ye fain; then I say it was Mr Hew ye saw, and nae ither

living man!”

There was some wonderful power in the old woman’s words. The sad pale

head of Lilias slowly followed her motions, as if by some magnetic

attraction. She did not speak; but as Isabell ceased, she closed her

eyelids painfully, perhaps the better to see again the person thus

truthfully described--perhaps to shut in the tears.

The housekeeper pattered up and down for a while in silence; at length

she stopped short immediately before Lilias, and repeated with

emphasis,--

“I’m telling ye it was Mr Hew.”

“It was not Mr Hew, Isabell,” said Lilias gently, as she rose to go

away. “It was one whose home is very far from this; who came from the

northern islands far away; and it is a mere fancy of mine that he is

like the portrait. He was not Mr Hew.”

Isabell was not satisfied--she accompanied her visitor to the door with

many mutterings; the “kindly face” could belong only to a Murray, “it

bid to be Mr Hew.”

Lilias turned away across the unsafe bridge, and went hastily up a steep

lane which led to the Fendie high-road; she was not going home, and

excited and anxious as she was she could not bear the meditative calm of

the Waterside.

It was a somewhat long walk, and Lilias was not like herself; her

feverish hasty pace, and the painful flushes of colour which now and

then crossed her brow, were unnatural. It was the first time she had

been tried by this trial--the deadly anxiety with which we shiver and

burn, when our sole hope is in peril, and there comes to us no tidings.

She thought she could endure to hear of any certain calamity, but that

blank of suspense was terrible to her--she could not bear it.

There had been mail after mail from the far East, but no letter for

Lilias; and this was the day again. She had gone to Murrayshaugh to fill

up the feverish blank of those slow moments; to look once more upon the

face which never perhaps she should look upon with faith and trust

again; and now she was hurrying to the decision of all those tremulous

doubts and fears; if there was a letter to-day--and if there was none--

Her lips were parched--they would hardly meet to ask that

question--“No.” Lilias looked into the postmaster’s face wistfully

again; she would not hear the denial. “No, there were no letters for

Miss Maxwell.”

And immediately there fell upon her a dead calm; a dull slow pain of

quietness. She went out in her noiseless way, and glided down the street

like a shadow; her heart was sick--she could have seated herself by the

road-side, and wept out the slow tears that were gathering under her

eyelids, unconscious of any passers-by; but those who did pass by saw

only the grave, pale, pensive Lily of Mossgray. The fever was

over--there remained no present hope to distract her now, and she was

calm again.

And then she began to think, and laboured bravely to put away from her

those doubts and fears--but Lilias had not the impulsive energy of hope;

the elastic life, which can fight and wrestle with sorrow at its

strongest, was not in her; but she could do what the more buoyant could

not have done--she could wait--and knowing the time that she must wait,

she became calm.

She had intended going home, but as the shock softened, she changed her

purpose. She went to borrow hope from Helen Buchanan, in one of those

sudden yearnings for gentle company, with which sad hearts are sometimes

seized. In her hush and faintness she wanted to have some living thing

come in between her and her secret pain--she wanted to forget herself.

It was a holiday with Helen, and she was in a holiday mood,

withstanding, with her natural enthusiasm, the gloomy dogmas of Mrs

Gray, who was making a gracious call upon Mrs Buchanan. Mrs Buchanan did

not much like the melancholy lady; her sanguine gentle temper recoiled

from the sombre atmosphere which suited Mrs Gray; but she was Mrs

Whyte’s sister, and a “very respectable” acquaintance for Helen; so the

good mother submitted pleasantly.

“Are you ill, Lilias?” said Helen.

“No, Helen, it is nothing,” answered Lilias, gently. It was her

universal answer; the melancholy cloud was indeed very visible, but she

would not speak of the cause.

“My dear,” said Mrs Gray--she was very affectionate, this good doleful

woman--her very gloom increased her tenderness; “I am very much afraid

you are not taking sufficient care of yourself. I am sure you got damp

feet that day you were at the Manse, and Elizabeth would never think of

asking you to change them. Elizabeth is really very careless about damp

feet; she never heeds them herself--and I have known many a one get a

consumption with them. You are looking very white, my dear; you must

really take care.”

“I am quite well, Mrs Gray,” said Lilias; “perfectly well, I assure

you.”

Mrs Gray shook her head.

“Really, my dear, people never know. We are well to-day, and ill

to-morrow: it is a strange world.”

The proposition in this case being very abstract no one controverted it.

“When I see,” continued Mrs Gray, oratorically, “young people going out

on the world with such false notions as most of them have, poor things,

it grieves me, Mrs Buchanan. So little as there is to enjoy after all,

even if they get all they expect.”

Mrs Buchanan, like Mr Oswald, had an old-fashioned prejudice that there

was something orthodox in all this; a prejudice which made her diffident

of answering.

“Poor things!” she echoed, with a slight falter; “but after all, Mrs

Gray, we had light hearts in our own youth, and why should we discourage

them? Sorrow aye comes soon enough.”

A sigh from Lilias sounded like an assent: and the Lily of Mossgray

indeed bent her weary head and assented. She began to believe that

sorrow--nothing but sorrow--was the common lot.

But Helen’s face was flushing--her small head growing erect. Mrs Gray

turned round--she was no coward--to face her vowed antagonist.

“Miss Buchanan, my dear, I am speaking the truth. People say that the

happiest part of life is youth; now just look at yourself. Toiling and

labouring with these children; wearied with them every night, but just

having to begin again every morning! with little time to yourself--to

visit your friends, or read, or whatever you might choose. My dear, just

look at it yourself. What have you to enjoy?”

Helen started.

“I have all the world--not this little humble house--not that

school-room only; but the earth, and the sky, and the sea! Look at

them--look at what God gives us--the sunshine and the clouds--the hills

and the rivers--and you ask me what I have to enjoy? I have all the

world! the weariness and the rest, the labour and the sleep, the night

and the day, they are all given us, waiting our pleasures like the

spirits of the old dreams. There is no one born into the earth who is

not born rich, richer than kings, for we have all the world.”

Mrs Gray was not prepared to answer this; she turned away to look from

the window at the flowers, and prudently shook her head, half at the

wild doctrine, and half at the eager manner; but she tilted no more at

that time with Helen.

“Will you walk up with me to Mossgray, Helen?” said Lilias, in the

subdued melancholy voice which made the petition more urgent than a

command; and Helen consented at once. As they descended the steps at the

bridge, and waded through the long, thick grass, which spread between

the backs of the Fendie houses and the river, the pensive calm of Lilias

touched the variable spirit of her friend. They began to talk in that

tone of half-playful sadness which often veils over griefs which the

speakers would not tell. It is the mood of speculation; and they were

neither of them too old for the girlish dreamy fancies,

half-superstitious, which belong to our imaginative years.

“I wonder,” said Lilias, “whether our minds are formed, Helen, to suit

our fate? I mean that our griefs are made for us, like our dwellings,

with an individual fitness in them all. It seems so strange sometimes,

as if on one person had fallen the fate which properly belonged to

another; yet it must be that we are suited always--our minds with our

trials.”

“It must be,” said the bolder Helen, “for what would be joy to one is

nothing to another, Lilias. I think I could fancy what my troubles would

be, and yours?”

“Tell me, Helen.”

“Calm, grave, quiet sorrows, which will not have the fever of doubt and

hope in them, which you will know certainly, and be able to weep silent

tears for. Lilias, I think these will be yours; and for me--I do not

know--I think strong troubles that I can fight and battle with; unquiet,

living griefs that will keep me strained and labouring. Lilias, is it

not my foolish fancies that make you sad?”

“No. I do not see the sun just now, that is all,” said the pale calm

Lilias, shutting the eyes which were again full. “Helen, Helen, let us

not say any more.”

CHAPTER III.

“Concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,

Preyed on her damask cheek.”--TWELFTH NIGHT.

The good Mossgray was pained for the dimness which hung about his

adopted child. It was not positive sorrow--it was only a shadowy

quietness as of a cloud, and very still and patient was Lilias. She was

trying to live in the present only, because the future, when she tried

to look upon it, made her heart sick; but it is not in the nature of

humanity to do this, and her effort to confine herself to those

individual hours, as one by one in their quietness they glided past her,

made her only languidly indifferent to them all. For Lilias was alone:

the hope in peril was her sole hope; kindly ties of kindred there were

none for her, and except the old man, her guardian, to whom she looked

with tenderness and reverence as to a father, but who yet was not her

father, nor had part in all the associations of the past as members of

one family have, she had none in the world but this one--and he!--

Where was he? was it peril or illness, or, painfullest of all, was it

change, which produced this agony of silence? She tried to interdict

herself from the constant speculation to which she could give no answer,

but the yearning wonder and anxiety were too strong for the sorrowful

heart; yet she said nothing. She could not blame him; she could not have

another fancy that on his truth there lay the faintest suspicion; and

with that haze of mild, subdued patience about her, she waited, and when

she did think of the future time at all, thought of what lay beyond that

fated, solemn day, on which tidings might and surely _must_ come, as of

some dreamy, unknown chaos, strange and chill, another life.

“I dinna ken what’s come to Miss Lillie,” said Mrs Mense, with a sigh.

“She’s ower muckle made o’, that’s it,” responded the sourer Janet.

“Woman, woman!” said the housekeeper, bitterly, “have ye nae memory o’

being ance young yoursel’, and maybe having troubles in your ain heart

that wadna bear telling? but I needna speak to you.”

“Na, I reckon no,” said Janet. “Me! I wad just like to hear onybody say

that I ever had a trouble a’ my born days that mightna hae been visible

to the haill world if it likit.”

“And that just shows how little ye ken about it,” said Mrs Mense; “if ye

ever had a heart ava, it maun hae grown to bane twenty year ago. Are ye

gaun to iron thae bits o’ laces for the young lady or are ye no’?--for

if ye’re no’, I’ll do’t mysel’--”

“The young lady--set her up!” said the housekeeper _de facto_. “Muckle

right she has to the auld Lady Mossgray’s guid lace. He’ll be gieing her

the land next; there’s nae fuils like auld fuils.”

“Janet Mense,” said the old woman, “ye hae eaten the Laird’s bread mony

a year, and I hae suffered ye in the house, for a’ your ill tongue, and

for a’ sae little worth as ye are; but if ye daur to say anither word

against Mr Adam, I’ll take ye by the shouthers and put ye forth from

this door. I’ll do it with my ain hands; sae ye ken.”

Janet judged it prudent to sound a retreat. She began to spread the lace

upon the table, preparatory to the process of ironing.

“The wife’s in a creel,” said Robbie Carlyle the fisherman, entering

with his basket of flounders, thinly covered with a few grilse. “Wha’s

she gaun to pit to the door? If it’s Effie, I’ll hae nae mair dealings

wi’ ye, Mrs Mense; for Effie’s Jamie Caryl’s daughter, and Jamie’s my

second cousin; sae we’ll be to ’gree again.”

“And wha’ll tire sunest o’ that, Robbie, my man?” said the housekeeper.

“Faith, I dinna ken,” said the bold fisherman, “there’s waur folk nor

me, guid wife; and if I missed your custom, ye wad miss my ca’, ye ken;

for I’m guid company--especially when I bring the cuddie.”

“I would like to ken, Robbie Caryl,” said Janet, “what the like o’ you

has to do wi’ a cuddie.”

“The like o’ me! Ye’re a sensible woman, Jen, but ye dinna ken a’thing;

it’s no to be expected. I ken few that does, by mysel’, and Mossgray,

and the minister; the like o’ me! as if I wasna as ’sponsible a man as

there is in the parish, and as weel entitled to hae ease to my

shouthers! There’s thristles and dockens enow aboon tidemark to

mainteen a dizzen cuddies, and he taks nae cleeding, puir beast; he’s

cheaper than a wean.”

“Eh, Robbie!” said Mrs Mense, reproachfully, “to even the bits of

innocent bairns to a brute beast!”

“He’s a very decent beast,” said Robbie. “I hae kent mony a waur

Christian. The bairns! I hae half a dizzen curly pows o’ them, ilk ane a

greater sorrow than the tither, and I can tell ye it’s Blackie out there

that has the maist cause to compleen o’ being evened to them. He’s a

decent, sober, ’sponsible beast, like my ain sel’, and the little anes

are evendown spirits, never out o’ mischief, if it binna when they’re

tumbled in a dub; and then ane has the fash o’ fishing them out again.”

“It maun be awfu’ dangerous for bairns, that weary marsh,” said Mrs

Mense, sympathetically.

“Hout, we never fash our heads about it,” said the fisherman; “they’re

a’ born to plouter amang saut water: it comes natural; when they do get

a fa’, the oldest anes can scramble out again, and there’s nane o’ them

ower young to skirl. The wife whiles makes a fyke about it, but nane o’

them ’ll drown. You might maist say they were born in the sea; onyway,

the tide was up on the very doorstane the nicht Sandy was born. It was

an uncommon high tide; and the weans hae a story that he came in on the

tap o’ a muckle wave. Little Mary wad maist swear she saw the bit wee

beld pow o’ him in amang the foam; and the foam’s nane o’ the clearest,

I can tell ye, when the Firth’s in a roar.”

“Wasna Monday nicht uncommon coarse doun-bye?” said Janet. “Did ye hear

if there was ony skaith dune, Robbie?”

“Hout, woman, do ye ca’ _yon_ coarse?” answered the salt-water man.

“Skaith! no, if it werena that auld careless body Willie Tamson that

brought in his heavy brute o’ a boat ower the nets, and had nigh coupit

her, forbye driving I kenna how mony stakes out of the shore, and

garring us lose a day’s kep. The fish are aye maist plentiful when the

water’s troubled; puir beasts! they haena muckle variety in their

life--I’m thinking they’ll like a storm for the sake o’ change; onyway,

they’re aye strong when the Firth’s champing like an ill-willy horse.”

“And are ye doing ought weel, Robbie?” said Mrs Mense.

“No to compleen o’,” answered Robbie, “it aye hauds us gaun. I’m

thinking we’ll be no that ill this year; the red fish looks weel. See to

that grilse; ye’ll be needing it for the Laird’s dinner the day. Did ye

ever see a bonnier beast in the water or out o’t?”

After considerable bargaining, the grilse was laid aside together with

store of flounders.

“For there’s nae saying,” said Robbie, “when I may be round again, and

it’s better to hae a wheen ower mony than ower few--that’s

philosophy--ye can ask the Laird. I’m thinking to send Peter mair; he’s

a muckle callant grown, and I see nae occasion I have, to keep a doug,

and bark mysel; if it wasna that it wad be an awfu’ loss to the haill

countryside--I dinna ken what ye wad a’ do, wanting me.”

“Ye’ve aye a guid word o’ yoursel, Robbie Caryl,” said Janet.

“There’s ne’er a ane kens me as weel, Jen, my woman,” retorted the

undaunted Robbie; “if it binna the wife; and the wife’s gift is mair for

finding out folk’s faults than their guid qualities; but when I gie ower

coming ye’ll find it out; see if ye dinna be gieing weary looks ilka

market-day for Robbie Caryl and the cuddie.”

“We’ll wait till that time comes, Robbie,” said Mrs Mense; “but, man,

hae ye nae mair news than that?”

“Hearken till her noo,” said Robbie, reflectively; “hearken till the

gate o’ thae women--ne’er a thing but news in the heads o’ them. Jen,

I’m awa’--hae ye ony message to your joe? I’m the canniest man gaun--I

ne’er was blackfit at a courtin’ yet but it throve; and speaking about

marryin’--that’s what ye ca’ _news_, I’m thinking?--the wives in the

toun are thrang on the top o’ ane e’en now.”

“Wha is’t Robbie?” asked Janet and her aunt together.

“Oh, I hae gotten till the right thing noo, have I? It’s ane that’ll

ne’er be in this world--it’s the minister.”

“The minister!” said Mrs Mense, “and what ill will hae ye at the winsome

lad, Robbie Caryl, that ye should say he wad never be married?”

“I said nae sic thing; ye tak folk up, neebor, afore they fa’. He may

hae half a hunder wives for onything I care, but I’ll just tell him ae

guid word o’ counsel--he needna fash his thoom about this ane.”

“And wha is she that’s sae grand?” said the old housekeeper, “set her

up! does she think the minister’s no guid enough for onybody?”

The Reverend Robert was an immense favourite with Mrs Mense. She felt it

as an injury to the Church that he should not be able to choose where it

pleased him.

“I’m no speaking about grandness--she’s nae muckle lady; she’s just the

mistress o’ the schule our wee Mary’s at, learning to sew and to behave

hersel; but, Mrs Mense, you’re auld--ye dinna mind o’ the fancies o’

young folk. It’s you and me, Jen, that can understand how ane whiles

likes ae body better than anither--and ye’ll gie me the message to your

joe?”

Jen made a furious lunge at the bold Robbie with the poker she had in

her hand. Her irons were not heating so well as they should have done.

Janet was in a bad humour.

“Dear me, Robbie, did ye say it was the schulemistress?” said Mrs Mense

with some concern; “nae doubt she’s a great friend o’ our Miss

Lillie’s--but the misguided lad! He might have seen how Mr Wright, at

Fairholm, made a wreck o’ himsel, wi’ marryin’ Willie Tasker’s daughter;

but it’s nae use speaking--for nothing will learn thae young folk.”

“Never you heed, gudewife,” said Robbie, “there’s nae ill dune. I’ll wad

ye a’ the red fish that comes into the net atween this and Sabbath that

she’ll no tak’ him.”

“She’ll no tak’ him--the minister?--she’s no blate!”

“Whisht, whisht,” said the fisherman, “we needna be misca’ing folk that

never did us ony ill. She’s as blate as she has ony occasion to be; but

there’s anither lad in the gate, ye ken--that’s it, Jen; ye’ll mind by

yoursel.”

“I wish ye wad haud the clavering tongue o’ ye,” said the indignant

Janet; “_I_ ken?--I ken nane o’ your ill ways--ye needna be putting the

name o’ them on me; and wha’s the ither lad?”

“Do ye think I dinna ken that ye wad never trust me wi’ that bit

message, if I was telling about anither young lady’s sweetheart? Hout,

woman, ye’re no gaun to get round me wi’ the like o’ that. I’m a man to

be trusted here where I stand; if I wasna, Jen, I wad ne’er hae had the

face to ask a woman o’ your experience to send your bit message wi’ me;

but ye may ken it’s safe in my hands--never mortal shall hear tell o’t

but the ane.”

The exasperated Janet threatened Robbie with her hot iron; with a broad

laugh the fisherman evaded it, but he did not retreat.

“And Miss Buchanan telled ye, Robbie?” said Mrs Mense, “weel she’s no

ower nice o’ her counsellors.”

“She’s nane sae wise as to tell me,” said the incorrigible Robbie, “but

I have an e’e in my ain head--no to say twa, and them black anes. Ye see

ae black e’e’s as guid as three blue anes ony day; for no to speak o’

the licht that ilka body can see through, I hae a gift, like the cats,

to see in the dark. Na, na, Miss Buchanan has nae thocht I’m in her

counsels--but for a’ that, I ken; and ye may think when I heard the

wives in the toun a’ keckling about the minister--I leuch. Some o’ them

had new found it out, that he was aye wandering about the townend; but

he needna fash his thoom--and I’ve a guid mind to tell him mysel.”

“He’ll no be muckle heeding,” said Mrs Mense with dignity; “the like o’

him, a fine-looking lad that micht get as guid a leddy as ony in the

country-side; and she’s no even that you could ca’ particular bonnie.

Oh! thae young callants, how they will aye rin after their ain fancies!”

The prudential demurrings of the Reverend Robert Insches as to the

eligibility of the humble schoolmistress of Fendie were perfectly

justified. The parish decided that she was not eligible--that the

minister would clearly throw himself away--that the dignity of the

Church would be compromised; but the Reverend Robert was now out of his

depths, and had lost the footing of prudence. He was not aware that his

wanderings about “the townend” began to be discussed by Robbie Carlyle

and his customers. The minister was very much more interested at present

in consideration of what was said and done in the little, quiet, dusky

parlour, than in any other apartment in Fendie, or in broad Scotland. He

had lost his balance; he could no longer manage himself according to his

old rules, even though the dearly beloved “position” should be put in

jeopardy. The chances of his pursuit made him a little anxious

sometimes, but there was no withdrawal; he must either win or fail.

CHAPTER IV.

I am sick and capable of fears;

Oppressed with wrongs and therefore full of fears;

A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;

A woman, naturally born to fears.--KING JOHN.

Mrs Buchanan had a good deal of anxiety about the position and prospects

of her daughter. People began to speak of those constant visits of the

minister, and now, when it seemed likely that some decision must

speedily be come to, Mrs Buchanan began to think remorsefully of the

long-tried familiar friend, whose place in their little household Mr

Insches seemed so resolute to take. Yet she liked Mr Insches; she liked

him for the simple, natural character which the influence of Helen

seemed to draw forth more naturally and simply every day; she liked him,

even for the faults which he could not hide; and most of all she liked

him because he had fallen from his hobby--had lost his depth--and

because it was no longer in his power to pretend that he could elevate

that lofty head of his, and take his assiduities away. Besides it would

be so very suitable; the modest dignity of his place, equal to the

richest yet within the reach of the very poor--its necessary literature

and necessary benevolence, which the good mother fancied would suit so

well the delicate, impulsive, variable spirit of her only child: all

these things increased her desire to see the suit of Mr Insches

successful,--and yet--we are inconsistent always, we human folk--the

gentle Mrs Buchanan looked wistfully at the address of the Edinburgh

newspaper which he sent her constantly, and wondered how William would

feel if he saw the new occupant of his long-accustomed corner. She did

not like, in her kind inconsistency, to come to any distinct explanation

with her daughter; often she spoke of Mr Insches, and Helen sometimes

blushed as she listened; but the blush now was painful and uneasy. Mrs

Buchanan became very anxious--desiring, and yet not desiring that this

should come to some definite end.

Helen too felt her position very painful; night after night the Reverend

Robert was there, with his good looks, his good mind, and the little

sparks of temper which diversified and animated them. Week after week

passed away, and she saw or heard nowhere but in the newspaper the name

of William Oswald. She began to have a disagreeable consciousness that

it was possible she might come to like this Reverend Robert, and she

began to be a little piqued and angry at his rival for suffering her to

remain so long ignorant of all his proceedings and feelings. Helen did

not remember then the very decided negative she had put upon his

proposal to write; she did not remember anything at that moment, in

exculpation of the resolute labourer toiling to the utmost of his stout

faculties in the distant city. She only felt impatient, inconsistent,

irritable; very much disposed to quarrel with the two candidates for her

favour, and still more offended with herself.

In this mood she set out one dull May afternoon immediately after her

little crowd had dispersed, to see a small invalid whose place had been

vacant among them for more than a week. It was Robbie Carlyle’s little

daughter, Mary, who had been ill with some childish epidemic, and was

now recovering. Helen had been struggling with the most painful mood of

her nervous temperament this day--its irritability; she found herself a

hundred times on the very point of unnecessary fault-finding--in spite

of all her precautions, impatient hasty words had escaped from her lips;

and now she was turning her sword against herself, and was in a bitter,

painful, unhappy humour, which it was best to carry away out of the

society of any whom it might wound, into the still country road, along

which she went with the unequal pace, now slow, now hasty, which was

usual to her.

The gentle summer air, the dreamy silence just touched and made human

with its floating far-away sounds of life, the dim sky above with its

soft dark clouds and veiled sun--in these was a charm to which the

unquiet spirit never failed to answer. A touch of the kindly humanity

which makes the whole world kin, might have lifted her up in a moment

into the midst of the sunny clouds of her own bright especial heaven;

but when Nature was the physician, the effect was different; the unhappy

mood stole away into the deep sadness peculiar to her, and she lingered

now and then to look over the fair, dim country with those slanting

lines of pale sunshine stealing over it, from the head of yon shrouded

mountain in the west, her heart sinking into the depths the while. The

cap of which Skiddaw wots when it is put on, was shading the dark brow

of the Scottish hill, and the air was subdued and soft, and the wind

sighed about the hedges as though its wings were drenched with rain. Few

articulate thoughts were in the downcast mind of Helen; only the thread

of linked and varied fancies, which sometimes quivered below the

sunbeams like a golden chord, was now sad and drooping like the wind.

The unconscious tears gathered in her eyes--the shadow fell heavily over

her heart. Slowly along the quiet road she wandered enveloped in the

mist of her changed mood. The annoyances and the little angers had

vanished away, but she was very sad.

Just then she came in sight of the Firth; between her and its pale

glittering waves lay the green breadth of the Marsh, with its fine

sea-side grass, and pools of deep still water. Nowhere, far or near, was

there grass so smooth and velvet-like, as the close thin-bladed grass of

this dangerous play-ground, interdicted to the obedient children of

Fendie. But the children of Fendie, like all others, had a craving for

interdicted pleasures, and when they got together in bands and could

have the countenance of other rebels, the Marsh was a favourite

trysting-place; and the bold example of Robbie Caryl’s amphibious boys

overcame scruples of timidity. It was excellent sport to leap over the

gleaming pools of salt water; the strong really enjoyed it, and the

weak, precociously compelled by fear of ridicule to do as others did,

made pretence of enjoying it too.

Pale, slanting, watery sunbeams were gleaming in the salt pools and on

the shrunken Firth, as it began to gather volume, and retrace its rapid

steps to the shore. It has strange moods this southern Firth; you see

bare, dreary sand-banks at night, dotted with the stake-nets of the

fishers, in the very midst of its broad course, where ships will sail

bravely when to-morrow’s tide is in. The far-away English hills were

blotted out with the mist of coming rain, and over the dark hill in the

west the sun threw his flickering, sickly beams, longer and longer drawn

out, as he faintly glided downward to his bed in the sea.

The Marsh was somewhere about a mile in extent, stretching along the

bank of the Firth eastward from the mouth of the Fendie water. For the

most part it looked verdant and tempting at a little distance, and was

indeed scarcely so much a Marsh as a great extent of fine sea-side

grass--what is called links in other places in Scotland--save that this

was a complete net-work of clear salt-water pools, only to be traversed

by dint of leaping. As Helen approached its borders a few children were

painfully disentangling themselves from its labyrinth. Some of the pools

were tolerably deep, and the Fendie children, to increase their dread of

the Marsh, had been taught to believe them deeper. The little wanderers

on this occasion had been struck with fear as they began to see the

tawny waves of the returning Firth roll in on the dark pebbly sand far

below. The clouds were gathering close over the sky as though the night

was about to fall--some of the small hearts were beating

timorously--they were all struggling as they could towards the road.

In the very heart of the Marsh where lay the deepest, broadest pools of

all, shutting in the unwary wanderer on every side, Helen saw a little

girl lifting in her arms a small, heavy brother, much younger, but not

much less than herself. On even ground she could scarcely carry him, but

now the young heroine had a desperate attempt to make. The rain had

begun, the last lingering sunbeam was gone: all their companions were

already out of peril; the poor little sister was essaying to leap over

the pool which intercepted her, with the great lumbering boy in her

arms.

“Dinna, Jeanie--dinna try’t,” cried another little girl, looking back;

“just bide a wee while. I’ll rin and get Robbie Caryl--there’s nae

fears.”

But Jeanie had many fears, and the rain began to come heavily down, and

Robbie Caryl’s cottage was a full quarter of a mile away; so she made

the leap, her frightened heart beating loud. It was successful so far;

the little blubbering brother was safely landed, but she herself plunged

to the knee into the pool, and her frock was torn, and one of her clogs

lost in the tenacious wet sand. Poor Jeanie could not wait to get it

out, and every step of her progress must be made at the same peril. She

sat down on the sharp grass beside her little brother, and looked at her

torn wet frock, and cried bitterly, with visions of high tide, and the

dreary darkness, and being drowned, alternating in her mind with terror

for what her mother would say about the torn frock and the lost shoe.

But Jeanie must rise and lift little Tammie, and try again; and as she

looked wistfully over the dark Marsh, she saw some one taller and more

agile than herself, springing step by step over the dangerous pools.

“It’s only a woman,” said Jeanie to herself, sadly; but immediately the

little heart rose and grew courageous: “It’s the mistress!”

She had cured Helen. The cheek of the young schoolmistress of Fendie was

glowing through the rain as if it never could be pale. Peter himself,

the embryo fisherman, had never leaped those gleaming pools more bravely

than Helen did. It was somewhat hard for an amusement to other than

boyhood, but it made her eyes sparkle and her heart beat; she had never

been blyther than she was now.

He was a serious weight, that little blubbering Tammie, and was somewhat

afraid of the honour of being lifted in the arms of the mistress. It

awed him into silence; and Jeanie ventured to pause, to rescue her shoe.

The mistress assured her that the pool was not so deep after all, and

Jeanie forgot her fears.

It was rather a dreary scene; the rain sweeping down heavier every

moment, till against the lowering sky it began to look white, carried on

the wind, like long, trailing skirts of some stiff silken garment; a

little below, the tawny roaring Firth, making way sullen and strong over

his shores, and lashing up on the shingle in long curls of foam, like a

lion’s mane; and here the raindrops pattering in the ghostly pools, and

the little girl at Helen’s feet forcing on the recovered shoe, and

restraining her weeping in hysteric sobs, while Helen herself grasped

the waist of the heavy Tammie with both her hands, and gathered up her

dress for the laborious progress to the road.

A passer-by who came in sight on an ascending road at some distance

hurried forward in fear for them when he looked down. There was no need:

as he reached the edge of the Marsh, Helen cleared the last pool. Her

dress was thoroughly wet; she had made one or two stumbles, but her

rapid movements seemed more graceful, and her face was brighter, the

banker Oswald thought, than when he saw her last in the drawing-room of

the Manse; for Mr Oswald was the passer-by--and in the heavy rain and

gathering darkness, with only the children to prevent their being alone,

he was standing face to face with Helen Buchanan.

The little Tammie was rather a pretty child, and considering how his

careful sister and he had spent the afternoon, was a very tolerably

clean one; for the pools were very clear, and neither dust nor mud were

on the Marsh; so as Helen set him on the ground, and bent down to help

and console Jeanie, who had painfully followed her, they made by no

means an ungraceful group--if we except the stout, perplexed elderly

gentleman with the umbrella, who, not much less shy than Helen, stood

with confused hesitation looking at them, and not knowing what to say.

A nervous tremor had come upon the young schoolmistress; half of it was

physical, and proceeded from the unusual exertion she had made, and half

of it owned her consciousness of the presence of William Oswald’s

father. It was natural to her; the fingers which rested on little

Jeanie’s shoulder trembled a good deal, and Helen’s attitude and glowing

face were shy--a shyness which was at the same time frank, and an

awkwardness by no means ungraceful. The banker meanwhile stood before

her and her little _protégés_, and held his umbrella over his own head,

and grew slightly red in the face. But there was no remnant of

gracefulness in the embarrassment of the respectable Mr Oswald. The good

man felt a little afraid of the shy, unquiet girl, wondered rather what

she would say to him, and felt very much at a loss for something to say

to her.

There were sounds of loud, boyish footsteps on the road, as Helen,

stooping down, wrapped up the children as she best could to defend them

from the rain.

“Eh!” exclaimed a voice corresponding to the feet, as Hector Maxwell of

Firthside and his brother came up out of breath; “it’s Miss Buchanan--I

knew it was Miss Buchanan--and she’s droukit. Here’s my plaid--take my

plaid, Miss Buchanan! We’ve run a’ the road from the brae, because we

saw you on the Marsh, and if you had just waited--”

Hector looked indignantly at the little heavy Tammie, and in great haste

threw off his plaid.

“Miss Buchanan will not be much better with your plaid, Hector,” said Mr

Oswald; “she must take my umbrella; it will be more serviceable, and not

so heavy.”

Helen answered the somewhat constrained politeness with a little bow.

“Thank you, Hector; but you would be very wet before you got home, if I

took your plaid from you.”

“But I’m no heeding,” said the generous Maxwell. Hector did not need to

brush up his English for Helen; she was not so easily shocked as his

sister.

“And I shall soon be home,” said Helen. “I must go with these children,

you know, and see that they are not scolded; and I am wet already. Come,

Tammie. Hector, good-night.”

Helen looked up into the banker’s face, and her natural frankness

struggled for a moment with her shy pride. She was almost inclined to

say that she would share his umbrella if he pleased, and the next moment

she thought she would say nothing; but finally there was a compromise.

“Good-night, Mr Oswald,” said Helen, as she took little Tammie’s hand.

“We are going the same way,” said the embarrassed banker; and so they

did; and amicably under shelter of one umbrella, with little Jeanie and

her brother getting very muddy and wet at their feet, the banker Oswald

and Helen Buchanan walked side by side towards the cheerful lights of

Fendie.

Mr Oswald cleared his throat; he rather wanted to begin a conversation,

but he did not very well know how. If this young lady was to be Mrs

Insches, the good man said to himself plausibly, it was very necessary

that he should at least be acquainted with her; but certain it is that

with no other prospective Mrs Insches would Mr Oswald have felt himself

so uncomfortably conscious. He made a beginning at last on the easiest

subject.

“How foolish people are to permit their children to stray out on that

Marsh!”

“It is the fault of the bairns themselves,” said Helen.

The banker remembered that Miss Swinton, Hope’s oracle, applauded our

natural Scottish tongue, and it was rather a pretty word, “bairns.” In

another person he would have thought it vulgar, perhaps, but no one

could call that low voice, with its changeful modulations, vulgar, and

he began to like listening to it.

“Jeanie is afraid her mother will be angry; but when she sees them so

wet, she will forget their misdemeanour, I hope.”

Little Tammie had been tied up as well as it was possible to keep him

comfortable, but the poor little fellow was very wet notwithstanding,

and was getting weary and sleepy as he trudged along the road. Helen had

insinuated him between the banker and herself, and so he was protected

by the wonderful umbrella, and moreover had his thumb to suck

consolation from, which melancholy pleasure the hapless Jeanie, walking

on Helen’s other side, and laboriously gathering up her torn, wet frock,

and thinking of what her mother would say, was quite deprived of.

“You seem fond of children, Miss Buchanan,” said the formal banker,

after a considerable pause.

Helen began to forget the speciality of the case, in that this perplexed

man was William Oswald’s father. She did not like, so sensitive and

easily moved as she was herself, to see any one ill at ease beside her.

“I like them,” she said, frankly, “perhaps it is because I spend so much

of my time among them; but I like their company.”

“And does it never weary you?” said the curious Mr Oswald.

Helen paused a moment--a sort of half-remembrance of the mood in which

she left the school-room that day just floating like a cloud over the

spirit which had shaken out its wings and was up again, singing in

mid-heaven.

“We all weary sometimes,” she said; “but I not more, I think, than

others. It is pleasant to work, and my own work, I fancy, is pleasanter

to me than any other would be.”

Mr Oswald was a good deal astonished; he did not quite know how to

answer so honest a statement, for the good man had taken it for granted

that the young schoolmistress must be very sick of her labour, and eager

to escape from it, which indeed she was not, except sometimes, when her

wayward moods were upon her.

“I did not know that you knew Hector Maxwell,” said Mr Oswald,

awkwardly; “do you admit those rude boys to your liking as well as the

little girls, Miss Buchanan?”

“Hector Maxwell is not rude,” said Helen. “He is a genuine boy, and a

great friend of mine. Yes, indeed; I like them all very well, until they

become young gentlemen and young ladies.”

“And what then?” said the banker.

“And then I become a little afraid of them, and they do not suit me any

longer,” said Helen, smiling, as she paused at an open door, where the

mother of Jeanie was looking out anxiously for her little truants. “I

thank you, Mr Oswald; good-night.”

CHAPTER V.

Is she not proud? doth she not count her blessed,

Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought

So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?

ROMEO AND JULIET.

The little roundabout Miss Insches began to grow disturbed about the

length of her own continuance in office. She saw that very soon her

dominion over the dining-room and the drawing-room, and her share of the

comforts of the library, must come to a close; and while the

good-humoured sister anticipated, with considerable relief, her return

to the plebeian, unpretending home where there was no necessity for

being always genteel, she felt also a good many qualms about resigning

Robert, and Robert’s beautiful chairs and tables, into the keeping of a

stranger.

“For ye see, Miss Buchanan, she’s young,” said Miss Insches to herself,

not daring to have any other confidante, “and for a’ she’s nae

better--I’m meaning for a’ she’s a hantle puirer than oursels, no to

speak of Robert--she has gey high notions like himsel’; and I’m very

doubtful that she’ll just let Nelly dust the big room, and no think of

putting to her ain hand. Robert says I should do that too, but he’s a

young lad for a’ he’s the minister, and doesna ken a’thing. I wish she

may just be mindful o’ himsel’. He’s aye been used wi’ his ain way, puir

man, and has been muckle made o’, and muckle thought o’; and I’m sure a

better lad--”

Miss Insches paused with an incipient tear in her eye. The worshipped

minister son, of whom the mother at home was so proud--the omnipotent

brother whose slightest word was law--alas! was he to cease to be an

idol--to come down from his absolute throne, and be limited to a

constitutional monarchy like any other man, with perhaps a young, proud

wife exacting service from him, instead of rendering the devoted homage

which was Robert’s due? Miss Insches’s eye again wandered over the

shining tables of the sacred drawing-room, and her heart was troubled.

“He’s aye had his ain way, puir man!” she repeated, mournfully, as she

carefully closed the door and sighed. Poor Robert! he was to be

married, as all Fendie said--he was to have his own way no longer.

The Reverend Robert was seated at his writing table in the library; it

was a study day. Miss Insches stole noiselessly in, closed the door, and

took her seat at the window, with her seam in her hand. Robert was

writing his sermon; the good sister sewed those new shirts of his in

devout silence; when her thread fell she picked it up with a look of

guilt--she might have disturbed Robert. Foolish Robert! the young wife

would not reverence his stillness so.

“Janet,” said Robert, graciously, “we are to dine at Kirkmay on Monday.

I have just had a note from Mrs Whyte.”

“Ye dinna mean me, too, Robert?” said Miss Insches.

“Certainly I mean you too, Janet,” said the young man, with some

impatience. “Why, you have been at Kirkmay before.”

“Yes, Robert, I’m meaning that,” responded the dutiful sister humbly,

“but it’s the Monday of the preachings, is’t no? and will there be more

folk than ministers?”

“Mrs Whyte is to have a few friends,” said the Reverend Robert, with a

conscious smile, “and there is no reason why they should only be

ministers.”

“I didna say there was,” said Miss Insches; “is onybody we ken to be

there, Robert?”

Robert smiled again. His sister had come to understand the particular

meaning of this smile.

“I fancy Miss Maxwell of Mossgray will be there,” he said with a blush

as he returned to his sermon.

Miss Insches applied herself to her shirt with another little suppressed

sigh. She understood very well what was meant by Miss Maxwell of

Mossgray; and Miss Insches by no means disliked Helen; but the great

question whether she would be sufficiently careful of Robert when

advanced to the dignity of Robert’s wife was hard and difficult to

solve. Miss Insches shook her head as she went on with her work. On

Monday--the crisis might come on Monday.

Monday when it came was bright with the sunshine, and fragrant with all

the sweet sounds and odours of May. On the preceding day had been the

half-yearly Occasion, the Communion Sabbath of Kirkmay, and the Monday’s

services were of thanksgiving, according to the reverent usage of

Scotland. Mr Wright of Fairholm was the officiating minister, and

preached a chaotic ponderous sermon, which, according to the judgment of

the Kirkmay elders, had “guid bits in it; very guid bits; but was

naething like the minister’s.” The minister was very much beloved in his

parish; they rather prided themselves, these simple people, on their

possession of a man who wrote books, even though the books were but

sixpenny ones; and read his small biographies with proud regard. The one

gentle weakness of his fine character came out as an excellence in their

eyes, and there were few in Kirkmay who did not boast of “the minister.”

After dinner, while the gentlemen were still down-stairs, Mrs Whyte,

with her lady guests, pleasantly occupied the comfortable plain

drawing-room, which, though it was by no means so fine, did yet, Miss

Insches could not fail to perceive, look a very much more habitable

place than the corresponding room in the Manse of Fendie. Mr Whyte

dabbled a little in all the gentler sciences--the flowers which his wife

cultivated, because she cultivated everything beautiful which was within

her reach, the good minister classified, and talked of with gentle

erudition; and specimens of fine seaweed, and delicate mosses, and

fossils not very rare, and shells picked up on the margin of the Firth,

evinced his universal liking, and his only rudimentary knowledge of the

kindred philosophies of nature. He was not very learned in these various

departments; he only marvelled over the wondrous mechanism of everything

which came from his Master’s hand, and cherished them all tenderly for

their Maker’s sake.

The ladies--Mrs Gray, Lilias, and Helen were the only _lay_ persons

present--were very comfortably gathered into groups in the drawing-room

discussing the notable things of their own district: the church, their

several families. The small company was by no means dull, especially as

Mrs Whyte’s children, the little boy and girl about whom their frank

mother had said there could not be two opinions, were, with all their

might, entertaining the guests.

The room was rather an oddly shaped room; it had a curiously angled

corner, with a window in it, which Mrs Whyte chose as her summer seat,

and playfully called her boudoir. The work-table which stood in it was

scarcely clear of its ordinary lumber even now; there were traces that

the minister’s wife had been sitting there this morning, singing over

her household work the low-voiced songs of a pure mind, happily at ease.

Lilias Maxwell had strayed alone into Mrs Whyte’s chair by the window.

She was very pale, and as she looked out upon the verdant country, and

the Firth and the hills far away, her fingers came slowly towards each

other, and were painfully clasped as was their wont. It was drawing near

again--that day which might change the current of her life.

As she sat there, Helen Buchanan approached quietly; the pale, sad,

absorbed face touched her to the heart.

“You are very sad, Lilias,” said Helen, as she stood screening her

friend from the other occupants of the room, “but you will not tell me

why; will you let me say anything--do anything for you?”

“Yes, Helen.” Lilias rested her head silently upon her companion’s

shoulder, and closed her eyes. It was a relief to her; her heart was

sick--she could not speak of it, but here in silent confidence she could

lean for a moment the weight of her trouble. “I have heard nothing; I

have had no word this long, long, weary time--and the day is coming near

again. To-morrow--after to-morrow will be the day.”

There was nothing more said, for the sickness rose up blank over the

heart of Lilias, and the tears were in Helen’s eyes; but the drooping

head of the Lily of Mossgray, overcharged with heavy rain, leaned on the

friend’s breast, and was comforted. She remembered the moment long

after, and so did Helen. More than many words--more than much bewailing

together of a sorrow more openly confessed, did that silent confidence

bind them together.

The conversation going on in the room was not in the least abstract;

local and individual were all the subjects under discussion, and the

talk about them might have been called gossip. It certainly was of the

genus if not of the species to which that unpopular name is given. In a

“countryside,” and above all in a little town, metropolis of a

country-side, where each family has a certain connection with all,

conversation, unless galvanically kept up in the region of books, must

glide into this channel; and the clerical character which this little

company of ladies possessed, as strongly marked as their husbands below,

increased the necessity. Having satisfactorily dismissed the children of

the respective Manses, and ascertained who had had hooping cough, and

which it was who had come so easily through the measles, the respective

parish over which she presided was the next grand object before the mind

of the clerical lady. Its successes, its adversities, its sins, its

great people and its small; and each parish lady was interested in her

neighbour’s dominions.

Now it happened that this chapter of backslidings was a peculiarly sad

and melancholy one; revealing under the healthful rural air and sweet

fresh sunshine, a moral atmosphere, dense, unwholesome, and heavy. While

one listened to what those lamenting people said, one’s arcadian visions

of rural purity sorrowfully vanished. Follies of youth, the world said;

alas! not follies, but sins, dark, far-spreading, unregarded; and public

opinion had even ceased in the peasant class to brand them with the

unutterable disgrace which is their fate in others. Young, fresh girls

heard of those vices--heard them lightly spoken of by older lips grown

callous--and saw the sinner scarcely disgraced at all; it was a great

evil, shadowing the souls of many as with a low, spreading, deadly tree,

between them and the sun.

“Could nothing be done,” whispered Helen in Mrs Whyte’s ear, as,

trembling with bitter shame and pain, she had listened to some story of

the fallen, “you who have influence; who may dare interfere in such

matters; could the air not be purified in some way--could nothing be

done?”

“My dear,” said Mrs Gray, “it is nothing but our evil nature; we cannot

mend it; what can we do?”

“We cannot mend it,” said Helen in her low, vehement voice; “but we can

strive, endeavour, fight--do anything, anything to change such a state

of things. It is our work in the world; the other things are only by the

way; this is our work--what we were born for. To pull away all

obstructions, to let in, everywhere, the light of heaven. If we once did

that, this evil could not be--surely it could not be.”

“I think so, Helen,” said the kind Mrs Whyte; “we, in our position,

might do much more than we are doing; but at least, we all lament these

evils bitterly--you believe that?”

Helen did not answer; she wanted that experience of the maturer mind

which could discriminate between an exceptional and an ordinary case,

and refrain from sweeping judgments. The shock of pain with which she

heard of evil was always with her, a spur to endeavour something against

it; but while others lacked will, she lacked power. She could not cast

herself into the crusading ranks and assail the powers of darkness as

she thirsted to do; but the impulse of warfare was strong upon her--she

could not rest.

“Ah, my dear,” said Mrs Gray, “you do not know yet as you will know the

misery of this wicked world, and how vain it is striving with it; every

day I live I see it more and more.”

“Yet it is to be pure,” said Helen, with her head erect and her eye

kindling, “it is to be filled with the knowledge of Him--it is to be

made fit for His reign. I do not know--no one living may see that

day--but I think sometimes that if we believed that, we could have no

doubt, no fear. We should look to the great hope which lies upon the

world like sunshine, and not to the misery which it earns every day. It

is to be pure--God is pledged to us that it shall be so; but our arms

rust, and we use them not--our days pass and we do nothing; yet we are

to labour for it--it is so ordained--and it is to be pure!”

Helen’s eyes suddenly fell, her head drooped. The gentlemen, some of

them, had already strayed upstairs, and close beside her stood the

Reverend Robert listening with ostentatious attention.

“Yes,” said the somewhat rough voice of Mr Wright of Fairholm; “a

minister’s life is a very hard life, Miss Buchanan; we have to labour as

you say; the very Sabbath, which is a resting day to everybody else, is

a hard-working day to a minister.”

Helen turned rapidly away; it was a strange anticlimax.

“Miss Buchanan did not mean that,” said Mrs Whyte. “Miss Buchanan likes

the good, wholesome work. She thinks we do too little, instead of too

much, Mr Wright.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said the cumbrous, heavy man, “there is a great

deal of truth in that. The people ought to know their own duty, and not

leave the work entirely to us as they do; and the elders really need

stirring up; but a minister--few people know how much is laid on the

shoulders of a minister.”

“And you, Mr Insches?” asked Mrs Whyte, smiling, as her quick eye

glanced over the great, stooping, uncouth figure of the strong man

beside her in whom was no impulse to work, and who actually felt fatigue

more easily than would the nervous delicate girl.

Mr Insches hesitated; it was not his policy to differ with Helen; but he

had not received the inspiration much more than his sluggish brother. He

was still, to a considerable extent, a matter-of-course man, doing what

he must do, and not very much more.

“The ministerial life,” said the Reverend Robert, with some dignity, “is

a life of great exertion. We are never perfect of course, but it is a

most laborious life, the life of a conscientious minister.”

It was a compromise--it pleased nobody. Helen turned away, unconsciously

disappointed. She had expected something better.

“’Deed, Robert,” said Miss Insches, “I’m aye feared the ither way about

you. It’s my terror, Mrs Whyte, that he’ll just wear himsel out, and I’m

sure if he was to get a wife and I kent beforehand wha she was to be, I

would warn her no to put such nonsense notions into his head; for ye

see, Miss Buchanan--Eh! Robert, is there onything ails ye?--are ye no

weel?”

But Robert was not “no weel”--he was only frowning upon his too-honest

sister, and making an elaborate face. It was too late; all the eyes in

the room were turned to the blushing, angry countenance of the Reverend

Robert, and he heard tittering in the corners. He turned away full of

wrath--it would not do; there was no putting the restraints of delicacy

or prudence over the simplicity of Janet.

CHAPTER VI.

“You are altogether governed by humours.”--KING HENRY IV.

The crisis did come, though not as Miss Insches anticipated. Helen

carefully guarded herself, as they returned home, from the society of

the Reverend Robert, and managed that the opportunity he sought should

not be afforded to him. She was thoughtful and grave that night, Mrs

Buchanan perceived; for the shadow of a selfish pride had darkened for

the time the firmament of Helen. The banker showed no sign of courtesy

or kindness; the banker’s wife, on the rare occasions when she met her,

never mentioned William’s name. William himself, busy in the distant

city, seemed to have given up the contest; to have forgotten the romance

of his youth; to have left Helen as he had left Fendie, because she was

too humble and too quiet. She did not care--she would not care! she

protested to herself, with a proud flush on her cheek, and proud tears

in her eyes, that it was nothing to her; but involuntarily an evil,

angry feeling had sprung up in her mind--she could avenge herself!

A week ago she had felt painfully that it was just possible that even

she might be inconstant--that the Reverend Robert might some time glide

into William’s place. She felt now that this was impossible; that her

own rapid pace could never harmonize with that slightly ostentatious

dignity of the Reverend Robert’s; that her impetuous mind must be chafed

and irritated beyond measure, if it ever were yoke-fellow with his; yet

the very discovery goaded her to go blindly on. In the bitterness of her

pride she thought she could not reject the only man who thought her good

enough to be his equal; and when she remembered how long a time it took

before even he ceased to be ashamed of his incipient tenderness for the

poor schoolmistress, the bitterness increased until it flooded her very

heart. There was a gloom upon the world; the evil and misery over which

she had spread the golden tissue of young hope began to appear darkly

exaggerated to the opposite extreme. Those whom she would have

remembered for ever, forgot her, and those who made her their choice,

were ashamed of the power which compelled them so to do. Her deep

melancholy fell upon Helen, as it had never fallen before; the coming of

a new day did not dispel it. It was such a sorrow as she could not tell,

and so she bore it proudly, bitterly, and in silence.

At the mid-day interval the watchful Mrs Buchanan prevailed on her

daughter to go out, to do some simple errands in the town. She generally

managed all these matters herself; but the good mother was a skilled

physician, and knew how something, trivial enough in itself, might clear

the atmosphere in a moment and bring out the sunshine. Mrs Buchanan too

was anxious and uneasy: when it seemed now sure that the Reverend Robert

must succeed, she thought remorsefully of William, the son of her own

training, to whom her house had been so long a second home. She

remembered the confidence that there had been between them, and how old

ties would have been made stronger and tenderer, had it been he who was

the new son; and then she began to feel that Mr Insches, with all his

good qualities, was a stranger; that he would introduce a new intruding

element--that her sole child would be no more her own.

So the mother sent Helen forth with quiet sighs, and Helen went about

her errand sadly, the gloom in her heart obscuring the gentle skies of

May.