She walked slowly as her manner was in her times of depression, taking

in the common sights and sounds around her into the mist in her own

heart, where they remained to bring back in other moods remembrances of

that dark hour. She had executed all her mother’s commissions, and

concluded her business by a visit to Maxwell Dickson’s low dark shop, on

her way home. She got such literature as he had from the librarian of

Fendie, and it served now and then to enliven the long solitary

evenings--the evenings which were not sufficiently solitary now.

On Maxwell Dickson’s counter lay an unbound book, very clean and very

new. Helen took it up as she put the volumes which she brought with her

into the librarian’s dingy hands. It was still damp from the press; no

one had opened it before. The subject attracted her; it was one of the

publications of the New Crusade.

The social science--how to make men better, nobler, purer: how to attack

in their own camp the declared evils of our land and time--was the

subject of this book; the science of that great discontent which has

seized upon so many able minds, happily, now--the science of aggression

against all vileness, all pollution. This was the subject of the book,

and the name of it kindled a little the dim light in the eyes of Helen.

She turned it over rapidly to glean what she could of its contents.

Maxwell Dickson in vain tries to make his young customer hear what he is

saying to her. A sudden flush has covered her face--a sudden thrill

springs up through the bounding pulses which were so languid a moment

before; the slight nervous start--the head lifted so swiftly--the motion

of the eager fingers which hold these pages open. From some unseen hand

the electric touch is given: what is the cause? Helen is reading in the

new book.

“The writer remembers well the arguments urged upon him once with the

enthusiastic faith of youth, by one who desired a new order of chivalry

vowed and dedicated to the service of God and the poor. ‘It is not

well--surely it is not well to withdraw from the evils which are in us

and around us. I say we are bound to do battle with them--not to stand

on our defence alone, but to carry the war into the camp of the enemies.

I think sometimes that the state of war must be the only good state for

those who have sin natural to them as we have, and that if these words,

resist and struggle, were withdrawn from our language we would be no

longer human; for when we let our arms fall, our hearts fall, and

weariness comes upon us, and distrust and gloom; and out of the living

world we come into the narrow chamber of ourselves, and the sun sets

upon us--’ It is the philosophy of a young heart; of one who has not yet

travelled far from the East, and whom the vision splendid still attends

upon the way; but because it is youthful and has the breath of

enthusiasm in it, it is no less true.”

Maxwell Dixon is impatient; he pulls Miss Buchanan’s sleeve, and with

that thrill of nervous strength upon her she is compelled to withdraw

those new damp pages from their office of shading her flushed cheek and

moving features; but Helen is not angry; she lifts her eyes, which

dazzle him with their unusual brightness, to the honest man’s stolid

face. He does not know what to make of this variable visitor of his; he

thinks she looked very different when she entered the shop, but he

fancies it must just be one of the whims of “thae women.”

“I’m saying,” said Maxwell Dixon, “that the new books have come noo, for

this month, Miss Buchanan. This is the twalt--I got Blackwood and the

rest o’ them the day--and the minister’s got Blackwood; but ye may hae

your pick o’ the rest.”

The rest were not very tempting; edifying serials, cheap travesties of

the Copperfields and Pendennises of the time; the adventures of London

“gents,” who had not any compensating good quality to make amends for

the miserable life which they recorded; vile books with which, because

they are cheap, the libraries of country towns infest the minds of the

young, and impress the “gent” character upon the young men who patronise

them. Helen did not look at the books. It was a clumsy feint of the

pawkie Maxwell; he thought she would forgive him the breach of his

promise to keep the one especial Blackwood for her, when she heard it

was given to the minister.

But Helen had no thought of Blackwood, nor even of the minister; he had

left her mind as the cloud left it. In her happy tremor she forgot the

Reverend Robert. She thought only of this in her hand, this messenger of

the true heart which she had so vainly doubted.

“Ay,” said the librarian, “that’s a new thing; a gentleman brocht it in

here, that’s come frae Edinburgh this morning. I dinna ken what it’s

aboot mysel’, but he said it was grand, and something aboot a Fendie man

that wrote it. I didna tak particular notice, but--Maggie, didna yon

gentleman say that it was a Fendie man that made the new book on the

counter?”

“Ay, faither,” said the more polite Maggie, Maxwell’s buxom daughter.

“He said it was a Fendie young gentleman; but he wadna tell us wha.”

“And you do not know?” said Helen, with her wavering blush and smile.

“Na,” said the stolid Maxwell, “except it be, maybe, Dr Elliot’s son,

that’s at the college learning to be a doctor, or Maister Nicol Shaw,

the writer, or the minister, or--I’m sure I dinna ken. It’s no in the

library, Miss Buchanan, and it’s no my ain either, or ye micht get a

reading o’t, if ye wad promise no’ to cut up the leaves, and to keep it

out o’ the gate o’ the bairns; but it’s no’ my ain. I durstna even

sell’t if I had a customer.”

And Helen durst not buy it, even if it had been Maxwell’s own; but she

stood and looked at it with longing eyes. She remembered her own words

so well; she remembered the winter night when William in his corner by

the fireside announced to her his going to Edinburgh, his entrance on

the man’s work, of which so often in her eager, ambitious mind she had

dreamed; and he too remembered it. The romance of the old times will

never die. She had belted on his spurs and his sword in yonder quiet

evening, and now the lady’s colour was on the lance of the true knight!

And Helen returned along the main street, her heart within her singing

like a bird, and the heavens and the earth bright with a sunshine more

radiant than the smiles of May. He was a wise man, that grave resolute

William; if his blow were long of coming, it was a mighty blow when it

came, and cast down all defences. The hopes of the Reverend Robert

perished as incautious buds perish in a night’s frost. He was forgotten.

Mrs Buchanan in the little parlour heard the light, quick step without,

and knew by its pace that the gloom was gone; but she also was occupied

within, and somewhat puzzled, was turning over the damp, uncut pages of

a new book too.

“I do not know what this is, Helen,” said Mrs Buchanan, as her daughter

entered the room, “but I suppose William thought it would please you. It

came by the coach, my dear, and it is directed in William’s hand.”

Helen sat down by the table to look at that especial passage again. Her

heart was full; she wanted to say something, but could not say it, her

shyness veiling the new joy, as well as the emotions of so frank a face

could be veiled; but that was not saying much. At last she rose and laid

the book before her mother, and stood half behind her leaning upon her

shoulder.

“Mother, William would be right if he thought this would please me

almost better than anything else in the world--it is William’s own.”

Mrs Buchanan took her daughter’s hands and looked into her face. The

head drooped, the eyes were cast down. Helen could not meet the

scrutinizing glance; but they understood each other, and in the misty,

tremulous period which followed, the heart of the good mother lightened

too. She dismissed the Reverend Robert with a gentle sigh, and she

received again the old friend, the son William, feeling sure now that

there could be no competitor for the place he had held so long.

When her scholars were finally dismissed that day--and Mrs Buchanan

heard Helen’s voice singing snatches of old songs before the last little

one had made her farewell curtsey at the school-room door--Helen took

her book in her hand and went away over the bridge and through the long,

waving grass to the Waterside. She chose one little dell, her favourite

spot, where the trees, closely circling it round, left one green,

swelling bank, upon the brink of the water, on which the sunshine fell

through a network of boughs and leaves. On the opposite side of the

river, within sight of her resting-place, burns were running down like

so many choristers into the broad stream, and in the middle of the

strong brown current eddies played fantastically, and by the bank

branches of long willows swept the tide, and the dark alder and the

delicate ash leaned over, glassing their foliage in its waves. And there

the young dreamer sat absorbed, lingering over the kindred thoughts

which kept pace so truly to the music of her own, and starting now and

then as the rapid fancies poured upon her like a flood, and she shaped

the future in that fairy loom--a future not such as common dreamers

choose. Noble labour, keeping time to the great universal harmonies

which God has planted in his world--work such as befits His followers,

who for men became a man.

She seemed to hear the grand and noble chimes with which all nature

accompanies the work of those who seek to speed the coming of His

kingdom. The light of common day was radiant to her with the sunshine of

promise; it should yet shine upon a purer world, a country ransomed by

its King; and she forgot the pain, and difficulty, and miseries that

intervened for joy of the certain end.

But amid the dreamings of Helen, there came the interrupting sound of a

hurried, bounding footstep, and almost before she could look up to see

who the intruder was, Hope Oswald plunged down upon her, out of breath.

Hope had arrived in Fendie only that morning, and had been seeking Helen

at home. She was overjoyed to find her here.

“I saw you reading a book,” exclaimed Hope, when the first greeting was

over. “I am quite sure you were reading a book--Helen, may I not see it?

Why did you put it away?”

“It is a grave book, Hope, not such as you would like,” said Helen,

looking as she felt, embarrassed and conscious.

“But I like grave books--sometimes,” said Hope. “I am fifteen--I am not

a girl now, Helen; but do you mind what Tibbie said, last Hallowe’en?

You were to get your fortune out of a book. Oh, Helen, will you tell me?

Have you ever got your fortune yet?”

Helen fairly turned her burning cheek away, with a nervous start. So it

was fulfilled, the simple prophecy of Tibbie; the hour and the book had

come, and this was “the fortune” of Helen. She did not make any answer.

She held her precious volume under her shawl and looked over the wan

water, away into the vacant air, with her changeful smile.

“I think I know,” said the sagacious Hope.

“What do you know, Hope?” said Helen.

But Hope was perverse.

“Helen, Miss Swinton is coming, but only for a day, and little Mary Wood

is to stay all the vacation. Miss Swinton wants to see you, Helen, and

she said she would take you to Edinburgh; but I think you should not go,

Helen.”

“Why?”

Hope paused, and as she could think of no satisfactory answer, went on,

on another course.

“Helen, William is perhaps coming home--only for awhile; you don’t know

how much William has to do now; and, Helen, people say he is clever. Do

you think he is?”

There was some pleasant moisture subduing the unusual brightness of

Helen’s eyes. Her voice was lower than usual too, and the sensible Hope

observed keenly.

“No, Hope,” said Helen, with some tremor. “I think he is not clever. I

think--”

“I don’t care for that,” said Hope, bravely. “Are you going home, Helen?

Will you let me go too? It is only other people who call him clever, you

know, Helen; but he is _our_ William.”

CHAPTER VII.

“Werena my heart licht, I wad die.”--GRIZZEL BAILLIE.

At the same bright hour of noon as that on which Helen set out so sadly,

commissioned with her mother’s domestic errands, Lilias Maxwell sat in

the sunshine upon the mossy steps of the old sun-dial in the garden of

Mossgray. She had her work in her hand as usual, and was sewing

listlessly, with long intervals of idleness. It was an occupation very

ill-suited for her at that time, for there was nothing in it to deliver

her from the sway of her own thoughts; and so she pursued the quiet work

and the long trains of musing together, looking, as she always did, very

pale and very sad. To-morrow--to-morrow was the day.

The “soul of happy sound” surrounded her on every side, and she was

faintly conscious of it; the drowsy stir of summer life, the hum of

passing bees, the ripple of the water as it went on its way,

plaintively, beyond the willows, softened by the warm medium of that

sunny air through which they came, fell gently on her ear--perhaps they

soothed her unawares; but we feel the solemn weight of our humanity more

heavily when the heart of Nature throbs beside us in its spring joy,

conscious of an inner world, whose revolutions and vicissitudes are of

greater import to ourselves than all the happy changes of the earth.

But as the old man looked out from the projecting turret-window, it

pleased him to see where she was, and how she was employed--for Lilias

was singing, and the sunshine stealing through the trees rested on her

head. He could not catch the words, and scarcely the music of her song,

but the gentle human voice mingled with the familiar cadence of the

river, and the young head drooped in graceful meditation beneath the

joyous skies of noon. He thought the cloud was beginning to break and

disappear; he fancied that the youthful life was asserting its native

elasticity, and he turned in to his books with his benign smile.

But it was not so. She was singing indeed, but her voice was so low that

it scarcely ever rose above the murmuring tone of the accompanying

water; and she had chosen fit words to express the caprice of a sick

heart. It was the brave Grizzel Baillie’s pathetic ballad, “Werena my

heart licht, I wad dee”--most sad of all the utterances of endurance.

Lilias had never known before that sick and flickering lightness of the

strained heart.

Her hands fell listlessly upon her lap; her head drooped forward--so

pale it was and troubled--into the golden air; her mind was away,

wandering painfully through all the bitter hypotheses of care and

anxious sorrow, and the slow notes stole murmuring over her lip, the

unconscious plaint of her weariness. Who has not felt that

contradiction? who does not know the strength and life of pain, and how

it buoys up the feeble almost as hope does?--“Werena my heart licht, I

wad dee.”

As she sat thus, Halbert entered the grounds of Mossgray, and perceiving

Lilias, advanced to her with some hesitation. He seemed to be doubtful

whether he should speak to her or no, and gave a wavering glance up to

the turret-window of Mossgray’s study as he passed. But Mossgray was

seated in the dusk of the large apartment, with content upon his

face--content for both the children of his old age, and good hope that

the cloud of Lilias’ firmament was floating away. The young man went on

with a slow, reluctant step to the sun-dial: she had not noticed him,

and unseen he listened to the pathetic burden of her song.

“Werena my heart licht, I wad dee.” Halbert had never heard the words

before, and they struck him strangely.

Lilias started as she heard his step; she had fallen into strange habits

of late--customs not common to the calm and thoughtful composure of her

nature. Such fancies as the poet’s Margaret had, as she sat by her

solitary door, while her eyes

“Were busy in the distance, shaping things

That made her heart beat quick.”

It startled her very much, this sudden footstep. She turned her head

with a sharp, quick flush of pain, and then it drooped again so

languidly.

“Is it you, Halbert?”

“Lilias,” said Halbert, with a difficult attempt at cheerfulness, “it is

very rare to hear you sing, and that strange song. Where does it come

from?”

“Do you think it strange?” said Lilias. “I think it is not strange, but

only very sad and true. Grizzel Baillie must have had a sick heart

sometimes, and it sang to her so.”

But the stalwart, healthful Halbert had never been sick at heart.

“I do not understand it very well,” he said, frankly; “but where did you

get it, Lilias?”

“My mother had a maid called Barbara,” said Lilias, with her faint

smile, “and, like Desdemona’s, she carried this old, plaintive music

about with her. She did not die singing it; but I think, in her homely

fashion, she knew its meaning well. I had it from her. But, Halbert, you

are not well--something has troubled you!”

“No, Lilias.” He was looking very pitifully at the pale, calm face now

raised to his.

“What is it then? There is no evil news from the North?”

“No, Lilias,” repeated Halbert, “nothing has happened to distress me;

but--I wish you would tell me why you are so pale. Have you any friend

ill? are you afraid of--”

Lilias had risen from her low seat in eager haste; her fingers were

clasped together; the feverish hectic of anxiety was burning on her

cheek.

“What is it?--tell me.”

“I do not know,” faltered Halbert, looking at her humbly, as if he had

done wrong; “perhaps it is nothing--but I got a letter for you in

Fendie, Lilias.”

She could not speak; her lips were dry and would not come together; but

she held out her hand with a gesture of angry, commanding impatience,

such as never mortal saw before in Lilias Maxwell.

And he placed the letter in the trembling outstretched hand--the

ominous, mournful letter, with its border and seal of mourning. He saw

her eye fall on the strange handwriting of the address; he heard the low

groan with which the heart breaks; and then she turned away.

She turned away, groping in the noon sunshine like one blind; and

Halbert stood in reverent pity, watching the tottering, rapid steps

which went sheer forward to the door of the house, leaving footprints

among the flowers, and breaking down the snowy, drooping head of one of

the cherished lilies of Mossgray. Like it, Lilias was crushed to the

ground. The honest heart of Halbert melted as he sat down on the steps

of the sun-dial. Man as he was, he could have wept for her; the shadow

of sympathetic grief came over him, and Halbert sat still and mused

while the shadows lengthened on the dial at his head, thinking as he had

never thought before.

“What has become of Lilias, Halbert?” said Mossgray.

The young man started; his own face was very grave and melancholy, but

the smile of good pleasure with which he had looked upon Lilias from his

turret-window was still upon the lip of Adam Graeme.

“Lilias has gone in,” said Halbert, hurriedly--“Lilias is ill--I mean

something has happened, Mossgray.”

“What has happened, Halbert?” Mossgray was still smiling.

“I cannot tell--she has lost some friend. I brought a letter, an Indian

letter to her, from the town:--the seal was black--it seemed to carry

news of a death.”

The face of Mossgray changed.

“My poor child!--my poor Lilias! Halbert, I trust, I hope you are wrong;

but if you are not--”

The old man covered his face with his hand as he turned away. He

remembered what it was to be made desolate.

The long, bright hours stole on, but no one in Mossgray saw the broken

lily. An unexpressed understanding of some calamity fell upon the

household; the blinds were drawn down in the family rooms--the voices

were hushed even in the kitchen, and when any went up or down stairs,

they went in silence, as if death, and the reverence that belongs to

death, were in the house. But the door of Lilias’ room was not opened,

and though the old man himself lingered near it ready to catch any

sound, he would permit no intrusion on her; for now there could be no

hope that Halbert was wrong, and the grief of his youthful days came

back to the heart of Adam Graeme, as he thought of those young hopes

setting, like the sun, in the dark sea of death.

It was twilight, and he had returned to his study--soft, downy masses of

clouds just touched with the lingering colours of the sunset were piled

up like mountains of some dreamy fairyland on that wonderful placid sea

of heaven, and long strips of coast and floating tinted islands

stretched along the whole breadth of the sky. He sat, sadly, looking at

them, and thinking of the holy, calm land beyond, where the sun of hope

and promise sets never more, when his watchful ear caught the sound of a

slow step ascending the stair. He looked towards the door with painful

interest. It was Lilias. She had laid aside the light summer dress which

she had worn in the morning, and the old man started as he looked upon

the shadowy, drooping figure in its heavy, black garments, and the

perfectly pale face on which no shade of colour remained. He rose to

meet her; but Lilias seemed comparatively calm.

“I have brought it to you, Mossgray.”

She spoke very slowly as if deliberate pain were necessary to produce

each single word. She had brought _it_--the messenger of death.

And laying it on the table before him, Lilias sat down on Charlie’s

chair, and leaning her heavy head upon her hand, lifted her eyes to the

old man’s face as he read the letter.

Such a letter he had once received--but this was written by a friend of

the dead, and written with tears as it had been read, though the tears

were very different. The writer said his dear friend Grant, travelling

for his health to some place among the mountains where health was to be

found, had joined a British Company, a few officers and a small band of

men, on the way; that one of the revolted Affghan tribes had encountered

them, and after a desperate and unavailing struggle, the small, brave

force had been utterly cut to pieces, and it was impossible even to

recover the bodies of the slain. Mossgray shuddered as he came to this

conclusion of the kind, well-meaning letter, and felt what torture it

must have inflicted; yet it was gently done, and in few words, as is

the kindest, when such tidings are to be told.

She was looking at him; with the deep, blue, wakeful eyes which cast wan

light like the moon over her colourless face, she was reading his

countenance.

“My poor Lilias!” said the kind Mossgray--he could say nothing more.

And then, in her slow, painful way, she began to speak. It was so great

a grief to hear every distinct convulsive word as she uttered it, that

the old man could hardly gather their import while he listened. She did

not look at him now; her eyes were wandering through the vacant room,

opened widely, as though she dared not cast down their lids, and the

slow tide of her speech--those single words which came from her lips,

like so many life-drops from a heart, pained to the utmost the gentle

soul of Adam Graeme. She wanted to tell him that now she was alone--that

she had only one wish now, separate from Mossgray, and that was to see

his mother.

“My poor child,” said the old man, as Lilias came to this point, and

laboured with her convulsed utterance to articulate the words: “We will

speak of this another time when we _can_ speak of it; but now you must

rest.”

And when he spoke of rest she laid down her head upon her hands, and her

agony returned upon her.

“Lilias,” said the old man, “what if he had changed?--what if you had

learned that he was not what you believed him to be? Rather thank God

that bravely in honour and faith, he has been taken home; in the odour

and grace of youth, before evil days or stains came upon him. Lilias,

there are sorrows harder than yours--you shall find again him whom you

have lost. There are those who have lost, and shall find never more,

because they are parted not by this faithful and pure death, but by the

dark barriers of sin and change. Lilias, my good child!”

She did not hear him; the words fell on her ear indefinite as the sound

of the stream without, for words do not bring comfort to the desolate

heart of grief when the blow has fallen newly.

And then she went away again slowly and painfully to her own darkened

room. Halbert met her on the stair but she did not speak to him, and her

wan face, and deep mourning dress, awed the light-hearted Halbert into

reverential silence. He was not light-hearted then--he almost felt that

his own happiness was selfish in the presence of such grief.

And the old man paced heavily his large, low, study-room, thinking with

tender compassion of his ward, the orphan, and the widowed. It brought

back the days of his own pained and struggling youth, and he remembered

how gentle to him would have been this hand of death instead of the more

cruel stroke which laid his early dreams in the dust. He thought of Lucy

Murray and of her tears--tears which fell singly in their force and

bitterness like the words of Lilias; and he thanked God that rather thus

the stroke had fallen upon his child. She was now doubly his child--left

to him alone for care and succour--set apart from all the world.

But Lilias grew calm; there was no fever in the great stillness of this

grief--no antagonist powers of hope and uncertainty to sicken her with

its fretting painful life. She was fitted for her lot; and when she

entered again the little world in which they lived, there was a saintly

repose about her mourning, a hush of deep melancholy in her atmosphere,

which subdued and mellowed all who approached her. But there was no

elasticity left; the human hopes, the warm links which unite the living

to the world they dwell in, had all been snapt for Lilias. Except the

reverend duty of a child for the old man who mourned with her for the

dead, she had no other bond to the world.

And so it happened that she came to stand, as we sometimes see the

afflicted, alone upon the solitary isthmus between the earth and heaven.

The changing tide of human life seemed to have left her there--above the

reach of the benign and gentle hand of change--above the happy

impatiences--the impulse and varying motive of the common lot; standing

alone among the stars, waiting till her summons came.

She was very gentle, very mild, very calm--but it was less sympathy than

reverence that attended her. The human life had ebbed away from her

lonely feet, and she grew feeble as she moved in her melancholy, shadowy

grace about that old house of Mossgray. They tended her in silent pity

as they might have tended a hermit spirit, and she repaid them as she

could with her resigned and patient mildness; but they thought of her as

one about to pass away, fated to another life than this of earth.

CHAPTER VIII.

I’m young and stout, my Marion,

Nane dances like me on the green,

And gin ye forsake me, Marion,

I’ll e’en gae draw up wi’ Jean.--SONG.

It was past midsummer. Halbert Graeme, younger of Mossgray, was already

a famous man in the country-side, and had not his gentle kinsman been

more gravely occupied through that long, slow summer, we are not sure

that the Laird would have been quite satisfied with the considerable

number of incipient flirtations which Halbert had on his hands. At

Firthside, at Mount Fendie, and all neighbouring places where youthful

people were, Halbert was immensely popular; and it was very true that

Miss Georgina Maxwell and he had been experimenting a little upon each

other; very true that Adelaide Fendie blushed her dull blush when her

mischievous sister plied her with railleries touching the gallant

Halbert. Adelaide was seventeen, and her large, soft, good-humoured face

was not uncomely; besides she had begun to read greedily Maxwell

Dickson’s select and edifying collection of novels, and seventeen is

quite the heroic age for young ladies of the Minerva Press. Adelaide

thought it was full time that she should begin a private romance of her

own.

And Halbert’s letters to the North were by no means so frequent as they

used to be. He was often very busy now, and really believed that he had

not time to write; besides that, there had been a very pretty quarrel

between him and the gentle Menie, provoked on her side by some saucy

allusions to the Lilias whom he praised so much, and on his by some

pique at a certain young Laird, who began to bulk very largely in the

Aberdeenshire glen.

It was the market day in Fendie, and Halbert now attended the markets,

where both buyers and sellers had learned to know the young Laird of

Mossgray. These groups of rustical people--strong, tall, red-whiskered

men, with their immense stooping shoulders, and primitive blue coats and

universal gray plaids, worn in this brilliant June weather to keep out

the heat, as in January they kept out the cold, whom you see stalking

about the Main Street, with long deliberate steps, lifting their feet

high, so that you fancy they must believe themselves still wading among

the heather, acknowledged his acquaintance by grasping the rusty brim of

the unbrushed hat as he passed them. More dignified, the lounging

farmers in their short coats of gray plaiden, gathered in knots about

the door of the inn where their stout ponies and comfortable gigs had

been put up, held erudite conversation with young Mossgray on the

markets, the weather, and the “craps.” He was perfectly at home among

them; had they been Ojibbeway Indians, the result would have been quite

the same. He was born to make friends anywhere, this brisk cosmopolitan

Halbert.

He had just been at the post-office, and was carrying home with him the

letters of the household. There was one for himself, directed in the

large, stiff handwriting of his old teacher: but Halbert was not so

anxious about Mr Monikie’s letter as he would once have been; he put it

coolly into his pocket till his market business should be over.

At last, having discussed all the momentous subjects of the day,

ascertained all the prices, and recognized all his acquaintances,

Halbert felt that his duty was done, and that he might return home. But

he had only opened the seal of Mr Monikie’s despatch, with its agreeable

odour of black rappee, and ascertained that it contained no enclosure

from Menie, when he heard the clatter of John Brown’s light cart on the

road behind him. Halbert closed the letter again; it was by no means of

pressing interest; at the moment he preferred a chat with John.

“Fine weather this,” said the young Laird.

“Ay, its weel eneuch,” said John Brown, examining the sky with the

curious eye of a connoisseur, “but ower drouthy, Sir--ower drouthy; and

ower muckle drouth is guid for neither beast or body, let alane the

craps. Yon muckle park at Shortrigg will be burnt brown afore the July

rain, and syne it’ll be as wat as a peat moss; ye’ll never be dune, Sir,

noo ye hae ta’en up the farming trade--ye’ll never be dune battling wi’

the weather.”

Halbert laughed.

“I am not so warlike, John. I shall be content with the rain when it

comes. Are they all well at the Mount--Mrs Fendie and the young ladies?”

“Middling, middling,” said John Brown; “we have our bits of touts noo

and then, but we’re no to compleen o’; and the noo, we’ve nae time to

think o’ being no weel, for Mr Alick’s coming hame.”

“Indeed!” said Halbert; the news interested him. “When does Mrs Fendie

expect him, John?”

“I hear about the harvest--August or September,” said the factotum of

Mount Fendie; “but we’re gaun to gar the haill countryside stand about,

so we’ve begoud in time. But ye’ll mind he’s no a free-spoken, pleasant

lad like yourself, Mr Graeme, begging your pardon for the freedom; he’s

ane o’ your fleeaway sodger officers, and there’s mair o’ the same kind

coming wi’ him.”

Halbert enjoyed his popularity; but at the same time he became still

more interested in Alick Fendie, who being less popular, promised to be

more aristocratic than himself.

“Has he been long in India, John?” asked Halbert.

“Na, no that lang. I mind him mysel frae he was a kittlin o’ a laddie

like that wee evil spirit o’ a brither o’ his. He’s been twa--three

years out bye yonder,” and John jerked his ponderous thumb in the

direction of the sea. “I wad just like to see him fechting--or the like

o’ him--fusionless, shilpit laddies. I’m no Wallace Wight myself, but if

I couldna tak twa o’ them in ilka hand!--and that minds me, Mr Graeme,

that my auntie Eesabell up at Murrayshaugh bothers folk even on about

your young lady. I’m no meaning the lady that is to be ye ken, but just

Miss Maxwell. Our auld auntie’s ta’en a notion that she kens some o’ the

auld family--the Murrays. Its a’ havers, ye ken, for Miss Lucy’s aulder,

if she’s leeving, than Eesabell hersel; but the young lady hasna been at

Murrayshaugh for lang, and the auld wife deaves a’body asking about her.

I tell’t her it was said in the town that Miss Maxwell was no weel.

She’s aye bee awfu’ delicate like; isna she no weel, Mr Graeme?”

“She has been very ill,” said Halbert; “but she is recovering now, I

hope. She lost a friend lately.”

John Brown paused respectfully, rendering the instinctive homage which

men pay to grief.

“I saw Robbie Caryl the day,” said John, after an interval; “Robbie was

in last week wi’ some grand salmon at Dumbraes market, and he saw a man

there that has a son a sodger, somegate near where Mr Alick is; and

there’s word--sure word, Robbie says--that Peter Delvie--ye wadna ken

Peter? was killed yonder wi’ a wheen mair, fechting wi’ thae wild

Indians--Affghans--what is’t they ca’ them? Onyway Peter’s dead; and

what the auld man, Saunders, will say till’t, noo, is mair than I ken.”

“He was harsh to him, I believe,” said Halbert.

“Ay, ye may say that; but I’m no sae sure he aye meant it; ye see he was

proud o’ the lad, and when he gaed an ill gate, Saunders nigh broke his

heart. Ye wad maist say he had na heart, yon hard auld man--but it’s ill

telling. Robbie was gaun to the minister to get him to break it to

Saunders. _I_ wadna do’t for a’ Fendie.”

The roads to Mossgray and the Mount separated at this point. Whistling

gaily, John Brown set off at considerable speed, to make up for the

gossiping slow pace with which he had begun; and Halbert leaped over the

stile, and again opened the letter of Mr Monikie.

It was a startling letter; the young man’s face flushed with the angry

colour of mortification and wounded pride, as he read it:

* * * * *

“I hear from Menie,” wrote the pragmatical man of Aberdeen, “that you

are not so good friends as you might be; and you know how often I have

warned you, Halbert, about the danger of an unstable temper; a weakness

to which I have always seen you were liable. It is a bad sign of a lad

like you--a great evil--to have an unsteady mind, and to meditate

breaking lightly the ties you have yourself made. Even as it regarded

only yourself, I would have thought it my duty to impress your infirmity

upon you, but far more when it endangers the comfort of a girl like my

Menie. It disappoints me, Halbert; I confess that, though I might know

better, after my long experience as a teacher of youth, I had expected

other things from you; but human nature, even with all advantages, and

when its judgment is matured like mine, is prone to vain expectations,

and you have disappointed me.

“I do not think I would be justified in trusting the happiness of a good

girl like Menie in hands that want the firmness which is needful in my

eyes to a manly character. I hoped you had more of it, Halbert; and

Menie herself, like a dutiful child as she has always been, agrees with

her father, and says she thinks you will be very glad to be free, and at

liberty to form new engagements. Also Menie sends a message that she

forgives you, and has given to me the half of the coin you broke with

her; a very foolish, superstitious, and heathenish ceremony, which I

should have certainly condemned had I known of it, or could I have

fancied that my daughter and my pupil would ever think of so foolish a

thing.

“Young John Keith of Blackdean is giving us much of his company, and

helps to keep up our spirits, otherwise we might have felt your

backsliding even more than we do. I have never seen the marks of

instability in him that I used to lament in you, though he has not had

the same advantages of education; indeed in every way I have reason to

be pleased with him, and so has Mrs Monikie and Menie. If Menie settles

near us it will be a great satisfaction, and I think it is not unlikely.

“I hope you will learn to correct these faults which I have pointed out

to you, and we will always be glad to see you here, in spite of what has

passed. I trust I can forgive an injury, especially when it has been

made an instrument of good; and if you hear of any changes in my family,

I hope you will be able to think of them without any great

disappointment, seeing that I always remain, with compassion upon the

errors of your youth,

“Your sincere friend,

“MATTHEW MONIKIE.”

* * * * *

Halbert was very red, very angry; he folded up the letter bitterly, and

felt indignant at treatment so unjust. His first flash of jealous

resolution was to start for Aberdeenshire immediately, and carry off the

faithless Menie from his supplanter the Laird of Blackdean. The merry,

pretty Menie! He had been getting rather indifferent, there was no

denying that; but now when he had lost her, tender recollections of his

first love returned to the honest heart of Halbert. Something swelled in

his breast of that sad disappointment with which youthful people see the

first tie of their own forming rudely snapt asunder. One or two tears

rose into his eyes; the petulant, fickle Menie was victor over him.

But Halbert was not long melancholy. He began to think of the

injustice--the insult.

“It is very well for herself; she has only taken the first word of

flyting; she was wise,” muttered the angry Halbert, as he turned on his

heel, and with a quick, impatient step went on to Mossgray; and so he

salved his wounded pride and consoled himself, not without a

pleasurable consciousness, increasing as he grew familiar with the idea,

that he was free.

Lucy Murray and Adam Graeme had borne the first epidemic grief of youth

on that Waterside before him. This last example perfected the story of

the others. The woman’s sad endurance--the man’s passionate pain--these

were not types broad enough for universal humanity. Only a few here and

there can feel as they did, but Halbert’s lighter emotions were of the

common stock; the momentary melancholy--the sting of mortification--the

buoyance of new life and freedom. Lightly the cloud passed over the head

of Halbert, a thing to be laughed at by and by; for he had no ideal to

be sacrificed. And so he completed the tale of youthful disappointments;

he brought them into the ordinary level, the common stream of life.

In the kitchen of Mossgray Robbie Caryl the fisherman stood in grave and

earnest conversation with the old housekeeper and her niece. Neither

cuddie nor creels were visible to-day, and Robbie himself wore his

Sabbath-day’s well-preserved suit, and his Sabbath-day’s look of

gravity.

“Eh, Robbie!” exclaimed Mrs Mense, “it’s a judgment--it’s just a visible

judgment and retribution on that hard auld man! As if we werena sinfu’

enough oursels to learn us mercy to our neighbours, let alane our ain

bairns, bane of our bane, and flesh of our flesh.”

“The minister says we maun hae sure word afore we tell Saunders,” said

Robbie; “as if the word we hae gotten wasna ower sure; but I say we’ve

nae richt to keep the news frae the faither and the mother. Thea hae

mair richt to ken than fremd folk. To be sure, I gied my word to the

minister that I wad tell naebody. I’m saying, Jen, mind; till ance the

minister maks his inquiries, ye’re no’ to say a word about it; though I

kenna but what it wad be richt to tell the auld man, whether it turned

out true or no, just to bring him to himsel’.”

“Eh, preserve me!” said Janet Mense, “they say he put his curse upon the

lad.”

“I wadna say onything was ower hard for Saunders Delvie,” said the

fisherman.

“Whisht! nane o’ ye ken,” said the old woman. “If he had been mair

moderate in his liking, he wad hae been mair moderate in his wrath. I

tell ye, nane o’ ye ken. Wha’s yon, Jen? is’t no’ Saunders, his ain

sel’?”

The fisherman glanced eagerly out, and then drew back.

“I pat on my Sabbath-day’s claes just for the purpose, but I canna face

him now. I’ll slip awa into the milk-house, Mrs Mense; and say naething

to him. It’s in the minister’s hands; we maun just leave it to the

minister.”

So saying, Robbie with some trepidation hastened away to conceal himself

in the dairy until the old man had passed.

The stern, harsh face of Saunders Delvie was lighted with a fire of

strange and wild excitement. Defiance and yearning, tears and frowns,

were strangely mingled in it. His voice shook, his gray eyelashes were

wet, and under his heavy, bushy eyebrows his eyes shot out glances of

fiery grief. His stern composure of manner was entirely broken. A burst

of weeping, or a paroxysm of fierce rage, might, either of them, have

brought to a climax the old man’s unusual agitation. With his heavy,

quick, unsteady step, he came into the kitchen of Mossgray. No one spoke

to him, for both of the women were afraid.

Mrs Mense was sitting in her chair by the fireside; he went up to her

hurriedly.

“Auld friend,” he said abruptly, with that harsh tremor in his voice,

more moving than many lamentations, “ken ye onything that concerns me or

mine? tell me plain out what it is, for this I wunna bear.”

“Oh, Saunders,” exclaimed the old woman, wiping the tears from her

withered cheek, “have pity upon the lad--the puir lad!”

“Is that a’? have ye nae mair to say but that?” said Saunders. Janet had

followed the example of the fisherman, and the two old servants of

Mossgray were alone. “Is that a’?” repeated Saunders, speaking rapidly,

as if, in the contradictory impulse of his anxiety, he wished to prevent

her from answering. “Ye’re sure that’s a’? Then I maun gang my ways--I

maun tak counsel; if it’s righteous it maunna be ower late; but I’ll no’

speak to the Laird. He’s no’ a man like me; he taks the reprobate and

the race o’ the reprobate into his bosom. Na, I winna speak to the

Laird.”

And lifting his head again with something of his usual rigid pride, the

old man went away, as hastily as he had entered.

The market was over in Fendie, and as the summer afternoon drowsily

waned, and the weekly stir subsided, Mr Oswald sat in his little private

office alone. The banker was an elder of the Church, and a man, as

Saunders thought, of kindred mind and temperament to his own. It was

from him that he came to seek counsel.

Mr Oswald looked up in some astonishment as the old man was ushered into

his _sanctum_.

“It’s a case of conscience, Sir,” said Saunders, in his harsh, tremulous

voice. “I was wanting to ask your counsel.”

Mr Oswald was a little startled. Cases of conscience were not quite in

his way, although he had the ordination of the eldership upon him.

“Had you not better speak to the minister, Saunders?” he said; “but sit

down, and tell me what troubles you.”

The banker’s heart was touched with the trembling vehemence of the old

man’s manner and appearance as he stood before him.

“Na, Sir, I canna speak to the minister,” said Saunders. “The minister’s

a young man, and doesna ken the afflictions of the like o’ me. He may

hae comfort for his ain kind, but the griefs o’ the gray head are aboon

the ken o’ lads like him. I canna speak to the minister.”

Mr Oswald had heard the rumour of Peter Delvie’s death, and pitied the

stern old father; again he asked him to sit down.

Saunders took the offered seat, and pressed his bonnet convulsively

between his hands.

“It’s touching the lawfulness of a vow--a vow before the Lord.”

Mr Oswald’s voice faltered a little; an indefinite thrill of conscience

moved him.

“What is it, Saunders?”

“I made a resolve,” said the old man, his features twitching, and his

strong, harsh voice shaking with the very force of his determination to

steady it, “to put forth ane--ane that had sinned--out from my house as

an alien and a reprobate. He had shamed the name that righteous puir men

had laboured to keep honest for him--he had sinned in the sight of God

and man; and before the Lord I pat him forth, and took a vow on me that

he should cross my doorstane never mair. Maister Oswald, ye’re an elder

of the Kirk, and a man of years, and ane that has had bairns born to

ye, and ken--am I no’ bound before the Lord to haud to my vow?”

Mr Oswald moved upon his chair uneasily. He could not answer.

“I have had converse with Mossgray,” continued Saunders, shrill tones of

excitement mingling with the usual slow, grave accents of his broken

voice, “but Mossgray is anither manner of man, and kensna--kensna the

like o’ me. He tells me that change is a guid gift of God, given for our

using like ither providences, and that what I have said wi’ my lips may

be broken, and me no mansworn--but I say, no--I ken nae law ither than

the auld law of Scripture, and I maun perform to the Lord my vow. Sir,

Mr Oswald, think ye not so?”

The old man’s shaggy eyelash was wet, but the fire shot forth behind.

Strongly the two contending powers within him struggled for the mastery.

He wanted his authority to second the dictates of the yearning nature,

which, moved by whispers of some unknown calamity to his son, contended

bitterly with the stern obstinacy of his temper and his sense of right;

yet he had entered upon the oft-repeated arguments, with which he had

been used to defend himself against the gentle attacks of Mossgray, and

was becoming heated in his own defence. If the banker had pronounced his

judgment against the breaking of this vow, it would have carried a

bitter pang to the old man’s heart, and yet would have been a triumph.

He sat, pressing his bonnet in his hard hands, and shaking like a

palsied man. He had put his fate on this chance. He had resolved to make

the judgment of the other pertinacious man to whom he appealed, his

final rule, and anxiously he waited for the decision.

But George Oswald moving there uneasily in his elbow chair was too much

perplexed and conscience-stricken to give a ready answer. The vehement

father-love of Saunders Delvie, which in its agony of disappointed hope

produced this vow, sublimed the old man’s sternness and lifted it out of

the class of ordinary emotions. It was not anger, or wounded pride, or

shame alone, but it was all these, intensified and burning with the

strong, bitter love which still worshipped in its secret heart the son

whom it had expelled from his home. The worldly man who had put the

barrier of his disapproval in the way of _his_ son’s happiness, for such

paltry motives as Saunders Delvie never knew, felt himself abashed in

presence of the old, stern peasant, whose appealing eye was upon him.

“Saunders,” said Mr Oswald, with a faltering voice, “we are bound at all

times to forgive.”

“It’s no that I dinna forgive him,” cried the old man in his passion.

“It’s no that I dinna think upon him night and day--it’s no that--oh

man! do ye no ken?”

And Saunders, forgetting all artificial respectfulness, put down his

gray head into his hard toil-worn hands and sobbed aloud--such strong

convulsive sobs as the awed banker had never heard before.

Hope Oswald had opened the door very quietly to look in, and the

instincts of childhood were scarcely yet subdued in the young heart of

the banker’s daughter. She came softly across the room to stand by

Saunders’ side, and touch his hand with awe and pity.

“Saunders,” whispered Hope, “maybe it is not true--the minister says it

is not true.”

The old man lifted his face; no face less stern could have been moved so

greatly.

“What is’t that’s no true?”

“Poor Peter!” said Hope, with tears upon her cheek, “do you mind how

good he aye was, Saunders? and his heart broke, people say, because you

were angry at him; but you are not angry now; and when he comes back you

will go out to meet him like the man in the Bible, and be friends? for,

Saunders, you are friends with Peter now?”

He could not wait for any judgment; he could not think of any vow. A

burst of weeping, such as might have hailed the prodigal’s return,

followed the simple speech of Hope. The living love within him burst

through its perverse and unseemly garments; and those peaceful walls,

unused to great emotion, had never heard such a cry as broke through

them now, from lips that trembled as the great king’s did of old, when

he too wept for his Absalom. “My son! my son!”

CHAPTER IX.

“I am a son of Mars, who have been in many wars.”--BURNS.

“Oh, Hope, Alick’s come,” exclaimed Adelaide Fendie one bright August

day, as she alighted from the nondescript gig driven by John Brown, and

went with her arm linked in her friend’s into the banker’s sober

dining-room. “Mamma is so glad--we’re all so glad--Alick’s come.”

“And, Hope,” added Victoria, “somebody else is come too. It’s the sword

and cocked hat that Tibbie saw at Hallowe’en. Oh, Hope, if you only saw

him!”

“Who is it, Adelaide?” asked Hope.

“It’s--Alick’s come,” said the slow Adelaide with her dull blush, “mamma

is so glad, Hope; and we’re to have a ball and parties--I don’t know how

many--and Mossgray and young Mr Graeme are coming to dine to-morrow, and

next week we are going to Mossgray--because Miss Maxwell will never go

out anywhere now you know, and Mr Graeme wants to have Alick and me,”

added Adelaide, with a dignified consciousness of having reached the

full years of young ladyhood. “I’m to go too.”

“Will Mossgray ask you, Hope?” inquired Victoria.

“Hope is too young,” said Adelaide, in her new dignity. “Doesn’t mamma

tell you, Victoria, not to talk about things you don’t understand? but

though you’re too young to go out to parties yet, Hope, you’re to come

up and see Alick: and there’s Alick’s friends too, you know.”

Hope was offended. She was full fifteen, and thought herself a very

mature womanly person, so she condescended to ask no further questions

about Alick’s friends, though Victoria’s malicious laugh, and the dull

consciousness of Adelaide, made Hope a little curious; but Hope’s mind

was occupied with things of very much more importance than cocked hats

or swords.

“Adelaide, does Alick know about Peter Delvie? oh, Mr Insches says

perhaps it is not true--and poor Saunders!--does Alick know anything,

Adelaide; does Alick think it is true?”

“Hope! do you think our Alick knows anything about Peter Delvie?”

“If he does not it is very bad of him,” said Hope boldly; “for Peter is

a Fendie man--they were both Fendie men away in yon great India; but did

you not ask him, Adelaide? did you not think of poor Saunders when Alick

came home?”

“I forgot, Hope,” said Adelaide, more humbly.

“Will you not forget to-day then? will _you_ mind, Victoria? and I will

come up to the Mount to-morrow to hear; for Saunders thinks he is dead;

oh, Adelaide, if he only were living to come back again!”

Hope had never been able to forget the agony of the old man; but her

visitors were by no means interested.

“Do you mind Alick, Hope?” said Adelaide, “mamma says he is so improved;

and he’s as brown as he can be with the sun; and then there is Captain

Hyde, Alick’s friend; he is an Englishman, and belongs to such an old

family. They came in with the Conqueror.”

“And they called them Van Dunder at first,” said the malicious Victoria,

“and then they were married to a Miss Hyde, a rich lady: and now their

full name is Dunder Hyde; but Alick says it should be Dunderhead,

because he’s so stupid.”

“Victoria, I’ll tell mamma,” said the offended Adelaide.

“But Van Dunder is not like a Norman name,” said Hope, who was more

erudite; “it’s like Dutch: are you sure they were Normans, Adelaide?”

“I don’t know anything about Normans,” said Adelaide, with dignity; “but

I know that Captain Hyde’s family came to England with King William; for

he told me that--”

“But that would be Dutch William,” said the historical Hope; “and does

he wear a sword and a cocked hat; and do you like him, Adelaide?”

Adelaide drew herself up.

“Hope! what are you thinking of!”

“What is the matter,” said the straight-forward Hope; “would it be wrong

if you liked him? I am sure I like Halbert Graeme very well, and perhaps

I will like Alick; but I like old Mossgray far better; and I wouldn’t be

afraid to say it.”

“Young ladies should not speak so,” said Adelaide, in her dull

solemnity.

Hope was very innocent:--she still thought of a young lady only as an

ordinary mortal, and not as a professional person--for Hope, schemer and

matchmaker as she was, had never been initiated into the system of

mutual silliness with which boys and girls, just before they become men

and women, surround each other; and although perfectly undefended from

the romantic, and prone to be overpowered by it, whenever her hour

should come, she had triple armour in her honest, artless temper,

against all the affectations of the young lady and young gentleman

period.

“Has Alick ever been in a battle?” inquired Hope with some awe.

“Oh, Hope, so many! Alick does not care about battles now,” said

Adelaide; “if you only heard Captain Hyde and him!”

“I wonder if he ever killed anybody,” said Hope, with a shudder. “I

wonder if he ever took away a man’s life--maybe somebody’s son,

Adelaide, like poor Peter Delvie--or like the gentleman--”

“What gentleman, Hope?”

“I mean somebody I heard of,” said Hope, prudently checking herself, as

she remembered that what she knew of the bereavement of Lilias was not

fit news for her gossiping companions; “but to take away a life,

Adelaide,--I think it must be very terrible.”

“I don’t know, Hope,” said the stolid Adelaide; “but Alick has been in

so many battles that he does not care for them now--and so has Captain

Hyde.”

“And will you mind, Adelaide,” said Hope, as she saw them again safely

deposited in the gig, under the care of John Brown, “will you be sure to

ask about Peter Delvie?--and I’ll come up to-morrow to hear.”

Adelaide promised, and they returned home; but the promise faded from

Adelaide’s memory before they were halfway to Mount Fendie; and when the

faithful Hope went up to the Mount next day to ascertain the result of

her friend’s inquiries, there was much to be said about Captain Hyde,

but nothing of the hapless Peter. The strangers were out. Hope did not

see them--and she had to go away, contenting herself with another

promise, which was in like manner broken.

Peter Delvie was an early friend of Hope’s. He had helped her over

burns, and comforted her when stung by the nettles and pricked by the

thorns of juvenile mischance--had pulled brambles for her from

inaccessible hedge-rows, and fished unattainable water-lilies to her

feet. Hope remembered all his gentle deeds, and liked the unfortunate

Peter. And Saunders, in rigid, hopeless misery, was condemning himself

as the murderer of his son; the old man’s stern grief moved the young

heart strangely. Hope would have endeavoured any exertion to bring

comfort to the harsh, agonized, despairing heart.

A second disconsolate journey Hope had made to Mount Fendie; but

Adelaide still forgot; and wearily, with something of the discontent and

melancholy which elder people feel, in sight of the indifference and

lack of sympathy displayed by the common herd, Hope was returning home.

She had entered the garden of Mossgray before she became aware that

there were visitors in it. Under shadow of a fine beech tree, Lilias, in

her mourning dress, sat on a garden seat. It was Saturday, and those

holidays were now very frequently spent by Helen Buchanan with her

pensive and delicate friend whose health needed all gentle care and

tendance. Helen was standing behind Lilias, looking shy and something

out of place, as she bent over the downcast Lily of Mossgray, and tried

to shield her from the remarks sometimes addressed to her by the young

men who stood with the Laird and Halbert at a little distance. The

strangers were Alick Fendie and the redoubtable Captain Hyde; Hope did

not know them--she came up, stealing under cover of the trees, to Lilias

and Helen.

Lilias had turned her head away, where no one could see the drooping,

melancholy face. They had been talking in her presence of those fatal

Indian wars--had been running over, with careless levity, those names,

made so bitterly memorable to her, of places where the dead had been.

She had turned aside, with her trembling arm resting against the silvery

beech; and Helen’s eyes were cast down too, and no one saw what clouds

were passing over the wan face of the Lily of Mossgray.

Hope did not think of that, as she advanced innocently to the mourner’s

side, and looked into her face; the tears were standing upon those

colourless cheeks in large drops--the pale lips were quivering.

“Hope!” said Helen, in reproof.

Lilias put her hand upon Hope’s, gently detaining her.

“Hope has been my shield before,” she said in her low, broken voice;

and Hope’s heart swelled with graver emotion than was wont to move it,

as the drooping Lily leaned for a moment upon her shoulder. She

remembered very well the other time--the bow window of Mrs Fendie’s

morning-room and the first meeting of Mossgray with his ward; but Lilias

was still paler, still more fragile now, and people said she would not

dwell long in this life.

The young heir of Mount Fendie, lieutenant in his regiment, but captain

at home, was the model of his sister Victoria--malicious with a kind of

pert cleverness, which passed muster for wit very well among the stupid

Fendies; but Captain Hyde, his butt and companion, was much too

complacent to be at all conscious of being quizzed. In himself a tall

fellow of his hands--in estate a considerable proprietor in one of the

rich English counties on the other side of the island--the arrows of

ridicule glanced innoxiously from off the glittering armour of

good-humoured self-importance which bucklered Captain Arthur Hyde.

“Poor Robertson,” said Alick Fendie, in his loud voice, as Hope began to

listen. “He was killed in that skirmish at ----; but, by the by, don’t

you remember hearing a rumour before we left India, Hyde, that all these

poor fellows were not killed after all?”

Captain Hyde gaped a “never heard it.”

“I am sure you did,” responded his brisk companion. “Why, man, don’t you

recollect? Somebody’s servant had turned up, and reported that himself

and his master were not dead--very near it--very badly wounded, but not

killed outright, and that the Affghan fellows were nursing a lot of

them--I think there was a lot; and the fellows who had taken them were

just about to turn their coat; they are always doing that, these

wretches of natives, and were taking care of them to curry favour with

us; yes, to be sure we heard it. It was a mere rumour, you know, but it

might be true. Anything may happen in India. Men get killed and then

turn up again in the most miraculous way--eh, Hyde?”

Lilias had risen and turned round blindly to Helen, as if seeking

support.

“Save me, Helen,” said the Lily of Mossgray, “save me from this hope.”

“And is that all? do you know nothing further about these unfortunate

young men?” said the anxious voice of Mossgray.

“Nothing at all,” answered Alick Fendie briskly. “It may not be worthy

of the least credit what we did hear. I only give it you as a rumour.”

“Lilias is ill; we will go in,” said Helen, supporting her friend on the

nervous, firm arm, which began to tremble in sympathetic sorrow. “Will

you come to us when you can, Mossgray? Lilias is ill.”

And Lilias was ill. After this long sinking in the deep waters of grief,

the fever of hope was too much for her. Large, cold drops stood upon her

white, shadowy forehead, her thin, wasted frame was shaken with sudden

pains, the mist of blindness was upon her eyes, and the slender arm

twined in Helen’s leaned so heavily--you could not have fancied there

was so much weight in the slight, drooping figure altogether as there

was in that one thin arm.

“And, Captain Alick,” said Hope, stepping forward bravely, “did you see

Peter Delvie in India? They have sent home word that he is dead; do you

think Peter is dead?”

“Why, I believe this is little Hope Oswald,” exclaimed Captain Alick,

shaking Hope’s hand energetically, and offering a salutation from which

Hope, immensely red and angry, withdrew in high disdain. “Why, Hope, you

are taller than Adelaide; and what a little thing you were when I went

away.”

“Will you tell me about Peter Delvie, Captain Fendie?” said Hope, with

some dignity.

“Who is Peter Delvie, Hope? I never saw him in India, I assure you. But

why do you never come to the Mount? I must come and see you myself one

of these days.”

Hope went away dissatisfied and sad. Nobody would care except for

themselves, nobody would attend to her inquiries, nobody would think of

the old man who had lost his only child.

Lilias was sitting on a low chair, bending her head down upon her knees,

as Mossgray looked in at the door of their usual sitting-room. Her face

was hidden in her hands; she did not see him.

Helen stood close beside her, holding one of those feverish, hot hands.

“Helen, it is very hard to bear,” said the broken Lily, “very terrible.

I thought I was patient, I thought I had learned to endure; but this

hope, this false, vain hope--I cannot bear it, Helen.”

Helen answered nothing; she only pressed gently the thin, trembling

fingers which lay in her own.

“And if it was true,” said Lilias, “they were many, very many; would you

have me hope that it was _him_--that _he_ was saved alone?”

And then the wan face was lifted, supplicating, begging to be

contradicted--instinct with its woeful entreaty that this hope which it

called false might be pronounced true.

“Will you not speak to me!” said poor Lilias. “Have you nothing to say

to me, Helen?”

“I cannot tell,” said the faltering voice of Helen. “I have heard of

very wonderful things; this may be one of them. What can I say, Lilias?

There have been such deliverances before--I cannot tell.”

Lilias rose up suddenly, and laid her arms upon Helen’s shoulders,

supporting herself there.

“He is the only son of his mother. She would pray for him night and day.

Helen, Helen, there are few so blessed. Would they not be heard in

heaven, those prayers?”

Poor Helen trembled as much in her strength as the other did in her

weakness; she dared not recommend this hope to the sick heart, which had

already grasped it so strongly.

“We must wait, Lilias,” she said. “It is very hard, very hard to do it,

I know, but it is in God’s hands, and we must wait.”

Lilias put up her hands to her head; she staggered as she withdrew from

her support. A sickly smile came upon her face.

“I ought to go to his mother, Helen. Will you come with me to seek his

mother? Mossgray is very good, very kind, but she has more need of me.

She has not written, because she would think, like me, that he was dead;

but it may be true. You have heard of very wonderful deliverances. You

said so, Helen; you thought it might be true.”

But Helen’s head drooped. She feared to encourage the expectation.

Lilias sat down upon her low chair again, and again bent her head upon

her knees; her feeble frame was distracted with bodily pains no less

than her mind was with mental.

“I think my head is dizzy, Helen,” she said, in her melancholy, broken

voice. “I think I am forgetting myself--for this is only vain and false,

a mockery of hope. I see it is. If the grief were yours, Helen, you

would see that this could not be true.”

Those strange artifices of misery! they brought tears to the eyes of the

looker-on, to whom this did indeed seem a mockery of hope.

“You must stay with her, Helen,” said Mossgray, when they had left

Lilias alone. “You must stay with her till I return. I cannot leave

Fendie to-night, but to-morrow evening I will. I will go to London, and

ascertain at once if there is any truth in this. Do not let Lilias know

where I am nor what is my errand. I leave her with you in all

confidence, Helen. You will be tender of my poor Lily.”

CHAPTER X.

I do not hope--ah, no!--mine eyes are clear,

I see it would be vain; perchance, perchance,

Some other heart doth hope and will be blessed;

But mine--why should this gladness come to mine?

I have been used with grief;

A sombre way has mine been, all my days,

And yet perchance--oh, Heaven, such things might be!

As that one giant joy should come to me,

Eclipsing common joys.--OLD PLAY.

“Helen,” said Lilias, “do you think I am very weak?”

They were sitting alone together on the morning of the third day after

Mossgray’s departure. It was early, and Helen was just preparing to

return to the daily labours which she could not intermit.

“I think you have had great trouble, Lilias, and you are not strong; but

why do you ask me?”

“Helen,” said the pale Lilias, “do you never think it is selfish to sink

under this blow as I have done? I think it has sometimes come into your

mind; _you_ would not have done it, Helen?”

“We are not alike,” said Helen, hurriedly. “I think I should have

rebelled, I should have repined. I should have been like the Leonore of

that ghastly ballad; but I have my daily work to battle with, and

little cares and little humiliations to teach me patience--yet I will

never be so patient as you are, Lilias.”

“It is because I am alone, Helen,” said Lilias, in her faint, pleading

tone of self-defence, “because there is no one in the world, not one, to

whom I am the best beloved. If I had been like you--if my mother had

lived--I think I should have been brave, Helen; but now I have only my

grief, nothing more, in all this cold world.”

“And Mossgray, Lilias,” said Helen.

“I am very ungrateful,” said Lilias, bending her head. “I wanted you to

think that I was not selfish, Helen; and yet to lose them all--to lose

them both in one year, it is very bitter, very hard; you cannot tell how

hard it is.”

She was very pale, though perfectly composed; but now as she paused, a

red light seemed to flash across her face for a moment, the flicker of

that unnatural, feverish hope which she fancied she had tried to quench,

but which, instead, was gathering strength every hour, and lighting up

her heart with an unnatural radiance.

“I wish you could work as I have to do, Lilias,” said Helen, as she drew

her homely shawl about her. “I think it would be good medicine if you

were strong enough. If we could only change, if you could fight a little

as it is natural for me, and I could be patient as you are; but we must

be content. I am going out now to my little battle-ground; there are

some struggles and bitternesses in it, you know; will you try to-day to

think how important you are to all of us--to us all here, Lilias, and to

let the sun come in upon you?”

“These long days!” said Lilias. “I am not patient, Helen. I think they

will never come to an end. Will you bring some of the children with you?

Hope Oswald--any of them. I like to see the children; and we will try

to-night to forget--to forget,” said Lilias, with the flickering red

light upon her face again, “not the sorrow, but the hope.”

The feverish hope which had so frail a foundation to build its airy

fabric on--what was it that wakened out of the gentle passive depths of

Lilias’s mind the feeling that her sinking calm of grief was wrong, and

that there was need to exert herself to cast it off? It was not reason,

it was not thought; it was a new hysteric strength, other than comes

from the deliberated wisdoms of man; a fluttering meteoric light,

springing up about her, dangerously exciting, desperate, wild. She said

she would forget it; she did not know that it was the fairy strength of

this hope inspiring her, which made it possible that she should forget.

And while Lilias began to move about the house in the new strength,

which, she fancied, arose from a resolve to exert herself and show her

gratitude to her friends, Helen went quickly down the Waterside to her

daily labour. Her quick, nervous, tell-tale motions seemed to have been

subdued in presence of the mourner, and her face looked paler and

quieter than was its wont. That varying temperament of hers had a

strange facility of catching the tone of the atmosphere in which she

was, and wearing it unconsciously as the sky wears the clouds. The happy

good-morrow twitterings--not songs--of the birds among the dewy

glistening leaves confused the stronger voice of the wan water, and

filled all the fresh morning air with inarticulate music--cheerful

sounds came through the intervening trees from Fendie. Children, yonder,

on the high-road began to flock out of the cottage doors to school.

Scarcely any heart could refuse to rise with the buoyant upspringing new

day; but along the green, soft path, and through this plain of long

waving grass by the side of the bridge, Helen Buchanan went quietly with

a dimness on her face.

She had cares and bitternesses enough, as she said. William Oswald was

still in Edinburgh; he had not been home even for a day; but the

Reverend Robert had learned with inexpressible surprise and considerable

pain that the young schoolmistress of Fendie did not choose to accept

the dignified position to which he had elected her. It was almost the

first rebuff he had met with since the triumphant beginning of his

career, and he was a mortal young man, though he was a minister, and

felt the mortification of being rejected to its fullest extent. So the

Reverend Robert concealed the disappointment of the true honest feelings

which did him honour under a veil of pique and pride. He could not

manage to be indifferent, yet in his manner, when he accidentally met

her, and in his attempt at indifference, was almost rude to Helen. Her

sensitive pride began to rise again in full tide; people had begun to

notice her for the sake of the minister, who now believing, as

thoughtless malice said, that the minister had changed his mind and

withdrawn in time, withdrew too, and marked the change: and Mrs

Buchanan’s little quiet house fell into its old loneliness once more.

And the old weariness came sometimes back, and forlorn bitter thoughts

swelled sometimes again about the changing heart. It was the penalty she

paid for her power to endure and to enjoy.

So she went to her usual labour, and worked at it as she had worked for

years; but other schools were rising in Fendie, where the little

daughters of the masons and joiners and seamen of the good town could

acquire a greater stock of accomplishments than Helen professed--where

the fancy-work flourished in a perfect luxuriance of patterns, and the

sober “whiteseam,” which was poor Helen’s staple, was thrust aside in

disgrace. Helen was so foolish as to have an opinion on this subject;

she had a good deal of wilfulness about her, it must be confessed; she

thought it an honourable craft for those small maidens of hers, the

manufacture of garments for their various homes; but was somewhat

impatient of the tawdry prettinesses after which their ambition yearned.

It did her a little harm this weakness of aesthetical feeling; she

thought of the natural fitness and propriety, and they gave her no

thanks; and so it chanced that Helen got few new scholars. She felt the

evils of competition; as her elder girls dropped off with their quota of

education completed, younger ones did not come in to fill up the

declining numbers, even when the young schoolmistress having discovered

her error began not very willingly to amend it. Mrs Buchanan was

beginning to look very sad and careworn; the steps of the coming wolf

were already at the door.

The half year’s rent would soon be due, and the mother and daughter, in

their anxious consultations, could by no means see where it was to come

from. And the banker Oswald was their landlord; the gentle widow and the

proud, sensitive Helen were at one in that point; there was nothing that

they would not rather do than delay their payment by a single day.

Mrs Buchanan’s little portion was very attenuated now; the expenses of

her husband’s illness and death had nearly swallowed it up, and the

remnant was in the form of bank shares; but the very meagre dividend

which this little capital yielded yearly was not above half what was

necessary for this dreaded rent. The good mother painfully hoarded the

little stock of school-fees; painfully expended what was absolutely

needed--and lay awake far into the night and started again before the

sun was up, calculating that sad arithmetic which could not issue in

anything but a failure--laboriously trying to bring together the two

ends which would not meet.

So Helen needed the natural spring and buoyant life of her temperament

as much as Lilias did the gentle human touch of hope: their sorrows were

apportioned to them by the same Hand which did so diversely create their

spirits. Lilias had been very patient, until this wild light of hope

broke in upon her still dead sorrow; and now Helen was bravely fighting

against the cold incoming tide of neglect and poverty; holding up a high

heart above the waves, and keeping as she could, unwetted by the chill

spray about her, the wings of her strong life.

The banker Oswald was looking on; he had managed to ascertain so much of

their need, and means, and mode of life as would have added bitterness

to their struggle had Mrs Buchanan or her daughter known of it; and with

singular interest and even some excitement, as he might have looked at a

strong swimmer contending with the stronger current, the obstinate man

looked on. To see these women battling so stoutly with a tide more

powerful than that under which Walter Buchanan had sunk in his mid-day;

to observe how Helen bore her fall from the temporary elevation which

the minister’s attentions had procured for her, and went upon her way

alone in her own unconscious dignity, so open to all kindnesses, still,

and with the frank, clear skies of youth constantly breaking through the

clouds of injured pride--no thought of coming to the rescue entered the

mind of the banker, but there were no two persons in Fendie, out of his

own household, whom he observed with half the interest which fascinated

him to these. He fancied William had altogether forgotten the poor

schoolmistress, and while he was entirely satisfied that such should be

the case, a certain shade of contempt for this, obtruded itself into the

pride with which he regarded the rising name of his son: but had William

suddenly presented himself to ask the banker’s consent, as he had done

before, the answer would still have been the same; he was still

determined, unchangeable, bound by the resolution which nothing should

break--never!

“I do not know what to say to Lilias, mother,” said Helen, as in the

afternoon she prepared to return to Mossgray, where Mrs Buchanan was to

accompany her. “_You_ will know--I cannot speak to her of this, for it

would be terrible to lead her to hope, and then have that dreary blank

of disappointment return again--and such disappointment! It is not like

our troubles--troubles which could be almost altogether removed by what

would be a very little matter to Mossgray; but Lilias has a heavier

burden than we have.”

“The present trouble looks aye the hardest, Helen,” said Mrs Buchanan.

“She is young, and has many friends--she will forget; but you must fight

on, my poor bairn. I feel your trouble more than hers.”

Helen could lament herself into despondency without much difficulty, but

the perverse temperament would not droop for any will but its own.

“Hush, mother!” said Helen; “it is only a fight after all, and there is

nothing so very bad in having to labour; I could not do without it, I

think, and we will get through yet, no fear.”

Mrs Buchanan shook her head.

“I hope so, my dear--I hope we shall, Helen; but how we are to do at

Martinmas I cannot tell.”

“The fear of ill exceeds the ill we fear,” said Helen, with a bright

face. “We will do all we can, mother, and we will manage someway--do not

let us think of it to-night.”

Mrs Buchanan’s heart did not rise as her daughter’s did; but the good

mother was ready to brighten too, lest those occasional gleams of

sunshine, the sole solace of Helen’s toiling life, should be overcast.

“When is Hope to come?” she asked, “and what made Lilias think of asking

Hope, Helen?”

“She wanted to escape from her own thoughts--at least she said so,

mother--she wanted to be prevented from dwelling upon her hopes and

fears for this night; and the grown-up people, the young ladies and the

young gentlemen, would have tormented rather than eased her. Poor

Lilias! I think she has some idea of Mossgray’s errand; she has not

asked much about him, but a step without makes her shiver, and at night

she grows so anxious. You are used to nervous people, mother, but when

Lilias is nervous--so calm as she naturally is--it is far more painful

to see, I think, than any natural tremor. Are you ready? for there is

Hope.”

Hope led by the hand a little white-frocked, blue-eyed girl, the little

Mary Wood of whom she had spoken so much. Miss Swinton had remained

only a day in Fendie, and to Hope’s great disappointment, had not seen

Helen; but the little Mary was left with Mrs Oswald for a long visit.

Hope was exceedingly fond and proud of the child, and eager to display

its juvenile wisdom and attainments. They all set out together for

Mossgray.

“My papa is in India,” said little Mary Wood, sliding her small hand

into the trembling fingers of Lilias, as they sat under cover of the

great beech, watching the autumn sun sink gorgeously over the western

hill; “and when I am a big lady I’m to go to India too, and then I’m to

be married to somebody--Miss Mansfield says so, Hope.”

And Lilias laughed tremulously with the others, communicating a sick

melancholy tone to the very sound of mirth.

“But Miss Mansfield says so, Miss Maxwell; and Miss Mansfield is a

grown-up lady; she’s bigger than Miss Buchanan--isn’t she, Hope?”

“Never mind Miss Mansfield; nobody cares about her,” said Hope; “but

look, little Mary, look at yon star!--oh, Helen, look! in among the gold

clouds, and it so white and cold like--I know what it’s like.”

“Oh! what is it like, Hope?” cried little Mary Wood, who had the

greatest possible admiration of Hope’s stories.

“It’s like somebody--somebody like what folk are in books,” said Hope,

“standing in among the rich common people; it’s far better than the

clouds--it’s as good as the sun, only it’s not so great; but for all

that, look at it, how it’s shaking, and how pale it is; but it knows it

is better than the clouds.”

Little Mary looked up wonderingly in awe of Hope’s occult acquaintance

with the star; but this did not strike her as Hope’s stories generally

did; for she said, after a little pause,--

“I wish it were to-morrow--I wish it were the day after to-morrow.”

“Why, Mary?” said Lilias.

“Because Miss Swinton said papa was going to write me a letter, and that

I would get it to-morrow, or the day after to-morrow. A whole big letter

to myself--a letter from papa, all the way from India--oh, Miss

Maxwell!”

Lilias trembled a little; a slight painful shiver, as if of cold. She

remembered well the time so long marked and looked for.

“The night is getting chill,” said Mrs Buchanan; “I think we must go in

now; and come tell me, little Mary, about these great designs of yours.”

“Mary is very little,” said Hope, apologetically, taking the vacant

place by the side of Lilias; “she says just what comes into her head,

you know, Miss Maxwell.”

“And do _you_ not say what comes into your head, Hope?”

“But then I am not like Mary, Helen,” said Hope promptly; “I am

fifteen--I know--at least I should know better than little Mary. Do you

know when Mossgray is coming back, Miss Maxwell?”

Lilias shivered again. “No, Hope.”

Poor Hope! she was not so very much wiser than little Mary, after all.

The harvest moon had risen; the night was considerably advanced; Mrs

Buchanan had set out with Hope and the child some time since; Helen and

Lilias were alone.

They were sitting together in the deep recess of one of those

old-fashioned windows, and the room was perfectly dark, save for the

broad, full moonlight which made bars of silver light across the gloom.

They were speaking in the hushed tone which people instinctively adopt

at such times, and Helen was endeavouring to keep the attention of

Lilias occupied, although her broken answers and unconnected words

showed how ill she accomplished it, and frequent starts and intervals of

listening evinced the anxiety of both.

“Let us have lights, Lilias,” said Helen; “it is not good this--it will

do you harm.”

“Yes,” said Lilias, vacantly--“I mean, wait a little--only wait a

little, Helen.”

She had repeated the excuse again and again, and now grasping her

friend’s arm with those tightened fingers, she bent her pale head in the

full mellow moonlight, and listened, shivering with the chills and

starts of expectation.

There was a slight noise below.

“There is some one coming, Helen,” and the trembling fingers tightened

in their eager grasp. “It is not Halbert--it must be Mossgray--hush!”

“It is only Janet moving below,” said Helen.

“Hush--listen! it is Mossgray! but I dare not go to meet him. Stay with

me, Helen--stay till he comes! Now--now--it will be over now!”

And speaking incoherent words of prayer, Lilias held her eager friend

tight, so that she could not escape, and turned her own bowed head

towards the door.

Lightly up the stair came the elastic footstep, and Mossgray opened the

door gently, and stood before them in the grace of his old age, the

moonbeams mingling with his white hair.

“Where are you?” said the old man, looking into the dark shadows of the

room. “Helen, is she strong? can she bear joy?”

“Mossgray!”

“My good child, there are others in the world to guard your strength

for. He is not strong himself, poor fellow! He has had wounds and

sickness; but he lives to thank God, Lilias, as we do.”

The room was reeling round her, with its heavy shadows, and bars of

broad white light. She held firmly by the firm form of Helen, and laying

down her dizzy head upon her friend’s shoulder, closed her eyes. She

resigned her strained faculties willingly--at present she did not crave

more; the quietness--the peace--fell over her like the moonlight--it was

enough.

“Has she fainted, Helen?” asked Mossgray, anxiously, after a

considerable pause.

Lilias lifted her head, still sick and dizzy, but with a sickness so

different from that of grief.

“No, Mossgray, I am strong.”

And so she was, though she wavered and staggered in the moonlight, and

scarcely could stand without support as yet. The winds had spent

themselves and past away; the unusual fever had fled in a moment, and in

her quietness she was herself again. Already the quick, wild pulse had

fallen into its usual gentle beating; the turbulent strength of joy was

not hers, any more than the passionate might of grief; but in the great

peace of her gladness Lilias was strong.

And then the old man told them his tidings fully; how this very mail had

brought home the certain news; how _he_ did not survive alone, but

various others, officers and men, shared his fancied loss, and sure

restoration; how the wounded men on the field where the little band had

been cut to pieces, were left to the tender mercies of an Affghan tribe,

whose fierce chief had perished in the encounter; how the son of this

rebel Rajah had been trained by a captive Englishman, long ago seized

by the wandering banditti of the tribe, and knew of justices and

generosities higher than are taught by the creed of Mahomet; how the

young sovereign saw how vain the struggle was between his shifting,

unstable countrymen and the steady British arms, and moved by policy

alike, and friendliness, had caused gentle succour to be given to the

helpless wounded British men who were within his power; how they had

travelled to his capital, and found his English tutor there, now, after

long oppression and confinement, a free and honoured man, and how, with

gifts and compliments, the strongest of the prisoners had been

dismissed, and the brave young merchant, Grant, was to follow when he

could.

Dim, dubious, inarticulate thoughts were rising in the old man’s mind as

he told this story, touching a long-past sorrow--a visionary hope of his

own; but he gave them no utterance--and Lilias’ face had not lost the

flush with which she heard the name of its title--brave--when Mossgray

placed a letter in her hand. Lilias was strong now; she hurried away to

her own apartment with this crowning joy of all.

“I waited in Fendie till they should arrange their letters,” said

Mossgray, “that I might see if there was anything for Lilias, and I got

what I desired, Helen. There are other things in this story which

interest me greatly. I wonder--but we shall hear, no doubt, when this

young man comes home.”

The letter was a very brief one, written while he was still scarcely

able to hold the pen, as the unsteady characters bore witness, and only

assuring her that he was safe and out of danger, and whenever his wounds

permitted, would hasten home.

“Does he say nothing of--of the Englishman?” said Mossgray, anxiously,

when Lilias came down to tell him.

But the letter said nothing of any Englishman; the writer had been too

feeble to write anything but the few words which told his safety, and

that he was carefully tended--“in good hands.”

CHAPTER XI.

Open the lattice; let the fresh, soft air

Bear in sweet Nature’s psalm;

Draw the dim curtain quick--the sun is there,

Holy and bright and calm--

And here a heart trembles for very gladness,

Which yesternight fainted twixt hope and sadness.

When Lilias awoke next morning, her heavy black dress was nowhere to be

found. It had been put away out of sight, and a light muslin one was

laid in its place. The Lily of Mossgray put on the happier garment with

reverence, murmuring to herself psalms of thanksgiving. She had wakened

so often to the blank of hopeless grief, that she felt now a solemn

gravity in this new beginning of life; it seemed to her like the visible

interposition of the Divine Hand--a miracle of joy.

The blinds had been drawn up, and the morning sun looked brightly into

the room. These little imaginative attentions could be rendered only by

Helen, but Helen had left the room before Lilias awoke from the long,

happy sleep of her new peace.

In a room below Helen stood beside the old housekeeper. A great pile of

white linen lay on the table before them, and Mrs Mense was exhausting

herself in its praise.

“Na, if ye had Mossgray’s ain muckle spyglass that sits up the stair at

the study window, ye could scarce count the threads,” said the old

woman, triumphantly; “it’s that fine; and ye see, Miss Buchanan, Mr

Halbert’s no’ what ye could ca’ weel supplied, coming out from amang

fremd folk, ye ken. I’ve been wanting to see about getting them made

this lang time, only I didna like to fash the young lady; but Mossgray

says I may speak to her noo. Do ye think I may speak to Miss Lilias noo,

and no fash her, Miss Buchanan?”

“What is it, Mrs Mense?” said Lilias, coming forward with a peaceful

light upon her face which could not be misapprehended. The old woman

glanced at her changed dress and brightened.

“Ye see, Miss Lillie, it’s just the new linen. I dinna think ye ever

lookit at it before; is’t no’ beautiful? And I was just thinking we

should hae it made. Ye see, Mr Halbert he hasna ower mony, and to be

ploutering and washing ance in a fortnight like common folk disna do for

the like o’ us; and ye micht get some yoursel’, Miss Lillie; some o’ the

new-fashioned kind wi’ the frills, for it’s a muckle web, and it wad be

a guid turn to somebody, the making o’ them.”

Helen was twisting a corner of the linen nervously in her fingers.

“I think I could get some one to do it for you, Lilias, if you could

trust me,” she said.

“And you’re just the best to ken, Miss Buchanan,” said Mrs Mense, “for

ye see Miss Lillie has nae friend to speak o’ but yoursel’, and it’s no

like she could ken wha sewed weel, and wha didna; but I’m just as blythe

as I can be, Miss Lillie, to see you wi’ your light gown and your smile

again, and so is Mossgray; and now I’ll gang my ways, and see that Jen’s

minding the breakfast.”

“Lilias,” said Helen, when the old woman was out of hearing, “I don’t

need to have any foolish pride with you. _I_ will make these things for

you if you will take me for your sempstress.”

“_You_, Helen,” said Lilias, “you don’t need--you don’t wish--I mean--”

“I mean that we have never been rich, Lilias,” said Helen, with her

shifting blush, “and that now there is occasion for a little more work

than usual--that is all; and you need not look so grave, unless you

think I shall not make these new-fashioned things well enough to please

Mrs Mense; but I am not afraid, Lilias--I think you may trust me.”

“But, Helen, you have too much to do already; you cannot work always,”

said Lilias. “Let me speak to Mossgray--let me--”

“Hush, hush,” said Helen, “you forget that we have some pride still. I

have not too much to do, Lilias; people seldom have, I think, and it is

no great matter when one can get through one’s troubles by a little

additional labour. It is no hardship; this is my kind of fighting, you

know, and I can do it very well. I think you will give me your work,

Lilias, and a great deal of praise when it is done. I shall please Mrs

Mense. I will invent frills. I think you must trust me.”

It was a slight trial to the sensitive, proud Helen; her cheek was

flushed a little, and the smile trembled on her lip, but she talked the

uncomfortable feeling away, and got it over, with less pain than she

could have thought. The great web of linen was committed to her hands,

and while Lilias entered into her revival of happy life, calm, peaceful,

and at rest, Helen went away home to the little, quiet, dull house, and

to her labour, the long, hard toil to which her heart rose, as to the

strenuous oar which might keep the little ship afloat.

The autumn days flushed to their brightest and began to wane. It was a

gay autumn to the Fendies, and to the other youthful people of the

neighbourhood through them; Halbert Graeme had quite forgiven Menie

Monikie. The saucy Menie sent him cards and gloves when she became Mrs

Keith, and a barbarous lump of bride-cake; but the gift, cruel as it

was, did by no means disturb the equanimity of Halbert. The broken gold

coin lay snug in a corner of his dressing-case; he laughed merrily to

himself sometimes when his eye fell upon it, and thought with a great

deal of good-humour, and scarcely any pique, how simple and foolish the

boy and girl were who broke that coin in the pleasant twilight of the

Aberdeenshire glen. Halbert had got over his first romance very

comfortably; the youthful epidemic fell lightly on the heir of Mossgray.

He was much “out.” Alick Fendie and the redoubtable Captain Hyde

engrossed a great deal of Halbert’s time, and his hands were full of

flirtations now when he had no restraint upon him. But Halbert was not

like his father; the flirtations were honest, unsophisticated

amusements, and did little harm. He was born to be popular with all, but

he killed nobody.

And left thus to themselves in the quiet house of Mossgray, it was a

pleasant time to Lilias and her guardian. She had learned to prize the

sunshine more from its temporary withdrawal, and the old man spoke to

her of the wanderer far away as of an absent son. “When he comes home.”

Lilias remembered how that word rung in her own ear when she first saw

Mossgray; she remembered how, after the lifetime of wandering, the

blessedness of those who dwell among their own people fell upon her; and

_he_ too was to come “home.”

Another letter came from him in those clear September days; it was

brief, like the other. He had much to tell her, he said, but was still

feeble, and must defer it until he spoke to her, face to face; and in

another month he would reach Mossgray.

The news brought a strange thrill over the calm Lily. It was years now

since he went to India. Their engagement had been formed when they were

both very young, and she was now matured into grave womanhood. She began

to fancy that she was changed; she began to wonder whether he too had

grown old as she had done; and while she smiled at herself for these

fancies, they sometimes agitated her a little--a very little--only just

enough to keep the balance even, and prevent an overpoise of joy.

And Helen Buchanan now could only snatch a momentary glance, from the

little wicket gate, of the evening sun, as he went down beyond the hill,

and could not linger to watch the golden mist fade into graver purple

before the breath of night. She had no leisure now for sunset walks, no

time to glean and gather in to her heart the glories of the grand sky

and the dimmer tints of earth, and, eating angel’s bread, grow strong.

Long labour through the whole bright day, labour at the sunsetting,

labour in the fair, dim hours beyond; it was a hard life.

“I have seen the boatmen cross the Firth, when the tawny waves were

coming in like lions,” said Helen, as she bent over those weary breadths

of linen, “and the wind was so high that the boat could bear no sail,

and the current so strong that they could scarcely row; but there was

something in their work--- I fancy I must call it excitement--which made

it quite a different thing from safe, monotonous labour. I mind how it

moved me--the dipping of the oars, which scarcely could enter the great,

buoyant swell of water, the forcing forward of the boat, which did not

seem to be _in_ the stream at all, but _on_ it; it makes one’s heart

beat. I thought I should rather have been with Willie Thomson then, than

when the Firth was as smooth as the wan water.”