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WHAT'S MINE'S MINE
By George MacDonald
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER
I. HOW COME THEY THERE?
II. A SHORT GLANCE OVER THE SHOULDER
III. THE GIRLS' FIRST WALK
IV. THE SHOP IN THE VILLAGE
V. THE CHIEF
VI. WORK AND WAGE
VII. MOTHER AND SON
VIII. A MORNING CALL
IX. MR. SERCOMBE
X. THE PLOUGH-BULLS
XI. THE FIR-GROVE
XII. AMONG THE HILLS
XIII. THE LAKE
XIV. THE WOLVES
XV. THE GULF THAT DIVIDED
XVI. THE CLAN CHRISTMAS
XVII. BETWEEN DANCING AND SUPPER
WHAT'S MINE'S MINE.
CHAPTER I.
HOW COME THEY THERE?
The room was handsomely furnished, but such as I would quarrel with
none for calling common, for it certainly was uninteresting. Not a
thing in it had to do with genuine individual choice, but merely
with the fashion and custom of the class to which its occupiers
belonged. It was a dining-room, of good size, appointed with all the
things a dining-room "ought" to have, mostly new, and entirely
expensive--mirrored sideboard in oak; heavy chairs, just the dozen,
in fawn-coloured morocco seats and backs--the dining-room, in short,
of a London-house inhabited by rich middle-class people. A big fire
blazed in the low round-backed grate, whose flashes were reflected
in the steel fender and the ugly fire-irons that were never used. A
snowy cloth of linen, finer than ordinary, for there was pride in
the housekeeping, covered the large dining-table, and a company,
evidently a family, was eating its breakfast. But how come these
people THERE?
For, supposing my reader one of the company, let him rise from the
well-appointed table--its silver, bright as the complex motions of
butler's elbows can make it; its china, ornate though not elegant;
its ham, huge, and neither too fat nor too lean; its game-pie, with
nothing to be desired in composition, or in flavour natural or
artificial;--let him rise from these and go to the left of the two
windows, for there are two opposite each other, the room having been
enlarged by being built out: if he be such a one as I would have for
a reader, might I choose--a reader whose heart, not merely his eye,
mirrors what he sees--one who not merely beholds the outward shows
of things, but catches a glimpse of the soul that looks out of them,
whose garment and revelation they are;--if he be such, I say, he
will stand, for more than a moment, speechless with something akin
to that which made the morning stars sing together.
He finds himself gazing far over western seas, while yet the sun is
in the east. They lie clear and cold, pale and cold, broken with
islands scattering thinner to the horizon, which is jagged here and
there with yet another. The ocean looks a wild, yet peaceful
mingling of lake and land. Some of the islands are green from shore
to shore, of low yet broken surface; others are mere rocks, with a
bold front to the sea, one or two of them strange both in form and
character. Over the pale blue sea hangs the pale blue sky, flecked
with a few cold white clouds that look as if they disowned the earth
they had got so high--though none the less her children, and doomed
to descend again to her bosom. A keen little wind is out, crisping
the surface of the sea in patches--a pretty large crisping to be
seen from that height, for the window looks over hill above hill to
the sea. Life, quiet yet eager, is all about; the solitude itself is
alive, content to be a solitude because it is alive. Its life needs
nothing from beyond--is independent even of the few sails of fishing
boats that here and there with their red brown break the blue of the
water.
If my reader, gently obedient to my thaumaturgy, will now turn and
cross to the other window, let him as he does so beware of casting a
glance on his right towards the place he has left at the table, for
the room will now look to him tenfold commonplace, so that he too
will be inclined to ask, "How come these and their belongings
HERE--just HERE?"--let him first look from the window. There he sees
hills of heather rolling away eastward, at middle distance beginning
to rise into mountains, and farther yet, on the horizon, showing
snow on their crests--though that may disappear and return several
times before settling down for the winter. It is a solemn and very
still region--not a PRETTY country at all, but great--beautiful with
the beauties of colour and variety of surface; while, far in the
distance, where the mountains and the clouds have business together,
its aspect rises to grandeur. To his first glance probably not a
tree will be discoverable; the second will fall upon a solitary
clump of firs, like a mole on the cheek of one of the hills not far
off, a hill steeper than most of them, and green to the top.
Is my reader seized with that form of divine longing which wonders
what lies over the nearest hill? Does he fancy, ascending the other
side to its crest, some sweet face of highland girl, singing songs
of the old centuries while yet there was a people in these wastes?
Why should he imagine in the presence of the actual? why dream when
the eyes can see? He has but to return to the table to reseat
himself by the side of one of the prettiest of girls!
She is fair, yet with a glowing tinge under her fairness which
flames out only in her eyes, and seldom reddens her skin. She has
brown hair with just a suspicion of red and no more, and a waviness
that turns to curl at the ends. She has a good forehead, arched a
little, not without a look of habitation, though whence that comes
it might be hard to say. There are no great clouds on that sky of
the face, but there is a soft dimness that might turn to rain. She
has a straight nose, not too large for the imperfect yet decidedly
Greek contour; a doubtful, rather straight, thin-lipped mouth, which
seems to dissolve into a bewitching smile, and reveals perfect
teeth--and a good deal more to the eyes that can read it. When the
mouth smiles, the eyes light up, which is a good sign. Their shape
is long oval--and their colour when unlighted, much that of an
unpeeled almond; when she smiles, they grow red. She has an object
in life which can hardly be called a mission. She is rather tall,
and quite graceful, though not altogether natural in her movements.
Her dress gives a feathery impression to one who rather receives
than notes the look of ladies. She has a good hand--not the doll
hand so much admired of those who can judge only of quantity and
know nothing of quality, but a fine sensible hand,--the best thing
about her: a hand may be too small just as well as too large.
Poor mother earth! what a load of disappointing women, made fit for
fine things, and running all to self and show, she carries on her
weary old back! From all such, good Lord deliver us!--except it be
for our discipline or their awaking.
Near her at the breakfast table sits one of aspect so different,
that you could ill believe they belonged to the same family. She is
younger and taller--tall indeed, but not ungraceful, though by no
means beautiful. She has all the features that belong to a
face--among them not a good one. Stay! I am wrong: there were in
truth, dominant over the rest, TWO good features--her two eyes,
dark as eyes well could be without being all pupil, large, and
rather long like her sister's until she looked at you, and then they
opened wide. They did not flash or glow, but were full of the light
that tries to see--questioning eyes. They were simple eyes--I will
not say without arriere pensee, for there was no end of thinking
faculty, if not yet thought, behind them,--but honest eyes that
looked at you from the root of eyes, with neither attack nor defence
in them. If she was not so graceful as her sister, she was hardly
more than a girl, and had a remnant of that curiously lovely
mingling of grace and clumsiness which we see in long-legged growing
girls. I will give her the advantage of not being further described,
except so far as this--that her hair was long and black, that her
complexion was dark, with something of a freckly unevenness, and
that her hands were larger and yet better than her sister's.
There is one truth about a plain face, that may not have occurred to
many: its ugliness accompanies a condition of larger undevelopment,
for all ugliness that is not evil, is undevelopment; and so implies
the larger material and possibility of development. The idea of no
countenance is yet carried out, and this kind will take more
developing for the completion of its idea, and may result in a
greater beauty. I would therefore advise any young man of aspiration
in the matter of beauty, to choose a plain woman for wife--IF
THROUGH HER PLAINNESS SHE IS YET LOVELY IN HIS EYES; for the
loveliness is herself, victorious over the plainness, and her face,
so far from complete and yet serving her loveliness, has in it room
for completion on a grander scale than possibly most handsome faces.
In a handsome face one sees the lines of its coming perfection, and
has a glimpse of what it must be when finished: few are prophets
enough for a plain face. A keen surprise of beauty waits many a man,
if he be pure enough to come near the transfiguration of the homely
face he loved.
This plain face was a solemn one, and the solemnity suited the
plainness. It was not specially expressive--did not look specially
intelligent; there was more of latent than operative power in
it--while her sister's had more expression than power. Both were
lady-like; whether they were ladies, my reader may determine. There
are common ladies and there are rare ladies; the former MAY be
countesses; the latter MAY be peasants.
There were two younger girls at the table, of whom I will say
nothing more than that one of them looked awkward, promised to be
handsome, and was apparently a good soul; the other was pretty, and
looked pert.
The family possessed two young men, but they were not here; one was
a partner in the business from which his father had practically
retired; the other was that day expected from Oxford.
The mother, a woman with many autumnal reminders of spring about
her, sat at the head of the table, and regarded her queendom with a
smile a little set, perhaps, but bright. She had the look of a woman
on good terms with her motherhood, with society, with the
universe--yet had scarce a shadow of assumption on her countenance.
For if she felt as one who had a claim upon things to go pleasantly
with her, had she not put in her claim, and had it acknowledged? Her
smile was a sweet white-toothed smile, true if shallow, and a more
than tolerably happy one--often irradiating THE GOVERNOR
opposite--for so was the head styled by the whole family from mother
to chit.
He was the only one at the table on whose countenance a shadow--as
of some end unattained--was visible. He had tried to get into
parliament, and had not succeeded; but I will not presume to say
that was the source of the shadow. He did not look discontented, or
even peevish; there was indeed a certain radiance of success about
him-only above the cloudy horizon of his thick, dark eyebrows,
seemed to hang a thundery atmosphere. His forehead was large, but
his features rather small; he had, however, grown a trifle fat,
which tended to make up. In his youth he must have been very
nice-looking, probably too pretty to be handsome. In good health and
when things went well, as they had mostly done with him, he was
sweet-tempered; what he might be in other conditions was seldom
conjectured. But was that a sleeping thunder-cloud, or only the
shadow of his eyebrows?
He had a good opinion of himself-on what grounds I do not know; but
he was rich, and I know no better ground; I doubt if there is any
more certain soil for growing a good opinion of oneself. Certainly,
the more you try to raise one by doing what is right and worth
doing, the less you succeed.
Mr. Peregrine Palmer had finished his breakfast, and sat for a while
looking at nothing in particular, plunged in deep thought about
nothing at all, while the girls went on with theirs. He was a little
above the middle height, and looked not much older than his wife;
his black hair had but begun to be touched with silver; he seemed a
man without an atom of care more than humanity counts reasonable;
his speech was not unlike that of an Englishman, for, although born
in Glasgow, he had been to Oxford. He spoke respectfully to his
wife, and with a pleasant playfulness to his daughters; his manner
was nowise made to order, but natural enough; his grammar was as
good as conversation requires; everything was respectable about
him-and yet-he was one remove at least from a gentleman. Something
hard to define was lacking to that idea of perfection.
Mr. Peregrine Palmer's grandfather had begun to make the family
fortune by developing a little secret still in a remote highland
glen, which had acquired a reputation for its whisky, into a great
superterrene distillery. Both he and his son made money by it, and
it had "done well" for Mr. Peregrine also. With all three of them
the making of money had been the great calling of life. They were
diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving Mammon, and
founding claim to consideration on the fact. Neither Jacob nor John
Palmer's worst enemy had ever called him a hypocrite: neither had
been suspected of thinking to serve Mammon and God. Both had gone
regularly to church, but neither had taught in a Sunday school, or
once gone to a week-day sermon. Peregrine had built a church and a
school. He did not now take any active part in the distillery, but
worked mainly in money itself.
Jacob, the son of a ship-chandler in Greenock, had never thought
about gentleman or no gentleman; but his son John had entertained
the difference, and done his best to make a gentleman of Peregrine;
and neither Peregrine nor any of his family ever doubted his
father's success; and if he had not quite succeeded, I would have
the blame laid on Peregrine and not on either father or grandfather.
For a man to GROW a gentleman, it is of great consequence that his
grandfather should have been an honest man; but if a man BE a
gentleman, it matters little what his grandfather or grandmother
either was. Nay--if a man be a gentleman, it is of the smallest
consequence, except for its own sake, whether the world counts him
one or not.
Mr. Peregrine Palmer rose from the table with a merry remark on the
prolongation of the meal by his girls, and went towards the door.
"Are you going to shoot?" asked his wife.
"Not to-day. But I am going to look after my guns. I daresay they've
got them all right, but there's nothing like seeing to a thing
yourself!"
Mr. Palmer had this virtue, and this very gentlemanlike way--that he
always gave his wife as full an answer as he would another lady. He
was not given to marital brevity.
He was there for the grouse-shooting--not exactly, only "as it
were." He did not care VERY much about the sport, and had he cared
nothing, would have been there all the same. Other people, in what
he counted his social position, shot grouse, and he liked to do what
other people did, for then he felt all right: if ever he tried the
gate of heaven, it would be because other people did. But the
primary cause of his being so far in the north was the simple fact
that he had had the chance of buying a property very cheap--a fine
property of mist and cloud, heather and rock, mountain and moor, and
with no such reputation for grouse as to enhance its price. "My
estate" sounded well, and after a time of good preserving he would
be able to let it well, he trusted. No sooner was it bought than his
wife and daughters were eager to visit it; and the man of business,
perceiving it would cost him much less if they passed their autumns
there instead of on the continent, proceeded at once to enlarge the
house and make it comfortable. If they should never go a second
time, it would, with its perfect appointments, make the shooting
there more attractive!
They had arrived the day before. The journey had been fatiguing, for
a great part of it was by road; but they were all in splendid
health, and not too tired to get up at a reasonable hour the next
day.
CHAPTER II.
A SHORT GLANCE OVER THE SHOULDER.
Mr. Peregrine was the first of the Palmer family to learn that there
was a Palmer coat of arms. He learned it at college, and on this
wise.
One day a fellow-student, who pleased himself with what he called
philology, remarked that his father must have been a hit of a
humorist to name him Peregrine:--"except indeed it be a family
name!" he added.
"I never thought about it," said Peregrine. "I don't quite know what
you mean."
The fact was he had no glimmer of what he meant.
"Nothing profound," returned the other. "Only don't you see
Peregrine means pilgrim? It is the same as the Italian pellegrino,
from the Latin, peregrinus, which means one that goes about the
fields,--what in Scotland you call a LANDLOUPER."
"Well, but," returned Peregrine, hesitatingly, "I don't find myself
much wiser. Peregrine means a pilgrim, you say, but what of that?
All names mean something, I suppose! It don't matter much."
"What is your coat of arms?"
"I don't know."
"Why did your father call you Peregrine?"
"I don't know that either. I suppose because he liked the name."
"Why should he have liked it?" continued the other, who was given to
the Socratic method.
"I know no more than the man in the moon."
"What does your surname mean?"
"Something to do with palms, I suppose."
"Doubtless."
"You see I don't go in for that kind of thing like you!"
"Any man who cares about the cut of his coat, might have a little
curiosity about the cut of his name: it sits to him a good deal
closer!"
"That is true--so close that you can't do anything with it. I can't
pull mine off however you criticize it!"
"You can change it any day. Would you like to change it?"
"No, thank you, Mr. Stokes!" returned Peregrine dryly.
"I didn't mean with mine," growled the other. "My name is an
historical one too--but that is not in question.--Do you know your
crest ought to be a hairy worm?"
"Why?"
"Don't you know the palmer-worm? It got its name where you got
yours!"
"Well, we all come from Adam!"
"What! worms and all?"
"Surely. We're all worms, the parson says. Come, put me through;
it's time for lunch. Or, if you prefer, let me burst in ignorance. I
don't mind."
"Well, then, I will explain. The palmer was a pilgrim: when he came
home, he carried a palm-branch to show he had been to the holy
land."
"Did the hairy worm go to the holy land too?"
"He is called a palmer-worm because he has feet enough to go any
number of pilgrimages. But you are such a land-louper, you ought to
blazon two hairy worms saltier-wise."
"I don't understand."
"Why, your name, interpreted to half an ear, is just PILGRIM
PILGRIM!"
"I wonder if my father meant it!"
"That I cannot even guess at, not having the pleasure of knowing
your father. But it does look like a paternal joke!"
His friend sought out for him the coat and crest of the Palmers; but
for the latter, strongly recommended a departure: the fresh
family-branch would suit the worm so well!--his crest ought to be
two worms crossed, tufted, the tufts ouched in gold. It was not
heraldic language, but with Peregrine passed well enough. Still he
did not take to the worms, but contented himself with the ordinary
crest. He was henceforth, however, better pleased with his name, for
he fancied in it something of the dignity of a doubled surname.
His first glance at his wife was because she crossed the field of
his vision; his second glance was because of her beauty; his third
because her name was SHELLEY. It is marvellous how whimsically
sentimental commonplace people can be where their own interesting
personality is concerned: her name he instantly associated with
SCALLOP-SHELL, and began to make inquiry about her. Learning that
her other name was Miriam, one also of the holy land--
"A most remarkable coincidence!--a mere coincidence of course!" he
said to himself. "Evidently that is the woman destined to be the
companion of my pilgrimage!"
When their first child was born, the father was greatly exercised as
to a fitting name for him. He turned up an old botany book, and
sought out the scientific names of different palms. CHAMAEROPS would
not do, for it was a dwarf-palm; BORASSUS might do, seeing it was a
boy--only it stood for a FAN-PALM; CORYPHA would not be bad for a
girl, only it was the name of a heathen goddess, and would not go
well with the idea of a holy palmer. COCOA, PHOENIX, and ARECA, one
after the other, went in at his eyes and through his head; none of
them pleased him. His wife, however, who in her smiling way had
fallen in with his whim, helped him out of his difficulty. She was
the daughter of nonconformist parents in Lancashire, and had been
encouraged when a child to read a certain old-fashioned book called
The Pilgrim's Progress, which her husband had never seen. He did not
read it now, but accepting her suggestion, named the boy Christian.
When a daughter came, he would have had her Christiana, but his wife
persuaded him to be content with Christina. They named their second
son Valentine, after Mr. Valiant-for-truth. Their second daughter
was Mercy; and for the third and fourth, Hope and Grace seemed near
enough. So the family had a cool glow of puritanism about it, while
nothing was farther from the thoughts of any of them than what their
names signified. All, except the mother, associated them with the
crusades for the rescue of the sepulchre of the Lord from the
pagans; not a thought did one of them spend on the rescue of a live
soul from the sepulchre of low desires, mean thoughts, and crawling
selfishness.
CHAPTER III.
THE GIRLS' FIRST WALK.
The Governor, Peregrine and Palmer as he was, did not care about
walking at any time, not even when he HAD to do it because other
people did; the mother, of whom there would have been little left
had the sweetness in her moral, and the house-keeping in her
practical nature, been subtracted, had things to see to within
doors: the young people must go out by themselves! They put on their
hats, and issued.
The temperature was keen, though it was now nearly the middle of
August, by which time in those northern regions the earth has begun
to get a little warm: the house stood high, and the atmosphere was
thin. There was a certain sense of sadness in the pale sky and its
cold brightness; but these young people felt no cold, and perceived
no sadness. The air was exhilarating, and they breathed deep breaths
of a pleasure more akin to the spiritual than they were capable of
knowing. For as they gazed around them, they thought, like Hamlet's
mother in the presence of her invisible husband, that they saw all
there was to be seen. They did not know nature: in the school to
which they had gone they patronized instead of revering her. She
wrought upon them nevertheless after her own fashion with her
children, unheedful whether they knew what she was about or not. The
mere space, the mere height from which they looked, the rarity of
the air, the soft aspiration of earth towards heaven, made them all
more of children.
But not one of them being capable of enjoying anything by herself,
together they were unable to enjoy much; and, like the miser who,
when he cannot much enjoy his money, desires more, began to desire
more company to share in the already withering satisfaction of their
new possession--to help them, that is, to get pleasure out of it, as
out of a new dress. It is a good thing to desire to share a good
thing, but it is not well to be unable alone to enjoy a good thing.
It is our enjoyment that should make us desirous to share. What is
there to share if the thing be of no value in itself? To enjoy alone
is to be able to share. No participation can make that of value
which in itself is of none. It is not love alone but pride also, and
often only pride, that leads to the desire for another to be present
with us in possession.
The girls grew weary of the show around them because it was so
quiet, so regardless of their presence, so moveless, so monotonous.
Endless change was going on, but it was too slow for them to see;
had it been rapid, its motions were not of a kind to interest them.
Ere half an hour they had begun to think with regret of Piccadilly
and Regent street--for they had passed the season in London. There
is a good deal counted social which is merely gregarious. Doubtless
humanity is better company than a bare hill-side; but not a little
depends on how near we come to the humanity, and how near we come to
the hill. I doubt if one who could not enjoy a bare hill-side alone,
would enjoy that hill-side in any company; if he thought he did, I
suspect it would be that the company enabled him, not to forget
himself in what he saw, but to be more pleasantly aware of himself
than the lone hill would permit him to be;--for the mere hill has
its relation to that true self which the common self is so anxious
to avoid and forget. The girls, however, went on and on, led mainly
by the animal delight of motion, the two younger making many a
diversion up the hill on the one side, and down the hill on the
other, shrieking at everything fresh that pleased them.
The house they had just left stood on the projecting shoulder of a
hill, here and there planted with firs. Of the hardy trees there was
a thicket at the back of the house, while toward the south, less
hardy ones grew in the shrubbery, though they would never, because
of the sea-breezes, come to any height. The carriage-drive to the
house joined two not very distant points on the same road, and there
was no lodge at either gate. It was a rough, country road, a good
deal rutted, and seldom repaired. Opposite the gates rose the steep
slope of a heathery hill, along the flank of which the girls were
now walking. On their right lay a piece of rough moorland, covered
with heather, patches of bracken, and coarse grass. A few yards to
the right, it sank in a steep descent. Such was the disposition of
the ground for some distance along the road--on one side the hill,
on the other a narrow level, and abrupt descent.
As they advanced they caught sight of a ruin rising above the brow
of the descent: the two younger darted across the heather toward it;
the two elder continued their walk along the road, gradually
descending towards a valley.
"I wonder what we shall see round the corner there!" said Mercy, the
younger of the two.
"The same over again, I suppose!" answered Christina. "What a rough
road it is! I've twice nearly sprained my ankle!"
"I was thinking of what I saw the other day in somebody's
travels--about his interest in every turn of the road, always
looking for what was to come next."
"Time enough when it comes, in my opinion!" rejoined Christina.
For she was like any other mirror--quite ready to receive what was
thrown upon her, but incapable of originating anything, almost
incapable of using anything.
As they descended, and the hill-side, here covered with bracken and
boulders, grew higher and higher above them, the valley, in front
and on the right, gradually opened, here and there showing a glimpse
of a small stream that cantered steadily toward the sea, now
tumbling over a rock, now sullen in a brown pool. Arriving at length
at a shoulder of the hill round which the road turned, a whole mile
of the brook lay before them. It came down a narrow valley, with
scraps of meadow in the bottom; but immediately below them the
valley was of some width, and was good land from side to side, where
green oats waved their feathery grace, and the yellow barley was
nearly ready for the sickle. No more than the barren hill, however,
had the fertile valley anything for them. Their talk was of the last
ball they were at.
The sisters were about as good friends as such negative creatures
could be; and they would be such friends all their lives, if on the
one hand neither of them grew to anything better, and on the other
no jealousy, or marked difference of social position through
marriage, intervened. They loved each other, if not tenderly, yet
with the genuineness of healthy family-habit--a thing not to be
despised, for it keeps the door open for something better. In itself
it is not at all to be reckoned upon, for habit is but the merest
shadow of reality. Still it is not a small thing, as families go, if
sisters and brothers do not dislike each other.
They were criticizing certain of the young men they had met at the
said ball. Being, in their development, if not in their nature,
commonplace, what should they talk about but clothes or young men?
And why, although an excellent type of its kind, should I take the
trouble to record their conversation? To read, it might have amused
me--or even interested, as may a carrot painted by a Dutchman; but
were I a painter, I should be sorry to paint carrots, and the girls'
talk is not for my pen. At the same time I confess myself incapable
of doing it justice. When one is annoyed at the sight of things
meant to be and not beautiful, there is danger of not giving them
even the poor fair-play they stand in so much the more need of that
it can do so little for them.
But now they changed the subject of their talk. They had come to a
point of the road not far from the ruin to which the children had
run across the heather.
"Look, Chrissy! It IS an old castle!" said Mercy. "I wonder whether
it is on our land!"
"Not much to be proud of!" replied the other. "It is nothing but the
walls of a square house!"
"Not just a common square house! Look at that pepper-pot on one of
the corners!--I wonder how it is all the old castles get deserted!"
"Because they are old. It's well to desert them before they tumble
down."
"But they wouldn't tumble down if they weren't neglected. Think of
Warwick castle! Stone doesn't rot like wood! Just see the thickness
of those walls!"
"Yes, they are thick! But stone too has its way of rotting.
Westminster palace is wearing through, flake by flake. The weather
will be at the lords before long."
"That's what Valentine would call a sign of the times. I say, what a
radical he is, Chrissy!--Look! the old place is just like an empty
egg-shell! I know, if it had been mine, I wouldn't have let it come
to that!"
"You say so because it never was yours: if it had been, you would
know how uncomfortable it was!"
"I should like to know," said Mercy, after a little pause, during
which they stood looking at the ruin, "whether the owners leave such
places because they get fastidious and want better, or because they
are too poor to keep them up! At all events a man must be poor to
SELL the house that belonged to his ancestors!--It must be miserable
to grow poor after being used to plenty!--I wonder whose is the old
place!"
"Oh, the governor's, I suppose! He has all hereabout for miles."
"I hope it is ours! I SHOULD like to build it up again! I would live
in it myself!"
"I'm afraid the governor won't advance your share for that purpose!"
"I love old things!" said Mercy.
"I believe you take your old doll to bed with you yet!" rejoined
Christina. "I am different to you!" she continued, with Frenchified
grammar; "I like things as new as ever I can have them!"
"I like new things well enough, Chrissy--you know I do! It is
natural. The earth herself has new clothes once a year. It is but
once a year, I grant!"
"Often enough for an old granny like her!"
"Look what a pretty cottage!--down there, half-way to the burn! It's
like an English cottage! Those we saw as we came along were either
like a piece of the earth, or so white as to look ghastly! This one
looks neat and comfortable, and has trees about it!"
The ruin, once a fortified house and called a castle, stood on a
sloping root or spur that ran from the hill down to the bank of the
stream, where it stopped abruptly with a steep scaur, at whose foot
lay a dark pool. On the same spur, half-way to the burn, stood a
low, stone-built, thatched cottage, with a little grove about it,
mostly of the hardy, contented, musical fir--a tree that would seem
to have less regard to earthly prosperity than most, and looks like
a pilgrim and a stranger: not caring much, it thrives where other
trees cannot. There might have been a hundred of them, mingled, in
strangest contrast, with a few delicate silver birches, about the
cottage. It stood toward the east side of the sinking ridge, which
had a steep descent, both east and west, to the fields below. The
slopes were green with sweet grass, and apparently smooth as a lawn.
Not far from where the cottage seemed to rest rather than rise or
stand, the burn rushed right against the side of the spur, as if to
go straight through it, but turned abruptly, and flowed along the
side to the end of it, where its way to the sea was open. On the
point of the ridge were a few more firs: except these, those about
the cottage, the mole on the hill-cheek, and the plantation about
the New House, up or down was not a tree to be seen. The girls stood
for a moment looking.
"It's really quite pretty!" said Christina with condescension. "It
has actually something of what one misses here so much--a certain
cosy look! Tidy it is too! As you say, Mercy, it might be in
England--only for the poverty of its trees.--And oh those wretched bare
hills!" she added, as she turned away and moved on.
"Wait till the heather is quite out: then you will have colour to
make up for the bareness."
"Tell true now, Mercy: that you are Scotch need not keep you from
speaking the truth:--don't you think heather just--well--just a
leetle magentaish?--not a colour to be altogether admired?--just a
little vulgar, don't you know? The fashion has changed so much
within the last few years!"
"No, I don't think so; and if I did I should be ashamed of it. I
suppose poor old mother Earth ought to go to the pre-Raphaelites to
be taught how to dress herself!"
Mercy spoke with some warmth, but Christina was not sufficiently
interested to be cross. She made no answer.
They were now at the part of the road which crossed the descending
spur as it left the hill-side. Here they stopped again, and looked
down the rocky slope. There was hardly anything green betwixt them
and the old ruin--little but stones on a mass of rock; but
immediately beyond the ruin the green began: there it seemed as if a
wave of the meadow had risen and overflowed the spur, leaving its
turf behind it. Catching sight of Hope and Grace as they ran about
the ruin, they went to join them, the one drawn by a vague interest
in the exuviae of vanished life, the other by mere curiosity to see
inside the care-worn, protesting walls. Through a gap that might
once have been a door, they entered the heart of the sad unhoping
thing dropt by the Past on its way to oblivion: nothing looks so
unlike life as a dead body, nothing so unfit for human dwelling as a
long-forsaken house.
Finding in one corner a broken stair, they clambered up to a gap in
the east wall; and as they reached it, heard the sound of a horse's
feet. Looking down the road, they saw a gig approaching with two
men. It had reached a part not so steep, and was coming at a trot.
"Why!" exclaimed Christina, "there's Val!--and some one with him!"
"I heard the governor say to mamma," returned Mercy, "that Val was
going to bring a college friend with him,--'for a pop at the
grouse,' he said. I wonder what he will be like!"
"He's a good-big-looking fellow," said Christina.
They drew nearer.
"You might have said a big, good-looking fellow!" rejoined Mercy.
"He really is handsome!--Now mind, Mercy, I was the first to
discover it!" said Christina.
"Indeed you were not!--At least I was the first to SAY it!" returned
Mercy. "But you will take him all to yourself anyhow, and I am sure
I don't care!"
Yet the girls were not vulgar--they were only common. They did and
said vulgar things because they had not the sensitive vitality to
shrink from them. They had not been well taught--that is roused to
LIVE: in the family was not a breath of aspiration. There was plenty
of ambition, that is, aspiration turned hell-ward. They thought
themselves as far from vulgar as any lady in any land, being in this
vulgar--that they despised the people they called vulgar, yet
thought much of themselves for not being vulgar. There was little in
them the world would call vulgar; but the world and its ways are
vulgar; its breeding will not pass with the ushers of the high
countries. The worst in that of these girls was a FAST, disagreeable
way of talking, which they owed to a certain governess they had had
for a while.
They hastened to the road. The gig came up. Valentine threw the
reins to his companion, jumped out, embraced his sisters, and seemed
glad to see them. Had he met them after a like interval at home, he
would have given them a cooler greeting; but he had travelled so
many miles that they seemed not to have met for quite a long time.
"My friend, Mr. Sercombe," he said, jerking his head toward the gig.
Mr. Sercombe raised his POT-LID--the last fashion in head-gear--and
acquaintance was made.
"We'll drive on, Sercombe," said Valentine, jumping up. "You see,
Chris, we're half dead with hunger! Do you think we shall find
anything to eat?"
"Judging by what we left at breakfast," replied Christina, "I should
say you will find enough for--one of you; but you had better go and
see."
CHAPTER IV.
THE SHOP IN THE VILLAGE.
Two or three days have passed. The sun had been set for an hour, and
the night is already rather dark notwithstanding the long twilight
of these northern regions, for a blanket of vapour has gathered over
the heaven, and a few stray drops have begun to fall from it. A thin
wind now and then wakes, and gives a feeble puff, but seems
immediately to change its mind and resolve not to blow, but let the
rain come down. A drearier-looking spot for human abode it would be
difficult to imagine, except it were as much of the sandy Sahara, or
of the ashy, sage-covered waste of western America. A muddy road
wound through huts of turf--among them one or two of clay, and one
or two of stone, which were more like cottages. Hardly one had a
window two feet square, and many of their windows had no glass. In
almost all of them the only chimney was little more than a hole in
the middle of the thatch. This rendered the absence of glass in the
windows not so objectionable; for, left without ordered path to its
outlet, the smoke preferred a circuitous route, and lingered by the
way, filling the air. Peat-smoke, however, is both wholesome and
pleasant, nor was there mingled with it any disagreeable smell of
cooking. Outside were no lamps; the road was unlighted save by the
few rays that here and there crept from a window, casting a doubtful
glimmer on the mire.
One of the better cottages sent out a little better light, though
only from a tallow candle, through the open upper half of a door
horizontally divided in two. Except by that same half-door, indeed,
little light could enter the place, for its one window was filled
with all sorts of little things for sale. Small and inconvenient for
the humblest commerce, this was not merely the best, it was the only
shop in the hamlet.
There were two persons in it, one before and one behind the counter.
The latter was a young woman, the former a man.
He was leaning over the counter--whether from weariness,
listlessness, or interest in his talk with the girl behind, it would
not have been easy, in the dim light and deep shadow, to say. He
seemed quite at home, yet the young woman treated him with a marked,
though unembarrassed respect. The candle stood to one side of them
upon the counter, making a ghastly halo in the damp air; and in the
light puff that occasionally came in at the door, casting the shadow
of one of a pair of scales, now on this now on that of the two
faces. The young woman was tall and dark, with a large forehead:--so
much could be seen; but the sweetness of her mouth, the blueness
of her eyes, the extreme darkness of her hair, were not to be
distinguished. The man also was dark. His coat was of some rough
brown material, probably dyed and woven in the village, and his kilt
of tartan. They were more than well worn--looked even in that poor
light a little shabby. On his head was the highland bonnet called a
glengarry. His profile was remarkable--hardly less than grand, with
a certain aquiline expression, although the nose was not roman. His
eyes appeared very dark, but in the daylight were greenish hazel.
Usually he talked with the girl in Gaelic, but was now speaking
English, a far purer English than that of most English people,
though with something of the character of book-English as
distinguished from conversation-English, and a very perceptible
accent.
"And when was it you heard from Lachlan, Annie?" he asked.
After a moment's pause, during which she had been putting away
things in a drawer of the counter--not so big as many a kitchen
dresser--
"Last Thursday it was, sir," answered the girl. "You know we hear
every month, sometimes oftener."
"Yes; I know that.--I hope the dear fellow is well?"
"He is quite well and of good hope. He says he will soon come and
see us now."
"And take you away, Annie?"
"Well, sir," returned Annie, after a moment's hesitation, "he does
not SAY so!"
"If he did not mean it, he would be a rascal, and I should have to
kill him. But my life on Lachlan's honesty!"
"Thank you, sir. He would lay down his for you."
"Not if you said to him, DON'T!-eh, Annie?"
"But he would, Macruadh!" returned the young woman, almost angrily.
"Are not you his chief?"
"Ah, that is all over now, my girl! There are no chiefs, and no
clans any more! The chiefs that need not, yet sell their land like
Esau for a mess of pottage--and their brothers with it! And the
Sasunnach who buys it, claims rights over them that never grew on
the land or were hid in its caves! Thank God, the poor man is not
their slave, but he is the worse off, for they will not let him eat,
and he has nowhere to go. My heart is like to break for my people.
Sometimes I feel as if I would gladly die."
"Oh, sir! don't say that!" expostulated the young woman, and her
voice trembled. "Every heart in Glenruadh is glad when it goes well
with the Macruadh."
"Yes, yes; I know you all love my father's son and my uncle's
nephew; but how can it go well with the Macruadh when it goes ill
with his clan? There is no way now for a chief to be the father of
his people; we are all poor together! My uncle--God rest his
soul!--they managed it so, I suppose, as to persuade him there was
no help for it! Well, a man must be an honest man, even if there be
no way but ruin! God knows, as we've all heard my father say a
hundred times from the pulpit, there's no ruin but dishonesty! For
poverty and hard work, he's a poor creature would crouch for those!"
"He who well goes down hill, holds his head up!" said Annie, and a
pause followed.
"There are strangers at the New House, we hear," she said.
"From a distance I saw some young ladies, and one or two men. I
don't desire to see more of them. God forbid I should wish them any
manner of harm! but--I hardly understand myself--I don't like to see
them there. I am afraid it is pride. They are rich, I hear, so we
shall not be troubled with attention from them; they will look down
upon us."
"Look down on the Macruadh!" exclaimed Annie, as if she could not
believe her ears.
"Not that I should heed that!" he went on. "A cock on the barn-ridge
looks down on you, and you don't feel offended! What I do dread is
looking down on them. There is something in me that can hate, Annie,
and I fear it. There is something about the land--I don't care about
money, but I feel like a miser about the land!--I don't mean ANY
land; I shouldn't care to buy land unless it had once been ours; but
what came down to me from my own people--with my own people upon
it--I would rather turn the spigot of the molten gold and let it run
down the abyss, than a rood of that slip from me! I feel it even a
disgrace to have lost what of it I never had!"
"Indeed, Macruadh," said Annie, "it's a hard time! There is no money
in the country! And fast the people are going after Lachlan!"
"I shall miss you, Annie!"
"You are very kind to us all, sir."
"Are you not all my own! And you have to take care of for Lachlan's
sake besides. He left you solemnly to my charge--as if that had been
necessary, the foolish fellow, when we are foster-brothers!"
Again came a pause.
"Not a gentleman-farmer left from one end of the strath to the
other!" said the chief at length. "When Ian is at home, we feel just
like two old turkey-cocks left alone in the yard!"
"Say two golden eagles, sir, on the cliff of the rock."
"Don't compare us to the eagle, Annie. I do not love the bird. He is
very proud and greedy and cruel, and never will know the hand that
tames him. He is the bird of the monarch or the earl, not the bird
of the father of his people. But he is beautiful, and I do not kill
him."
"They shot another, the female bird, last week! All the birds are
going! Soon there will be nothing but the great sheep and the little
grouse. The capercailzie's gone, and the ptarmigan's gone!--Well,
there's a world beyond!"
"Where the birds go, Annie?--Well, it may be! But the ptarmigan's not
gone yet, though there are not many; and for the capercailzie--only
who that loves them will be here to see!--But do you really think
there is a heaven for all God's creatures, Annie? Ian does."
"I don't know what I said to make you think so, sir! When the heart
aches the tongue mistakes. But how is my lady, your mother?"
"Pretty well, thank you--wonderfully cheerful. It is time I went
home to her. Lachlan would think I was playing him false, and making
love to you on my own account!"
"No fear! He would know better than that! He would know too, if she
was not belonging to Lachlan, her father's daughter would not let
her chief humble himself."
"You're one of the old sort, Annie! Good night. Mind you tell
Lachlan I never miss a chance of looking in to see how you are
getting on."
"I will. Good night, Macruadh."
They shook hands over the counter, and the young chief took his
departure.
As he stood up, he showed a fine-made, powerful frame, over six feet
in height, and perfectly poised. With a great easy stride he swept
silently out of the shop; nor from gait any more than look would one
have thought he had been all day at work on the remnant of property
he could call his own.
To a cit it would have seemed strange that one sprung from
innumerable patriarchal ancestors holding the land of the country,
should talk so familiarly with a girl in a miserable little shop in
a most miserable hamlet; it would have seemed stranger yet that such
a one should toil at the labour the soul of a cit despises; but
stranger than both it would seem to him, if he saw how such a man is
tempted to look down upon HIM.
If less CLEVERNESS is required for country affairs, they leave the
more room for thinking. There are great and small in every class;
here and there is a ploughman that understands Burns, here and there
a large-minded shopkeeper, here and there perhaps an unselfish
duke. Doubtless most of the youth's ancestors would likewise have
held such labour unworthy of a gentleman, and would have preferred
driving to their hills a herd of lowland cattle; but this, the last
Macruadh, had now and then a peep into the kingdom of heaven.
CHAPTER V.
THE CHIEF.
The Macruadh strode into the dark, and down the village, wasting no
time in picking his way--thence into the yet deeper dark of the
moorland hills. The rain was beginning to come down in earnest, but
he did not heed it; he was thoroughbred, and feared no element. An
umbrella was to him a ludicrous thing: how could a little rain--as
he would have called it had it come down in torrents--hurt any one!
The Macruadh, as the few who yet held by the sore-frayed,
fast-vanishing skirt of clanship, called him, was the son of the
last minister of the parish-a godly man, who lived that which he
could ill explain, and was immeasurably better than those parts of
his creed which, from a sense of duty, he pushed to the front. For
he held devoutly by the root of which he spoke too little, and it
supplied much sap to his life and teaching--out of the pulpit. He
was a genial, friendly, and by nature even merry man, always ready
to share what he had, and making no show of having what he had not,
either in wisdom, knowledge, or earthly goods. His father and
brother had been owners of the property and chiefs of the clan, much
beloved by the poor of it, and not a little misunderstood by most of
the more nourishing. For a great hunger after larger means, the
ambition of the mammon-ruled world, had arisen in the land, and with
it a rage for emigration. The uncle of the present Macruadh did all
he could to keep his people at home, lived on a couple of hundreds a
year himself, and let many of his farms to his gentlemen-tacksmen,
as they were called, at lower rents; but it was unavailing; one
after another departed, until his land lay in a measure waste, and
he grew very poor, mourning far more over his clan and his country
than his poverty. In more prosperous times he had scraped together a
little money, meaning it, if he could but avoid spending it in his
old age, for his brother, who must soon succeed him; for he was
himself a bachelor--the result of a romantic attachment and sorrow
in his youth; but he lent it to a company which failed, and so lost
it. At length he believed himself compelled, for the good of his
people, to part with all but a mere remnant of the property. From
the man to whom he sold it, Mr. Peregrine Palmer bought it for twice
the money, and had still a good bargain. But the hopes of the laird
were disappointed: in the sheep it fed, and the grouse it might be
brought to breed, lay all its value in the market; there was no
increase in the demand for labour; and more and more of the
peasantry emigrated, or were driven to other parts of the country.
Such was the present treatment of the land, causing human life to
ebb from it, and working directly counter to the creative God.
The laird retired to the humble cottage of his brother the pastor,
just married rather late in life--where every comfort love could
give waited for him; but the thought that he could have done better
for his people by retaining the land soon wore him out; and having
made a certain disposition of the purchase-money, he died.
What remained of the property came to the minister. As for the
chieftainship, that had almost died before the chief; but, reviving
by union with the reverence felt for the minister, it took
thereafter a higher form. When the minister died, the idea of it
transmitted to his son was of a peculiarly sacred character; while
in the eyes of the people, the authority of the chief and the
influence of the minister seemed to meet reborn in Alister
notwithstanding his youth. In himself he was much beloved, and in
love the blessed rule, blessed where understood, holds, that to him
that hath shall be given, he only who has being fit to receive. The
love the people bore to his father, both pastor and chief, crowned
head and heart of Alister. Scarce man or woman of the poor remnant
of the clan did not love the young Macruadh.
On his side was true response. With a renewed and renovating
conscience, and a vivid sense that all things had to be made new, he
possessed an old strong heart, clinging first to his father and
mother, and then to the shadow even of any good thing that had come
floating down the ages. Call it a dream, a wild ideal, a foolish
fancy--call it what you please, he was filled with the notion of
doing something in his own person and family, having the remnant of
the clan for the nucleus of his endeavour, to restore to a vital
reality, let it be of smallest extent, that most ancient of
governments, the patriarchal, which, all around, had rotted into the
feudal, in its turn rapidly disintegrating into the mere dust and
ashes of the kingdom of the dead, over which Mammon reigns supreme.
There may have been youthful presumption and some folly in the
notion, but it sprang neither from presumption nor folly, but from
simple humanity, and his sense of the responsibility he neither
could nor would avoid, as the person upon whom had devolved the
headship, however shadowy, of a house, ruinous indeed, but not yet
razed.
The castle on the ridge stood the symbol of the family condition. It
had, however, been a ruin much longer than any one alive could
remember. Alister's uncle had lived in a house on the spot where Mr.
Peregrine Palmer's now stood; the man who bought it had pulled it
down to build that which Mr. Palmer had since enlarged. It was but a
humble affair--a great cottage in stone, much in the style of that
in which the young chief now lived--only six times the size, with
the one feature indispensable to the notion of a chief's residence,
a large hall. Some would say it was but a huge kitchen; but it was
the sacred place of the house, in which served the angel of
hospitality. THERE was always plenty to eat and drink for any comer,
whether he had "claim" or not: the question of claim where was need,
was not thought of. When the old house had to make room for the new,
the staves of the last of its half-pipes of claret, one of which
used always to stand on tap amidst the peat-smoke, yielded its final
ministration to humanity by serving to cook a few meals for mason
and carpenter.
The property of Clanruadh, for it was regarded as clan-property
BECAUSE belonging to the chief, stretched in old time away out of
sight in all directions--nobody, in several, could tell exactly how
far, for the undrawn boundary lines lay in regions of mist and
cloud, in regions stony, rocky, desert, to which a red deer, not to
say a stray sheep, rarely ascended. At one time it took in a portion
at least of every hill to be seen from the spot where stood the
ruin. The chief had now but a small farm, consisting of some fair
soil on the slope of a hill, and some very good in the valley on
both sides of the burn; with a hill-pasture that was not worth
measuring in acres, for it abounded in rocks, and was prolific in
heather and ling, with patches of coarse grass here and there, and
some extent of good high-valley grass, to which the small black
cattle and black-faced sheep were driven in summer. Beyond
periodical burnings of the heather, this uplifted portion received
no attention save from the mist, the snow, the rain, the sun, and
the sweet air. A few grouse and black game bred on it, and many
mountain-hares, with martens, wild cats, and other VERMIN. But so
tender of life was the Macruadh that, though he did not spare these
last, he did not like killing even a fox or a hooded crow, and never
shot a bird for sport, or would let another shoot one, though the
poorest would now and then beg a bird or two from him, sure of
having their request. It seemed to him as if the creatures were
almost a part of his clan, of which also he had to take care against
a greedy world. But as the deer and the birds ranged where they
would, it was not much he could do for them--as little almost as for
the men and women that had gone over the sea, and were lost to their
country in Canada.
Regret, and not any murmur, stirred the mind of Alister Macruadh
when he thought of the change that had passed on all things around
him. He had been too well taught for grumbling--least of all at what
was plainly the will of the Supreme--inasmuch as, however man might
be to blame, the thing was there. Personal regrets he had none
beyond those of family feeling and transmitted SENTIMENT. He was
able to understand something of the signs of the times, and saw that
nothing could bring back the old way--saw that nothing comes
back--at least in the same form; saw that there had been much that
ought not to come back, and that, if patriarchal ways were ever to
return, they must rise out of, and be administered upon loftier
principles--must begin afresh, and be wrought out afresh from the
bosom of a new Abraham, capable of so bringing up his children that
a new development of the one natural system, of government should be
possible with and through them. Perhaps even now, in the new country
to which so many of his people were gone, some shadowy reappearance
of the old fashion might have begun to take shape on a higher level,
with loftier aims, and in circumstances holding out fewer
temptations to the evils of the past!
Alister could not, at his years, have generated such thoughts but
for the wisdom that had gone before him--first the large-minded
speculation of his father, who was capable even of discarding his
prejudices where he saw they might mislead him; and next, the
response of his mother to the same: she was the only one who
entirely understood her husband. Isobel Macruadh was a woman of real
thinking-power. Her sons being but boys when their father died, she
at once took the part of mediator between the mind of the father and
that of his sons; and besides guiding them on the same principles,
often told them things their father had said, and talked with them
of things they had heard him say.
One of the chief lessons he left them wrought well for the casting
out of all with which the feudal system had debased the patriarchal;
and the poverty shared with the clan had powerfully helped: it was
spoken against the growing talionic regard of human relations--that,
namely, the conditions of a bargain fulfilled on both sides, all is
fulfilled between the bargaining parties.
"In the possibility of any bargain," he had said, "are involved
eternal conditions: there is relationship--there is brotherhood.
Even to give with a denial of claim, to be kind under protest, is an
injury, is charity without the love, is salt without the saltness.
If we spent our lives in charity we should never overtake neglected
claims--claims neglected from the very beginning of the relations of
men. If a man say, 'I have not been unjust; I owed the man nothing;'
he sides with Death--says with the typical murderer, 'Am I my
brother's keeper?' builds the tombs of those his fathers slew."
In the bosom of young Alister Macruadh, the fatherly relation of the
strong to the weak survived the disappearance of most of the outward
signs of clan-kindred: the chieftainship was SUBLIMED in him. The
more the body of outer fact died, the stronger grew in him the
spirit of the relation. As some savage element of a race will
reappear in an individual of it after ages of civilization, so may
good old ways of thinking and feeling, modes long gone out of
fashion and practice, survive and revive modified by circumstance,
in an individual of a new age. Such a one will see the customs of
his ancestors glorified in the mists of the past; what is noble in
them will appeal to all that is best in his nature, spurring the
most generous of his impulses, and stirring up the conscience that
would be void of offence. When the operative force of such regards
has been fostered by the teaching of a revered parent; when the
influences he has left behind are nourished and tended, with
thorough belief and devoted care, by her who shared his authority in
life, and now bears alone the family sceptre, there can be no bound
set to their possible potency in a mind of high spiritual order. The
primary impulse became with Alister a large portion of his religion:
he was the shepherd of the much ravaged and dwindled Macruadh-fold;
it was his church, in which the love of the neighbour was
intensified in the love of the relation and dependent. To aid and
guard this his flock, was Alister's divine service. It was
associated with a great dislike of dogma, originating in the recoil
of the truth within him from much that was commonly held and taught
for true.
Call the thing enthusiasm or what you will, so you believe it there,
and genuine.
It was only towards the poor of a decayed clan he had opportunity of
exercising the cherished relation; almost all who were not poor had
emigrated before the lands were sold; and indeed it was only the
poor who set store by their unity with the old head. Not a few of
the clan, removed elsewhither, would have smiled degenerate, and
with scorn in their amusement, at the idea of Alister's clinging to
any supposed reality in the position he could claim. Among such
nevertheless were several who, having made money by trade, would
each have been glad enough to keep up old traditions, and been ready
even to revive older, had the headship fallen to him. But in the
hands of a man whom, from the top of their wealth, they regarded as
but a poor farmer, they forgot all about it--along with a few other
more important and older-world matters; for where Mammon gets in his
foot, he will soon be lord of the house, and turn not merely Rank,
his rival demon, out of doors, but God himself. Alister indeed lived
in a dream; he did not know how far the sea of hearts had ebbed,
leaving him alone on the mount of his vision; but he dreamed a dream
that was worth dreaming; comfort and help flowed from it to those
about him, nor did it fail to yield his own soul refreshment also.
All dreams are not false; some dreams are truer than the plainest
facts. Fact at best is but a garment of truth, which has ten
thousand changes of raiment woven in the same loom. Let the dreamer
only do the truth of his dream, and one day he will realize all that
was worth realizing in it--and a great deal more and better than it
contained. Alister had no far-reaching visions of anything to come
out of his; he had, like the true man he was, only the desire to
live up to his idea of what the people looked up to in him. The one
thing that troubled him was, that his uncle, whom he loved so
dearly, should have sold the land.
Doubtless there was pride mingled with his devotion, and pride is an
evil thing. Still it was a human and not a devilish pride. I would
not be misunderstood as defending pride, or even excusing it in any
shape; it is a thing that must be got rid of at all costs; but even
for evil we must speak the truth; and the pride of a good man, evil
as it is, and in him more evil than in an evil man, yet cannot be in
itself such a bad thing as the pride of a bad man. The good man
would at once recognize and reject the pride of a bad man. A pride
that loves cannot be so bad as a pride that hates. Yet if the good
man do not cast out his pride, it will sink him lower than the bad
man's, for it will degenerate into a worse pride than that of any
bad man. Each must bring its own divinely-ordained consequence.
There is one other point in the character of the Macruadh which I
must mention ere I pass on; in this region, and at this time, it was
a great peculiarity, one that yielded satisfaction to few of the
clan, and made him even despised in the strath: he hated whisky, and
all the drinking customs associated with it. In this he was not
original; he had not come to hate it from noting the degradation and
crime that attended it, or that as poverty grew, drunkenness grew,
men who had used it in moderation taking more and more as
circumstances became more adverse, turning sadness into slavery: he
had been brought up to hate it. His father, who, as a clergyman
doing his endeavour for the welfare of his flock, found himself
greatly thwarted by its deadening influences, rendering men callous
not only to the special vice itself, but to worse vices as well, had
banished it from his table and his house; while the mother had from
their very childhood instilled a loathing of the national weakness
and its physical means into the minds of her sons. In her childhood
she had seen its evils in her own father: by no means a drunkard, he
was the less of a father because he did as others did. Never an
evening passed without his drinking his stated portion of
whisky-toddy, growing more and more subject to attacks of had
temper, with consequent injustice and unkindness. The recollection
may have made her too sweeping in her condemnation of the habit, but
I doubt it; and anyhow a habit is not a man, and we need not much
condemn that kind of injustice. We need not be tender over a habit
which, though not all bad, yet leads to endless results that are all
bad. I would follow such to its grave without many tears!
Isobel Macruadh was one of those rare women who preserve in years
the influence gained in youth; and the thing that lay at the root of
the fact was her justice. For though her highland temper would
occasionally burst out in hot flame, everyone knew that if she were
in the wrong, she would see it and say it before any one else would
tell her of it. This justice it was, ready against herself as for
another, that fixed the influence which her goodness and her
teaching of righteousness gained.
Her eldest child, a girl, died in infancy. Alister and Ian were her
whole earthly family, and they worshipped her.
CHAPTER VI.
WORK AND WAGE.
Alister strode through the night, revolving no questions hard to
solve, though such were not strangers to him. He had not been to a
university like his brother, but he had had a good educational
beginning--who ever had more than a beginning?--chiefly from his
father, who for his time and opportunity was even a learned man--and
better, a man who knew what things were worth a man's human while,
and what were not: he could and did think about things that a man
must think about or perish; and his son Alister had made himself
able to think about what he did not know, by doing the thing he did
know. But now, as he walked, fighting with the wind, his bonnet of
little shelter pulled down on his forehead, he was thinking mostly
of Lachlan his foster-brother, whose devotion had done much to
nourish in him the sense that he was head of the clan. He had not
far to go to reach his home--about a couple of miles.
He had left the village a quarter of the way behind him, when
through the darkness he spied something darker yet by the roadside.
Going up to it, he found an old woman, half sitting, half standing,
with a load of peats in a creel upon her back, unable, apparently,
for the moment at least, to proceed. Alister knew at once by her
shape and posture who she was.
"Ah, mistress Conal!" he said, "I am sorry to see you resting on
such a night so near your own door. It means you have filled your
creel too full, and tired yourself too much."
"I am not too much tired, Macruadh!" returned the old woman, who was
proud and cross-tempered, and had a reputation for witchcraft, which
did her neither much good nor much harm.
"Well, whether you are tired or not, I believe I am the stronger of
the two!"
"Small doubt of that, Alister!" said mistress Conal with a sigh.
"Then I will take your creel, and you will soon be home. Come along!
It is going to be a wild night!"
So saying he took the rope from the neck of the old woman right
gently, and threw the creel with a strong swing over his shoulder.
This dislodged a few of the topmost of the peats which the poor old
thing had been a long way to fetch. She heard them fall, and one of
them struck her foot. She started up, almost in a rage.
"Sir! sir! my peats!" she cried. "What would you be throwing away
the good peats into the dark for, letting that swallow them they
should swallow!"
These words, as all that passed between them, were spoken neither in
Scotch nor English, but in Gaelic--which, were I able to write it
down, most of my readers would no more understand than they would
Phoenician: we must therefore content ourselves with what their
conversation comes to in English, which, if deficient compared with
Gaelic in vowel-sounds, yet serves to say most things capable of
being said.
"I am sorry, mistress Conal; but we'll not be losing them," returned
the laird gently, and began to feel about the road for the fallen
peats.
"How many were there, do you think, of them that fell?" he asked,
rising after a vain search.
"How should I be knowing! But I am sure there would be nigh six of
them!" answered the woman, in a tone of deep annoyance--nor was it
much wonder; they were precious to the cold, feeble age that had
gone so far to fetch so few.
The laird again stooped his long back, and searched and searched,
feeling on all sides around him. He picked up three. Not another,
after searching for several minutes, could he find.
"I'm thinking that must be all of them, but I find only three!" he
said. "Come, let us go home! You must not make your cough worse for
one or two peats, perhaps none!"
"Three, Macruadh, three!" insisted the old woman in wavering voice,
broken by coughing; for, having once guessed six, she was not
inclined to lower her idea of her having.
"Well, well! we'll count them when we get home!" said Alister, and
gave his hand to her to help her up.
She yielded grumbling, and, bowed still though relieved from her burden,
tottered by his side along the dark, muddy, wind-and-rain-haunted road.
"Did you see my niece to-night at the shop?" she asked; for she was
proud of being so nearly related to those who kept the shop of the
hamlet.
"That I did," answered the chief; and a little talk followed about
Lachlan in Canada.
No one could have perceived from the way in which the old woman
accepted his service, and the tone in which she spoke to him while
he bent under her burden, that she no less than loved her chief; but
everybody only smiled at mistress Conal's rough speech. That night,
ere she went to bed, she prayed for the Macruadh as she never prayed
for one of her immediate family. And if there was a good deal of
superstition mingled with her prayer, the main thing in it was
genuine, that is, the love that prompted it; and if God heard only
perfect prayers, how could he be the prayer-hearing God?
Her dwelling stood but a stone's-throw from the road, and presently
they turned up to it by a short steep ascent. It was a poor hut,
mostly built of turf; but turf makes warm walls, impervious to the
wind, and it was a place of her own!--that is, she had it to
herself, a luxury many cannot even imagine, while to others to be
able to be alone at will seems one of the original necessities of
life. Even the Lord, who probably had not always a room to himself
in the poor houses he staid at, could not do without solitude;
therefore not unfrequently spent the night in the open air, on the
quiet, star-served hill: there even for him it would seem to have
been easier to find an entrance into that deeper solitude which, it
is true, he did not need in order to find his Father and his God,
but which apparently he did need in order to come into closest
contact with him who was the one joy of his life, whether his hard
life on earth, or his blessed life in heaven.
The Macruadh set down the creel, and taking out peat after peat,
piled them up against the wall, where already a good many waited
their turn to be laid on the fire; for, as the old woman said, she
must carry a few when she could, and get ahead with her store ere
the winter came, or she would soon be devoured: there was a death
that always prowled about old people, she said, watching for the
fire to go out. Many of the Celts are by nature poets, and mistress
Conal often spoke in a manner seldom heard from the lips of a
lowland woman. The common forms of Gaelic are more poetic than those
of most languages, and could have originated only with a poetic
people, while mistress Conal was by no means an ordinary type of her
people; maugre her ill temper and gruffness, she thought as well as
spoke like a poetess. This, conjoined with the gift of the second
sight, had helped to her reputation as a witch.
As the chief piled the peats, he counted them. She sat watching him
and them from a stone that made part of a rude rampart to the
hearth.
"I told you so, Macruadh!" she said, the moment she saw his hand
return empty from the bottom of the creel. "I was positive there
should be three more!--But what's on the road is not with the
devil."
"I am very sorry!" said the chief, who thought it wiser not to
contradict her.
He would have searched his sporan for a coin to make up to her for
the supposed loss of her peats; but he knew well enough there was
not a coin in it. He shook hands with her, bade her good night, and
went, closing the door carefully behind him against a great gust of
wind that struggled to enter, threatening to sweep the fire she was
now blowing at with her wrinkled, leather-like lips, off the hearth
altogether--a thing that had happened before, to the danger of the
whole building, itself of the substance burning in the middle of its
floor.
The Macruadh ran down the last few steep steps of the path, and
jumped into the road. Through the darkness came the sound of one
springing aside with a great start, and the click of a gun-lock.
"Who goes there?" cried a rather tremulous voice.
"The Macruadh," answered the chief.
The utterance apparently conveyed nothing.
"Do you belong to these parts?" said the voice.
A former Macruadh might have answered, "No; these parts belong to
me;" Alister curtly replied,
"I do."
"Here then, my good fellow! take my game-bag, and carry it as far as
the New House--if you know where I mean. I will give you a
shilling."
One moment the chief spent in repressing a foolish indignation; the
next he spent in reflection.
Had he seen how pale and tired was the youth with the gun, he would
have offered to carry his bag for him; to offer and to be asked,
however, most people find different; and here the offer of payment
added to the difficulty. But the word SHILLING had raised the vision
of the old woman in her lonely cottage, brooding over the loss, real
or imaginary mattered nothing, of her three far-borne peats. What a
happy night, through all the wind and the rain, would a silver
shilling under her chaff pillow give her! The thought froze the
chief's pride, and warmed his heart. What right had he to deny her
such a pleasure! It would cost him nothing! It would even bring him
a little amusement! The chief of Clanruadh carrying his game-bag for
a Sasunnach fellow to earn a shilling! the idea had a touch of
humorous consolation in it. I will not assert the consolation strong
enough to cast quite out a certain feeling of shame that mingled
with his amusement--a shame which--is it not odd!--he would not have
felt had his sporan been full of sovereigns. But the shame was not
altogether a shameful one; a fanciful fear of degrading the
chieftainship, and a vague sense of the thing being an imposition,
had each a part in it. There could be nothing dishonest, however, in
thus earning a shilling for poor mistress Conal!
"I will carry your bag," he said, "but I must have the shilling
first, if you please."
"Oh!" rejoined Valentine Palmer. "You do not trust me! How then am I
to trust you?"
"Sir!" exclaimed Alister--and, again finding himself on the point of
being foolish, laughed.
"I will pay you when the job is done," said Valentine.
"That is quite fair, but it does not suit my purpose," returned
Alister.
They were walking along the road side by side, but each could
scarcely see anything of the other. The sportsman was searching his
pockets to find a shilling. He succeeded, and, groping, put it in
Alister's hand, with the words--
"All right! it is only a shilling! There it is! But it is not yours
yet: here is the bag!"
Alister took the bag, turned, and ran back.
"Hillo!" cried Valentine.
But Alister had disappeared, and as soon as he turned up the soft
path to the cottage, his steps became inaudible through the wind.
He opened the door, went in, laid the shilling on the back of the
old woman's hand, and without a word hurried out again, and down to
the road. The stranger was some distance ahead, tramping wearily on
through the darkness, and grumbling at his folly in bribing a fellow
with a shilling to carry off his game-bag. Alister overtook him.
"Oh, here you are after all!" exclaimed Valentine. "I thought you
had made off with work and wages both! What did you do it for?"
"I wanted to give the shilling to an old woman close by."
"Your mother--eh?"
"No."
"Your grandmother?"
"No."
"SOME relation then!" insisted the stranger.
"Doubtless," answered the laird, and Valentine thought him a surly
fellow.
They walked on in silence. The youth could hardly keep up with
Alister, who thought him ill bred, and did not care for his company.
"Why do you walk so fast?" said Valentine.
"Because I want to get home," replied Alister.
"But I paid you to keep me company!"
"You paid me to carry your bag. I will leave it at the New House."
His coolness roused the weary youth.
"You rascal!" he said; "you keep alongside of me, or I'll pepper
you."
As he spoke, he shifted his gun. But Alister had already, with a few
long strides, put a space of utter darkness between them. He had
taken the shilling, and must carry the bag, but did not feel bound
to personal attendance. At the same time he could not deny there was
reason in the man's unwillingness to trust him. What had he about
him to give him in pledge? Nothing but his watch, his father's, a
gift of THE PRINCE to the head of the family!--he could not profane
that by depositing it for a game-bag! He must yield to his employer,
moderate his pace, and move side by side with the Sasunnach!
Again they walked some distance in silence. Alister began to
discover that his companion was weary, and his good heart spoke.
"Let me carry your gun," he said.
"See you damned!" returned Valentine, with an angry laugh.
"You fancy your gun protects your bag?"
"I do."
The same instant the gun was drawn, with swift quiet force, through
the loop of his arm from behind. Feeling himself defenceless, he
sprang at the highlander, but he eluded him, and in a moment was out
of his reach, lost in the darkness. He heard the lock of one barrel
snap: it was not loaded; the second barrel went off, and he gave a
great jump, imagining himself struck. The next instant the gun was
below his arm again.
"It will be lighter to carry now!" said the Macruadh; "but if you
like I will take it."
"Take it, then. But no!--By Jove, I wish there was light enough to
see what sort of a rascal you look!"
"You are not very polite!"
"Mind your own politeness. I was never so roughly served in my
life!--by a fellow too that had taken my money! If I knew where to
find a magistrate in this beastly place,--"
"You would tell him I emptied your gun because you threatened me
with it!"
"You were going off with my bag!"
"Because I undertook to carry your bag, was I bound to endure your
company?"
"Alister!" said a quiet voice out of the darkness.
The highlander started, and in a tone strangely tremulous, yet with
a kind of triumph in it, answered--
"Ian!"
The one word said, he stood still, but as in the act to run, staring
into the darkness. The next moment he flung down the game-bag, and
two men were in each other's arms.
"Where are you from, Ian?" said the chief at length, in a voice
broken with gladness.
All Valentine understood of the question, for it was in Gaelic, was
its emotion, and he scorned a fellow to show the least sign of
breaking down.
"Straight from Moscow," answered the new-comer. "How is our mother?"
"Well, Ian, thank God!"
"Then, thank God, all is well!"
"What brought you home in such haste?"
"I had a bad dream about my mother, and was a little anxious. There
was more reason too, which I will tell you afterwards."
"What were you doing in Moscow? Have you a furlough?"
"No; I am a sort of deserter. I would have thrown up my commission,
but had not a chance. In Moscow I was teaching in a school to keep
out of the way of the police. But I will tell you all by and by."
The voice was low, veiled, and sad; the joy of the meeting rippled
through it like a brook.
The brothers had forgotten the stranger, and stood talking till the
patience of Valentine was as much exhausted as his strength.
"Are you going to stand there all night?" he said at last. "This is
no doubt very interesting to you, but it is rather a bore to one who
can neither see you, nor understand a word you say."
"Is the gentleman a friend of yours, Alister?" asked Ian.
"Not exactly.--But he is a Sasunnach," he concluded in English, "and
we ought not to be speaking Gaelic."
"I beg his pardon," said Ian. "Will you introduce me?"
"It is impossible; I do not know his name. I never saw him, and
don't see him now. But he insists on my company."
"That is a great compliment. How far?"
"To the New House."
"I paid him a shilling to carry my bag," said Valentine. "He took
the shilling, and was going to walk off with my bag!"
"Well?"
"Well indeed! Not at all well! How was I to know--"
"But he didn't--did he?" said Ian, whose voice seemed now to tingle
with amusement. "--Alister, you were wrong."
It was an illogical face-about, but Alister responded at once.
"I know it," he said. "The moment I heard your voice, I knew
it.--How is it, Ian,"--here he fell back into Gaelic--"that when you
are by me, I know what is right so much quicker? I don't understand
it. I meant to do right, but--"
"But your pride got up. Alister, you always set out well--nobly--and
then comes the devil's turn! Then you begin to do as if you
repented! You don't carry the thing right straight out. I hate to
see the devil make a fool of a man like you! Do YOU not know that in
your own country you owe a stranger hospitality?"
"My own country!" echoed Alister with a groan.
"Yes, your own country--and perhaps more yours than it was your
grandfather's! You know who said, 'The meek shall inherit the
earth'! If it be not ours in God's way, I for one would not care to
call it mine another way."--Here he changed again to English.--"But
we must not keep the gentleman standing while we talk!"
"Thank you!" said Valentine. "The fact is, I'm dead beat."
"Have you anything I could carry for you?" asked Ian.
"No, I thank you.--Yes; there! if you don't mind taking my gun?--you
speak like a gentleman!"
"I will take it with pleasure."
He took the gun, and they started.
"If you choose, Alister," said his brother, once more in Gaelic, "to
break through conventionalities, you must not expect people to allow
you to creep inside them again the moment you please."
But the young fellow's fatigue had touched Alister.
"Are you a big man?" he said, taking Valentine gently by the arm.
"Not so big as you, I'll lay you a sovereign," answered Valentine,
wondering why he should ask.
"Then look here!" said Alister; "you get astride my shoulders, and
I'll carry you home. I believe you're hungry, and that takes the
pith out of you!--Come," he went on, perceiving some sign of
reluctance in the youth, "you'll break down if you walk much
farther!--Here, Ian! you take the bag; you can manage that and the
gun too!"
Valentine murmured some objection; but the brothers took the thing so
much as a matter of course, and he felt so terribly exhausted--for he
had lost his way, and been out since the morning--that he yielded.
Alister doubled himself up on his heels; Valentine got his weary
legs over his stalwart shoulders; the chief rose with him as if he
had been no heavier than mistress Conal's creel, and bore him along
much relieved in his aching limbs.
So little was the chief oppressed by his burden, that he and his
brother kept up a stream of conversation, every now and then
forgetting their manners and gliding off into Gaelic, but as often
recollecting themselves, apologizing, and starting afresh upon the
path of English. Long before they reached the end of their journey,
Valentine, able from his perch to listen in some measure of ease,
came to understand that he had to do, not with rustics, but,
whatever their peculiarities, with gentlemen of a noteworthy sort.
The brothers, in the joy of their reunion, talked much of things at
home and abroad, avoiding things personal and domestic as often as
they spoke English; but when they saw the lights of the New House, a
silence fell upon them. At the door, Alister set his burden
carefully down.
"There!" he said with a laugh, "I hope I have earned my shilling!"
"Ten times over," answered Valentine; "but I know better now than
offer to pay you. I thank you with all my heart."
The door opened, Ian gave the gun and the bag to the butler, and the
brothers bade Valentine good night.
Valentine had a strange tale to tell. Sercombe refused to accept his
conclusions: if he had offered the men half a crown apiece, he said,
they would have pocketed the money.
CHAPTER VII.
MOTHER AND SON.
The sun was shining bright, and the laird was out in his fields. His
oats were nearly ready for the scythe, and he was judging where he
had best begin to cut them.
His fields lay chiefly along the banks of the stream, occupying the
whole breadth of the valley on the east side of the ridge where the
cottage stood. On the west side of the ridge, nearly parallel to,
and not many yards from it, a small brook ran to join the stream:
this was a march betwixt the chief's land and Mr. Peregrine
Palmer's. Their respective limit was not everywhere so well defined.
The air was clear and clean, and full of life. The wind was asleep.
A consciousness of work approaching completion filled earth and
air--a mood of calm expectation, as of a man who sees his end
drawing nigh, and awaits the saving judgment of the father of
spirits. There was no song of birds--only a crow from the yard, or
the cry of a blackcock from the hill; the two streams were left to
do all the singing, and they did their best, though their water was
low. The day was of the evening of the year; in the full sunshine
was present the twilight and the coming night, but there was a sense
of readiness on all sides. The fruits of the earth must be housed;
that alone remained to be done.
When the laird had made up his mind, he turned towards the house--a
lowly cottage, more extensive than many farmhouses, but looking no
better. It was well built, with an outside wall of rough stone and
lime, and another wall of turf within, lined in parts with wood,
making it as warm a nest as any house of the size could be. The
door, picturesque with abundant repair, opened by a latch into the
kitchen.
For long years the floor of the kitchen had been an earthen one,
with the fire on a hearth in the middle of it, as in all the
cottages; and the smoke rose into the roof, keeping it very dry and
warm, if also very sooty, and thence into the air through a hole in
the middle. But some ten years before this time, Alister and Ian,
mere lads, had built a chimney outside, and opening the wall,
removed the hearth to it--with the smoke also, which now had its own
private way to liberty. They then paved the floor with such stones
as they could find, in the fields and on the hill, sufficiently flat
and smooth on one side, and by sinking them according to their
thickness, managed to get a tolerably even surface. Many other
improvements followed; and although it was a poor place still, it
would at the time of Dr. Johnson's visit to the highlands have been
counted a good house, not to be despised by unambitious knight or
poor baronet. Nor was the time yet over, when ladies and gentlemen,
of all courtesy and good breeding, might be found in such houses.
In the kitchen a deal-dresser, scoured white, stood under one of the
tiny windows, giving light enough for a clean-souled cook--and what
window-light would ever be enough for one of a different sort? There
were only four panes in it, but it opened and closed with a button,
and so was superior to many windows. There was a larger on the
opposite side, which at times in the winter nights when the cold was
great, they filled bodily with a barricade of turf. Here, in the
kitchen, the chief takes his meals with his lady-mother. She and Ian
have just finished their breakfast, and gone to the other end of the
house. The laird broke his fast long ago.
A fire is burning on the hearth--small, for the mid-day-meal is not
yet on its way. Everything is tidy; the hearth is swept up, and the
dishes are washed: the barefooted girl is reaching the last of them
to its place on the rack behind the dresser. She is a red-haired,
blue-eyed Celt, with a pretty face, and a refinement of motion and
speech rarer in some other peasantries.
The chief enters, and takes from the wall an old-fashioned gun. He
wants a bird or two, for Ian's home-coming is a great event.
"I saw a big stag last night down by the burn, sir," said the girl,
"feeding as if he had been the red cow."
"I don't want him to-day, Nancy," returned her master. "Had he big
horns?"
"Great horns, sir; but it was too dark to count the tines."
"When was it? Why did you not tell me?"
"I thought it was morning, sir, and when I got up it was the middle
of the night. The moon was so shiny that I went to the door and
looked out. Just at the narrow leap, I saw him plain."
"If you should see him again, Nancy, scare him. I don't want the
Sasunnachs at the New House to see him."
"Hadn't you better take him yourself, Macruadh? He would make fine
hams for the winter!"
"Mind your own business, Nancy, and hold your tongue," said the
chief, with a smile that took all the harshness from the words.
"Don't you tell any one you saw him. For what you know he may be the
big stag!"
"Sure no one would kill HIM, sir!" answered the girl aghast.
"I hope not. But get the stoving-pot ready, Nancy; I'm going to find
a bird or two. Lest I should not succeed, have a couple of chickens
at hand."
"Sir, the mistress has commanded them already."
"That is well; but do not kill them except I am not back in time."
"I understand, sir."
Macruadh knew the stag as well as the horse he rode, and that his
habit had for some time been to come down at night and feed on the
small border of rich grass on the south side of the burn, between it
and the abrupt heathery rise of the hill. For there the burn ran so
near the hill, and the ground was so covered with huge masses of
grey rock, that there was hardly room for cultivation, and the bank
was left in grass.
The stalking of the stag was the passion of the highlander in that
part of the country. He cared little for shooting the grouse, black
or red, and almost despised those whose ambition was a full bag of
such game; he dreamed day and night of killing deer. The chief,
however, was in this matter more of a man without being less of a
highlander. He loved the deer so much, saw them so much a part of
the glory of mountain and sky, sunshine and storm, that he liked to
see them living, not dead, and only now and then shot one, when the
family had need of it. He felt himself indeed almost the father of
the deer as well as of his clan, and mourned greatly that he could
do so little now, from the limited range of his property, to protect
them. His love for live creatures was not quite equal to that of St.
Francis, for he had not conceived the thought of turning wolf or fox
from the error of his ways; but even the creatures that preyed upon
others he killed only from a sense of duty, and with no pleasure in
their death. The heartlessness of the common type of sportsman was
loathsome to him. When there was not much doing on the farm, he
would sometimes be out all night with his gun, it is true, but he
would seldom fire it, and then only at some beast of prey; on the
hill-side or in the valley he would lie watching the ways and doings
of the many creatures that roam the night--each with its object,
each with its reasons, each with its fitting of means to ends. One
of the grounds of his dislike to the new possessors of the old land
was the raid he feared upon the wild animals.
The laird gone, I will take my reader into the PARLOUR, as they
called in English their one sitting-room. Shall I first tell him
what the room was like, or first describe the two persons in it? Led
up to a picture, I certainly should not look first at the frame; but
a description is a process of painting rather than a picture; and
when you cannot see the thing in one, but must take each part by
itself, and in your mind get it into relation with the rest, there
is an advantage, I think, in having a notion of the frame first. For
one thing, you cannot see the persons without imagining their
surroundings, and if those should be unfittingly imagined, they
interfere with the truth of the persons, and you may not be able to
get them right after.
The room, then, was about fifteen feet by twelve, and the ceiling
was low. On the white walls hung a few frames, of which two or three
contained water-colours--not very good, but not displeasing; several
held miniature portraits--mostly in red coats, and one or two a
silhouette. Opposite the door hung a target of hide, round, and
bossed with brass. Alister had come upon it in the house, covering a
meal-barrel, to which service it had probably been put in aid of its
eluding a search for arms after the battle of Culloden. Never more
to cover man's food from mice, or his person from an enemy, it was
raised to the WALHALLA of the parlour. Under it rested, horizontally
upon two nails, the sword of the chief--a long and broad ANDREW
FERRARA, with a plated basket-hilt; beside it hung a dirk--longer
than usual, and fine in form, with a carved hilt in the shape of an
eagle's head and neck, and its sheath, whose leather was dry and
flaky with age, heavily mounted in silver. Below these was a
card-table of marquetry with spindle-legs, and on it a work-box of
ivory, inlaid with silver and ebony. In the corner stood a harp, an
Erard, golden and gracious, not a string of it broken. In the middle
of the room was a small square table, covered with a green cloth. An
old-fashioned easy chair stood by the chimney; and one sat in it
whom to see was to forget her surroundings.
In middle age she is still beautiful, with the rare beauty that
shines from the root of the being. Her hair is of the darkest brown,
almost black; her eyes are very dark, and her skin is very fair,
though the soft bloom, as of reflected sunset, is gone from her
cheek, and her hair shows lines of keen silver. Her features are
fine, clear, and regular--the chin a little strong perhaps, not for
the size, but the fineness of the rest; her form is that of a
younger woman; her hand and foot are long and delicate. A more
refined and courteous presence could not have been found in the
island. The dignity of her carriage nowise marred its grace, or
betrayed the least consciousness; she looked dignified because she
was dignified. That form of falsehood which consists in assuming the
look of what one fain would be, was, as much as any other,
impossible to Isobel Macruadh. She wore no cap; her hair was
gathered in a large knot near the top of her head. Her gown was of a
dark print; she had no ornament except a ring with a single ruby.
She was working a bit of net into lace.
She could speak Gaelic as well as any in the glen--perhaps better;
but to her sons she always spoke English. To them indeed English was
their mother-tongue, in the sense that English only came addressed
to themselves from her lips. There were, she said, plenty to teach
them Gaelic; she must see to their English.
The one window of the parlour, though not large, was of tolerable
size; but little light entered, so shaded was it with a rose-tree in
a pot on the sill. By the wall opposite was a couch, and on the
couch lay Ian with a book in his hand--a book in a strange language.
His mother and he would sometimes be a whole morning together and
exchange no more than a word or two, though many a look and smile.
It seemed enough for each to be in the other's company. There was a
quite peculiar hond between the two. Like so many of the young men
of that country, Ian had been intended for the army; but there was
in him this much of the spirit of the eagle he resembled, that he
passionately loved freedom, and had almost a gypsy's delight in
wandering. When he left college, he became tutor in a Russian family
of distinction, and after that accepted a commission in the
household troops of the Czar. But wherever he went, he seemed, as he
said once to his mother, almost physically aware of a line
stretching between him and her, which seemed to vibrate when he grew
anxious about her. The bond between him and his brother was equally
strong, but in feeling different. Between him and Alister it was a
cable; between him and his mother a harpstring; in the one case it
was a muscle, in the other a nerve. The one retained, the other drew
him. Given to roaming as he was, again and again he returned, from
pure love-longing, to what he always felt as the PROTECTION of his
mother. It was protection indeed he often had sought--protection
from his own glooms, which nothing but her love seemed able to
tenuate.
He was tall--if an inch above six feet be tall, but not of his
brother's fine proportion. He was thin, with long slender fingers
and feet like his mother's. His small, strong bones were covered
with little more than hard muscle, but every motion of limb or body
was grace. At times, when lost in thought and unconscious of
movement, an observer might have imagined him in conversation with
some one unseen, towards whom he was carrying himself with courtesy:
plain it was that courtesy with him was not a graft upon the finest
stock, but an essential element. His forehead was rather low,
freckled, and crowned with hair of a foxy red; his eyes were of the
glass-gray or green loved of our elder poets; his nose was a very
eagle in itself--large and fine. He more resembled the mask of the
dead Shakspere than any other I have met, only in him the
proportions were a little exaggerated; his nose was a little too
large, and his mouth a little too small for the mask; but the
mingled sweetness and strength in the curves of the latter prevented
the impression of weakness generally given by the association of
such a nose and such a mouth. On his short upper lip was a small
light moustache, and on his face not a hair more. In rest his
countenance wore a great calmness, but a calmness that might seem
rooted in sadness.
While the mother might, more than once in a day, differ to
fault-finding from her elder-born--whom she admired, notwithstanding,
as well as loved, from the bottom of her heart--she was never KNOWN
to say a word in opposition to the younger. It was even whispered
that she was afraid of him. It was not so; but her reverence for Ian
was such that, even when she felt bound not to agree with him, she
seldom had the confidence that, differing from HIM, she was in the
right. Sometimes in the middle of the night she would slip like a
ghost into the room where he lay, and sit by his bed till the black
cock, the gray cock, the red cock crew. The son might be awake all
the time, and the mother suspect him awake, yet no word pass between
them. She would rise and go as she came. Her feeling for her younger
son was like that of Hannah for her eldest--intensest love mixed
with strangest reverence. But there were vast alternations and
inexplicable minglings in her thoughts of him. At one moment she
would regard him as gifted beyond his fellows for some great work,
at another be filled with a horrible fear that he was in rebellion
against the God of his life. Doubtless mothers are far too ready to
think THEIR sons above the ordinary breed of sons: self, unpossessed
of God, will worship itself in its offspring; yet the sons whom HOLY
mothers have regarded as born to great things and who have passed away
without sign, may have gone on toward their great things. Whether this
mother thought too much of her son or not, there were questions moving
in his mind which she could not have understood--even then when he would
creep to her bed in the morning to forget in her arms the terrible
dreams of the night, or when at evening he would draw his little stool
to her knee, unable or unwilling to enjoy his book anywhere but by her
side.
What gave him his unconscious power over his mother, was, first, the
things he said, and next, the things he did not say; for he seemed
to her to dwell always in a rich silence. Yet throughout was she
aware of a something between them, across which they could not meet;
and it was in part her distress at the seeming impossibility of
effecting a spiritual union with her son, that made her so desirous
of personal proximity to him. Such union is by most thinking people
presumed impossible without consent of opinion, and this mistake
rendered her unable to FEEL near him, to be at home with him. If she
had believed that they understood each other, that they were of like
OPINION, she would not have been half so unhappy when he went away,
would not have longed half so grievously for his return. Ian on his
part understood his mother, but knew she did not understand him, and
was therefore troubled. Hence it resulted that always after a time
came the hour--which never came to her--when he could endure
proximity without oneness no longer, and would suddenly announce his
departure. And after a day or two of his absence, the mother would
be doubly wretched to find a sort of relief in it, and would spend
wakeful nights trying to oust it as the merest fancy, persuading
herself that she was miserable, and nothing but miserable, in the
loss of her darling.
Naturally then she would turn more to Alister, and his love was a
strengthening tonic to her sick motherhood. He was never jealous of
either. Their love for each other was to him a love. He too would
mourn deeply over his brother's departure, but it became at once his
business to comfort his mother. And while she had no suspicion of
the degree to which he suffered, it drew her with fresh love to her
elder born, and gave her renewal of the quiet satisfaction in him
that was never absent, when she saw how he too missed Ian. Their
mutual affection was indeed as true and strong as a mother could
desire it. "If such love," she said to herself, "had appeared in the
middle of its history instead of now at its close, the transmitted
affection would have been enough to bind the clan together for
centuries more!"
It was with a prelusive smile that shone on the mother's heart like
the opening of heaven, that Ian lowered his book to answer her
question. She had said--
"Did you not feel the cold very much at St. Petersburg last winter,
Ian?"
"Yes, mother, at times," he answered. "But everybody wears fur; the
peasant his sheep-skin, the noble his silver fox. They have to fight
the cold! Nose and toes are in constant danger. Did I never tell you
what happened to me once in that way? I don't think I ever did!"
"You never tell me anything, Ian!" said his mother, looking at him
with a loving sadness.
"I was suddenly stopped in the street by what I took for an
unheard-of insult: I actually thought my great proboscis was being
pulled! If I had been as fiery as Alister, the man would have found
his back, and I should have lost my nose. Without the least warning
a handful of snow was thrust in my face, and my nose had not even a
chance of snorting with indignation, it found itself so twisted in
every direction at once! But I have a way, in any sudden occurrence,
of feeling perplexed enough to want to be sure before doing
anything, and if it has sometimes hindered me from what was
expedient, it has oftener saved me from what would have been wrong:
in another instant I was able to do justice to the promptitude of a
fellow Christian for the preservation of my nose, already whitening
in frosty death: he was rubbing it hard with snow, the orthodox
remedy! My whole face presently sharpened into one burning spot, and
taking off my hat, I thanked the man for his most kind attention. He
pointed out to me that time spent in explaining the condition of my
nose, would have been pure loss: the danger was pressing, and he
attacked it at once! I was indeed entirely unconscious of the state
of my beak--the worst symptom of any!"
"I trust, Ian, you will not go back to Russia!" said his mother,
after a little more talk about frost-biting. "Surely there is work
for you at home!"
"What can I do at home, mother? You have no money to buy me a
commission, and I am not much good at farm-work. Alister says I am
not worth a horseman's wages!"
"You could find teaching at home; or you could go into the church.
We might manage that, for you would only have to attend the divinity
classes."
"Mother! would you put me into one of the priests' offices that I
may eat a piece of bread? As for teaching, there are too many hungry
students for that: I could not take the bread out of their mouths!
And in truth, mother, I could not endure it--except it were required
of me. I can live on as little as any, but it must be with some
liberty. I have surely inherited the spirit of some old sea-rover,
it is so difficult for me to rest! I am a very thistle-down for
wandering! I must know how my fellow-creatures live! I should like
to BE one man after another--each for an hour or two!"
"Your father used to say there was much Norse blood in the family."
"There it is, mother! I cannot help it!"
"I don't like your holding the Czar's commission, Ian--somehow I
don't like it! He is a tyrant!"
"I am going to throw it up, mother."
"I am glad of that! How did you ever get it?"
"Oddly enough, through the man that pulled my nose. I had a chance
afterwards of doing him a good turn, which he was most generous in
acknowledging; and as he belonged to the court, I had the offer of a
lieutenant's commission. The Scotch are in favour."
A deep cloud had settled on the face of the young man. The lady
looked at him for a moment with keenest mother-eyes, suppressed a
deep sigh, and betook herself again to her work.
Ere she thought how he might take it, another question broke from
her lips.
"What sort of church had you to go to in St. Petersburg, Ian?" she
said.
Ian was silent a moment, thinking how to be true, and not hurt her
more than could not be helped.
"There are a thousand places of worship there, mother," he returned,
with a curious smile.
"Any presbyterian place?" she asked.
"I believe so," he replied.
"Ian, you haven't given up praying?"
"If ever I prayed, mother, I certainly have not given it up."
"Ever prayed, Ian! When a mere child you prayed like an aged
Christian!"
"Ah, mother, that was a sad pity! I asked for things of which I felt
no need! I was a hypocrite! I ought to have prayed like a little
child!"
The mother was silent: she it was who had taught him to pray
thus--making him pray aloud in her hearing! and this was the result!
The premature blossom had withered! she said to herself. But it was
no blossom, only a muslin flower!
"Then you didn't go to church!" she said at length.
"Not often, mother dear," he answered. "When I do go, I like to go
to the church of the country I happen to be in. Going to church and
praying to God are not the same thing."
"Then you do say your prayers? Oh, do not tell me you never bow down
before your maker!"
"Shall I tell you where I think I did once pray to God, mother?" he
said, after a little pause, anxious to soothe her suffering. "At
least I did think then that I prayed!" he added.
"It was not this morning, then, before you left your chamber?"
"No, mother," answered Ian; "I did not pray this morning, and I
never say prayers."
The mother gave a gasp, but answered nothing. Ian went on again.
"I should like to tell you, mother, about that time when I am almost
sure I prayed!"
"I should like to hear about it," she answered, with strangest
minglings of emotion. At one and the same instant she felt parted
from her son by a gulf into which she must cast herself to find him,
and that he stood on a height of sacred experience which she never
could hope to climb. "Oh for his father to talk to him!" she said to
herself. He was a power on her soul which she almost feared. If he
were to put forth his power, might he not drag her down into
unbelief?
It was the first time they had come so close in their talk. The
moment his mother spoke out, Ian had responded. He was anxious to be
open with her so far as he could, and forced his natural
taciturnity, the prime cause of which was his thoughtfulness: it was
hard to talk where was so much thinking to be done, so little time
to do it in, and so little progress made by it! But wherever he
could keep his mother company, there he would not leave her! Just as
he opened his mouth, however, to begin his narration, the door of
the room also opened, flung wide by the small red hand of Nancy, and
two young ladies entered.
CHAPTER VIII.
A MORNING CALL.
Had Valentine known who the brothers were, or where they lived, he
would before now have called to thank them again for their kindness
to him; but he imagined they had some distance to go after
depositing him, and had not yet discovered his mistake. The visit
now paid had nothing to do with him.
The two elder girls, curious about the pretty cottage, had come
wandering down the spur, or hill-toe, as far as its precincts--if
precincts they may be called where was no fence, only a little grove
and a less garden. Beside the door stood a milk-pail and a churn,
set out to be sweetened by the sun and wind. It was very rural, they
thought, and very homely, but not so attractive as some cottages in
the south:--it indicated a rusticity honoured by the most
unceremonious visit from its superiors. Thus without hesitation
concluding, Christina, followed by Mercy, walked in at the open
door, found a barefooted girl in the kitchen, and spoke pleasantly
to her. She, in simple hospitality forgetting herself, made answer
in Gaelic; and, never doubting the ladies had come to call upon her
mistress, led the way, and the girls, without thinking, followed her
to the parlour.
As they came, they had been talking. Had they been in any degree
truly educated, they would have been quite capable of an opinion of
their own, for they had good enough faculties; but they had never
been really taught to read; therefore, with the utmost confidence,
they had been passing judgment upon a book from which they had not
gathered the slightest notion as to the idea or intention of the
writer. Christina was of that numerous class of readers, who, if you
show one thing better or worse than another, will without hesitation
report that you love the one and hate the other. If you say, for
instance, that it is a worse and yet more shameful thing for a man
to break his wife's heart by systematic neglect, than to strike her
and be sorry for it, such readers give out that you approve of
wife-beating, and perhaps write to expostulate with you on your
brutality. If you express pleasure that a poor maniac should have
succeeded in escaping through the door of death from his haunting
demon, they accuse you of advocating suicide. But Mercy was not yet
afloat on the sea of essential LIE whereon Christina swung to every
wave.
One question they had been discussing was, whether the hero of the
story was worthy the name of lover, seeing he deferred offering his
hand to the girl because she told her mother a FIB to account for
her being with him in the garden after dark. "It was cowardly and
unfair," said Christina: "was it not for HIS sake she did it?" Mercy
did not think to say "WAS IT?" as she well might. "Don't you see,
Chrissy," she said, "he reasoned this way: 'If she tell her mother a
lie, she may tell me a lie some day too!'?" So indeed the youth did
reason; but it occurred to neither of his critics to note the fact
that he would not have minded the girl's telling her mother the lie,
if he could have been certain she would never tell HIM one! In
regard to her hiding from him certain passages with another
gentleman, occurring between this event and his proposal, Christina
judged he had no right to know them, and if he had, their
concealment was what he deserved.
When the girl, who would have thought it rude to ask their names--if
I mistake not, it was a point in highland hospitality to entertain
without such inquiry--led the way to the parlour, they followed
expecting they did not know what: they had heard of the cowhouse, the
stable, and even the pigsty, being under the same roof in these parts!
When the opening door disclosed "lady" Macruadh, every inch a chieftain's
widow, their conventional breeding failed them a little; though incapable
of recognizing a refinement beyond their own, they were not incapable
of feeling its influence; and they had not yet learned how to be rude
with propriety in unproved circumstances--still less how to be gracious
without a moment's notice. But when a young man sprang from a couch,
and the stately lady rose and advanced to receive them, it was too
late to retreat, and for a moment they stood abashed, feeling, I am
glad to say, like intruders. The behaviour of the lady and gentleman,
however, speedily set them partially at ease. The latter, with movements
more than graceful, for they were gracious, and altogether free of
scroll-pattern or Polonius-flourish, placed chairs, and invited them
to be seated, and the former began to talk as if their entrance were
the least unexpected thing in the world. Leaving them to explain
their visit or not as they saw fit, she spoke of the weather, the
harvest, the shooting; feared the gentlemen would be disappointed:
the birds were quite healthy, but not numerous--they had too many
enemies to multiply! asked if they had seen the view from such and
such a point;--in short, carried herself as one to whom cordiality
to strangers was an easy duty. But she was not taken with them. Her
order of civilization was higher than theirs; and the simplicity as
well as old-fashioned finish of her consciousness recoiled a
little--though she had not experience enough of a certain kind to be able
at once to say what it was in the manner and expression of the young
ladies that did not please her.
Mammon, gaining more and more of the upper hand in all social
relations, has done much to lower the PETITE as well as the GRANDE
MORALE of the country--the good breeding as well as the honesty.
Unmannerliness with the completest self-possession, is a poor
substitute for stiffness, a poorer for courtesy. Respect and
graciousness from each to each is of the very essence of
Christianity, independently of rank, or possession, or relation. A
certain roughness and rudeness have usurped upon the intercourse of
the century. It comes of the spread of imagined greatness; true
greatness, unconscious of itself, cannot find expression other than
gracious. In the presence of another, a man of true breeding is but
faintly aware of his own self, and keenly aware of the other's self.
Before the human--that bush which, however trodden and peeled, yet
burns with the divine presence--the man who thinks of the homage due
to him, and not of the homage owing by him, is essentially rude.
Mammon is slowly stifling and desiccating Rank; both are miserable
deities, but the one is yet meaner than the other. Unrefined
families with money are received with open arms and honours paid, in
circles where a better breeding than theirs has hitherto prevailed:
this, working along with the natural law of corruption where is no
aspiration, has gradually caused the deterioration of which I speak.
Courtesy will never regain her former position, but she will be
raised to a much higher; like Duty she will be known as a daughter
of the living God, "the first stocke father of gentilnes;" for in
his neighbour every man will see a revelation of the Most High.
Without being able to recognize the superiority of a woman who lived
in a cottage, the young ladies felt and disliked it; and the matron
felt the commonness of the girls, without knowing what exactly it
was. The girls, on the other hand, were interested in the young man:
he looked like a gentleman! Ian was interested in the young women:
he thought they were shy, when they were only "put out," and wished
to make them comfortable--in which he quickly succeeded. His
unconsciously commanding air in the midst of his great courtesy,
roused their admiration, and they had not been many minutes in his
company ere they were satisfied that, however it was to be accounted
for, the young man was in truth very much of a gentleman. It was an
unexpected discovery of northern produce, and "the estate" gathered
interest in their eyes. Christina did the greater part of the
talking, but both did their best to be agreeable.
Ian saw quite as well as his mother what ordinary girls they were,
but, accustomed to the newer modes in manner and speech, he was not
shocked by movements and phrases that annoyed her. The mother
apprehended fascination, and was uneasy, though far from showing it.
When they rose, Ian attended them to the door, leaving his mother
anxious, for she feared he would accompany them home. Till he
returned, she did not resume her seat.
The girls took their way along the ridge in silence, till the ruin
was between them and the cottage, when they burst into laughter.
They were ladies enough not to laugh till out of sight, but not
ladies enough to see there was nothing to laugh at.
"A harp, too!" said Christina. "Mercy, I believe we are on the top
of mount Ararat, and have this very moment left the real Noah's ark,
patched into a cottage! Who CAN they be?"
"Gentlefolk evidently," said Mercy, "--perhaps old-fashioned people
from Inverness."
"The young man must have been to college!--In the north, you know,"
continued Christina, thinking with pride that her brother was at
Oxford, "nothing is easier than to get an education, such as it is!
It costs in fact next to nothing. Ploughmen send their sons to St.
Andrew's and Aberdeen to make gentlemen of them! Fancy!"
"You must allow this case a successful one!"
"I didn't mean HIS father was a ploughman! That is impossible!
Besides, I heard him call that very respectable person MOTHER! She
is not a ploughman's wife, but evidently a lady of the middle
class."
Christina did not count herself or her people to belong to the
middle class. How it was it is not quite easy to say--perhaps the
tone of implied contempt with which the father spoke of the lower
classes, and the quiet negation with which the mother would allude
to shopkeepers, may have had to do with it--but the young people all
imagined themselves to belong to the upper classes! It was a pity
there was no title in the family--but any of the girls might well
marry a coronet! There were indeed persons higher than they; a duke
was higher; the queen was higher--but that was pleasant! it was nice
to have a few to look up to!
On anyone living in a humble house, not to say a poor cottage, they
looked down, as the case might be, with indifference or patronage;
they little dreamed how, had she known all about them, the
respectable person in the cottage would have looked down upon THEM!
At the same time the laugh in which they now indulged was not
altogether one of amusement; it was in part an effort to avenge
themselves of a certain uncomfortable feeling of rebuke.
"I will tell you my theory, Mercy!" Christina went on. "The lady is
the widow of an Indian officer--perhaps a colonel. Some of their
widows are left very poor, though, their husbands having been in the
service of their country, they think no small beer of themselves!
The young man has a military air which he may have got from his
father; or he may be an officer himself: young officers are always
poor; that's what makes them so nice to flirt with. I wonder whether
he really IS an officer! We've actually called upon the people, and
come away too, without knowing their names!"
"I suppose they're from the New House!" said Ian, returning after he
had bowed the ladies from the threshold, with the reward of a
bewitching smile from the elder, and a shy glance from the younger.
"Where else could they be from?" returned his mother; "--come to
make our poor country yet poorer!"
"They're not English!"
"Not they!--vulgar people from Glasgow!"
"I think you are too hard on them, mother! They are not exactly
vulgar. I thought, indeed, there was a sort of gentleness about them
you do not often meet in Scotch girls!"
"In the lowlands, I grant, Ian; but the daughter of the poorest
tacksman of the Macruadhs has a manner and a modesty I have seen in
no Sasunnach girl yet. Those girls are bold!"
"Self-possessed, perhaps!" said Ian.
Upon the awkwardness he took for shyness, had followed a reaction.
It was with the young ladies a part of good breeding, whatever
mistake they made, not to look otherwise than contented with
themselves: having for a moment failed in this principle, they were
eager to make up for it.
"Girls are different from what they used to be, I fancy, mother!"
added Ian thoughtfully.
"The world changes very fast!" said the mother sadly. She was
thinking, like Rebecca, if her sons took a fancy to these who were
not daughters of the land, what good would her life do her.
"Ah, mother dear," said Ian, "I have never"--and as he spoke the
cloud deepened on his forehead--"seen more than one woman whose ways
and manners reminded me of you!"
"And what was she?" the mother asked, in pleased alarm.
But she almost repented the question when she saw how low the cloud
descended on his countenance.
"A princess, mother. She is dead," he answered, and turning walked
so gently from the room that it was impossible for his mother to
detain him.
CHAPTER IX.
ME. SERCOMBE.
The next morning, soon after sunrise, the laird began to cut his
barley. Ian would gladly have helped, but Alister had a notion that
such labour was not fit for him.
"I had a comical interview this morning," said the chief, entering
the kitchen at dinner-time. "I was out before my people, and was
standing by the burn-side near the foot-bridge, when I heard
somebody shouting, and looked up. There was a big English fellow
in gray on the top of the ridge, with his gun on his shoulder,
hollo-ing. I knew he was English by his hollo-ing. It was plain it
was to me, but not choosing to be at his beck and call, I took no
heed. 'Hullo, you there! wake up!' he cried. 'What should I wake up
for?' I returned. 'To carry my bag. You don't seem to have anything
to do! I'll give you five shillings.'"
"You see to what you expose yourself by your unconventionalities,
Alister!" said his brother, with mock gravity.
"It was not the fellow we carried home the other night, Ian; it was
one twice his size. It would take all I have to carry HIM as far!"
"The other must have pointed you out to him!"
"It was much too dark for him to know me again!"
"You forget the hall-lamp!" said Ian.
"Ah, yes, to be sure! I had forgotten!" answered Alister. "To tell
the truth, I thought, when I took his shilling, he would never know
me from Nebuchadnezzar: that is the one thing I am ashamed of in the
affair--I did in the dark what perhaps I should not have done in the
daylight!--I don't mean I would not have carried him and his bag
too! I refer only to the shilling! Now, of course, I will hold my
face to it; but I thought it better to be short with a fellow like
that."
"Well?"
"'You'll want prepayment, no doubt!' he went on, putting his hand in
his pocket. Those Sasunnach fellows think every highlandman keen as
a hawk after their dirty money!"
"They have but too good reason in some parts!" said the mother. "It
is not so bad here yet, but there is a great difference in that
respect. The old breed is fast disappearing. What with the
difficulty of living by the hardest work, and the occasional chance
of earning a shilling easily, many have turned both idle and
greedy."
"That's for you and your shilling, Alister!" said Ian.
"I confess," returned Alister, "if I had foreseen what an idea of
the gentlemen of the country I might give, I should have hesitated.
But I haven't begun to be ashamed yet!"
"Ashamed, Alister!" cried Ian. "What does it matter what a fellow
like that thinks of you?"
"And mistress Conal has her shilling!" said the mother.
"If the thing was right," pursued Ian, "no harm can come of it; if
it was not right, no end of harm may come. Are you sure it was good
for mistress Conal to have that shilling, Alister? What if it be
drawing away her heart from him who is watching his old child in her
turf-hut? What if the devil be grinning at her from, that shilling?"
"Ian! if God had not meant her to have the shilling, he would not
have let Alister earn it."
"Certainly God can take care of her from a shilling!" said Ian, with
one of his strangely sweet smiles. "I was only trying Alister,
mother."
"I confess I did not like the thought of it at first," resumed Mrs.
Macruadh; "but it was mere pride; for when I thought of your father,
I knew he would have been pleased with Alister."
"Then, mother, I am glad; and I don't care what Ian, or any
Sasunnach under the sun, may think of me."
"But you haven't told us," said Ian, "how the thing ended."
"I said to the fellow," resumed Alister, "that I had my shearing to
do, and hadn't the time to go with him. 'Is this your season for
sheep-shearing?' said he.'We call cutting the corn shearing,' I
answered, 'because in these parts we use the reaping hook.' 'That is
a great waste of labour!' he returned. I did not tell him that some
of our land would smash his machines like toys. 'How?' I asked. 'It
costs so much more,' he said. 'But it feeds so many more!' I
replied. 'Oh yes, of course, if you don't want the farmer to make a
living!' 'I manage to make a living,' I said. 'Then you are the
farmer?' 'So it would appear.' 'I beg your pardon; I thought--'
'You thought I was an idle fellow, glad of an easy job to keep the
life in me!' 'You were deuced glad of a job the other night, they
tell me!' 'So I was. I wanted a shilling for a poor woman, and
hadn't one to give her without going home a mile and a half for it!'
By this time he had come down, and I had gone a few steps to meet
him; I did not want to seem unfriendly. 'Upon my word, it was very
good of you! The old lady ought to be grateful!' he said. 'So ought
we all,' I answered, '--I to your friend for the shilling, and he to
me for taking his bag. He did me one good turn for my poor woman,
and I did him another for his poor leg!' 'So you're quits!' said he.
'Not at all,' I answered; 'on the contrary, we are under mutual
obligation.' 'I don't see the difference!--Hillo, there's a hare!'
And up went his gun to his shoulder. 'None of that!' I cried, and
knocked up the barrel. 'What do you mean?' he roared, looking
furious. 'Get out of the way, or I'll shoot you.' 'Murder as well as
poaching!' I said. 'Poaching!' he shouted. 'That rabbit is mine,' I
answered; 'I will not have it killed.' 'Cool!--on Mr. Palmer's
land!' said he. 'The land is mine, and I am my own gamekeeper!' I
rejoined. 'You look like it!' he said. 'You go after your
birds!--not in this direction though,' I answered, and turned and
left him."
"You were rough with him!" said Ian.
"I did lose my temper rather."
"It was a mistake on his part."
"I expected to hear him fire," Alister continued, "for there was the
rabbit he took for a hare lurching slowly away! I'm glad he didn't:
I always feel bad after a row!--Can a conscience ever get too
fastidious, Ian?"
"The only way to find that out is always to obey it."
"So long as it agrees with the Bible, Ian!" interposed the mother.
"The Bible is a big book, mother, and the things in it are of many
sorts," returned Ian. "The Lord did not go with every thing in it."
"Ian! Ian! I am shocked to hear you!"
"It is the truth, mother."
"What WOULD your father say!"
"'He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of
me.'"
Ian rose from the table, knelt by his mother, and laid his head on
her shoulder.
She was silent, pained by his words, and put her arm round him as if
to shelter him from the evil one. Homage to will and word of the
Master, apart from the acceptance of certain doctrines concerning
him, was in her eyes not merely defective but dangerous. To love the
Lord with the love of truest obedience; to believe him the son of
God and the saver of men with absolute acceptance of the heart, was
far from enough! it was but sentimental affection!
A certain young preacher in Scotland some years ago, accused by an
old lady of preaching works, took refuge in the Lord's sermon on the
mount: "Ow ay!" answered the partisan, "but he was a varra yoong mon
whan he preacht that sermon!"
Alister rose and went: there was to him something specially sacred
in the communion of his mother and brother. Heartily he held with
Ian, but shrank from any difference with his mother. For her sake he
received Sunday after Sunday in silence what was to him a bushel of
dust with here and there a bit of mouldy bread in it; but the mother
did not imagine any great coincidence of opinion between her and
Alister any more than between her and Ian. She had not the faintest
notion how much genuine faith both of them had, or how it surpassed
her own in vitality.
But while Ian seemed to his brother, who knew him best, hardly
touched with earthly stain, Alister, notwithstanding his large and
dominant humanity, was still in the troublous condition of one
trying to do right against a powerful fermentation of pride. He held
noblest principles; but the sediment of generations was too easily
stirred up to cloud them. He was not quite honest in his attitude
towards some of his ancestors, judging them far more leniently than
he would have judged others. He loved his neighbour, but his
neighbour was mostly of his own family or his own clan. He MIGHT
have been unjust for the sake of his own--a small fault in the eyes
of the world, but a great fault indeed in a nature like his, capable
of being so much beyond it. For, while the faults of a good man
cannot be such evil things as the faults of a bad man, they are more
blameworthy, and greater faults than the same would be in a bad man:
we must not confuse the guilt of the person with the abstract evil
of the thing.
Ian was one of those blessed few who doubt in virtue of a larger
faith. While its roots were seeking a deeper soil, it could not show
so fast a growth above ground, He doubted most about the things he
loved best, while he devoted the energies of a mind whose keenness
almost masked its power, to discover possible ways of believing
them. To the wise his doubts would have been his best credentials;
they were worth tenfold the faith of most. It was truth, and higher
truth, he was always seeking. The sadness which coloured his deepest
individuality, only one thing could ever remove--the conscious
presence of the Eternal. This is true of all sadness, but Ian knew
it.
He overtook Alister on his way to the barley-field.
"I have been trying to find out wherein lay the falseness of the
position in which you found yourself this morning," he said. "There
could be nothing wrong in doing a small thing for its reward any
more than a great one; where I think you went wrong was in ASSUMING
your social position afterwards: you should have waited for its
being accorded you. There was no occasion to be offended with the
man. You ought to have seen how you must look to him, and given him
time. I don't perceive why you should be so gracious to old mistress
Conal, and so hard upon him. Certainly you would not speak as he did
to any man, but he has been brought up differently; he is not such a
gentleman as you cannot help being. In a word, you ought to have
treated him as an inferior, and been more polite to him."
CHAPTER X.
THE PLOUGH-BULLS.
Partly, it may be, from such incidents at the outset of their
acquaintance, there was for some time no further meeting betwixt any
of the chief's family and that of the new laird. There was indeed
little to draw them together except common isolation. Valentine
would have been pleased to show gratitude to his helpers on that
stormy night, but after his sisters' account of their call, he felt
not only ashamed, which was right, but ashamed to show his shame,
which was a fresh shame. The girls on their part made so much of
what they counted the ridiculous elements of their "adventure,"
that, natural vengeance on their untruthfulness, they came
themselves to see in it almost only what was ridiculous. In the same
spirit Mr. Sercombe recounted his adventure with Alister, which
annoyed his host, who had but little acquaintance with the
boundaries of his land. From the additional servants they had hired
in the vicinity, the people of the New House gathered correct
information concerning the people at the cottage, but the honour in
which they were held only added to the ridicule they associated with
them. On the other side also there was little inclination towards a
pursuit of intercourse. Mrs. Macruadh, from Nancy's account and the
behaviour of the girls, divined the explanation of their visit; and,
as their mother did not follow it up, took no notice of it. In the
mind of Mercy, however, lurked a little thorn, with the bluntest
possible sting of suspicion, every time she joined in a laugh at the
people of the cottage, that she was not quite just to them.
The shooting, such as it was, went on, the sleeping and the eating,
the walking and the talking. Long letters were written from the New
House to female friends--letters with the flourishes if not the
matter of wit, and funny tales concerning the natives, whom, because
of their poor houses and unintelligibility, they represented as
semi-savages. The young men went back to Oxford; and the time for
the return of the family to civilization seemed drawing nigh.
It happened about this time, however, that a certain speculation in
which Mr. Peregrine Palmer was very materially interested, failed
utterly, depriving him of the consciousness of a good many
thousands, and producing in him the feeling of a lady of moderate
means when she loses her purse: he must save it off something! For
though he spent freely, he placed a great value on money--as well he
might, seeing it gave him all the distinction which before
everything else he prized. He did not know what a poor thing it is
to be distinguished among men, therefore did not like losing his
thousands. Having by failure sinned against Mammon, he must do
something to ease the money-conscience that ruled his conduct; and
the first thing that occurred to him was, to leave his wife and
daughters where they were for the winter. None of them were in the
least delicate; his wife professed herself fond of a country life;
it would give the girls a good opportunity for practice, drawing,
and study generally, and he would find them a suitable governess! He
talked the matter over with Mrs. Palmer. She did not mind much, and
would not object. He would spend Christmas with them, he said, and
bring down Christian, and perhaps Mr. Sercombe.
The girls did not like the idea. It was so cold in the country in
winter, and the snow would be so deep! they would be starved to
death! But, of course--if the governor had made up his mind to be
cruel!
The thing was settled. It was only for one winter! It would be a new
experience for them, and they would enjoy their next SEASON all the
more! The governor had promised to send them down new furs, and a
great boxful of novels! He did not apprise them that he meant to
sell their horses. Their horses were his! He was an indulgent father
and did not stint them, but he was not going to ask their leave! At
the same time he had not the courage to tell them.
He took his wife with him as far as Inverness for a day or two, that
she might lay in a good stock of everything antagonistic to cold.
When father and mother were gone from the house, the girls felt
LARKY. They had no wish to do anything they would not do if their
parents were at home, but they had some sense of relief in the
thought that they could do whatever they liked. A more sympathetic
historian might say, and I am nowise inclined to contradict him,
that it was only the reaction from the pain of parting, and the
instinct to make the best of their loneliness. However it was, the
elder girls resolved on a walk to the village, to see what might be
seen, and in particular the young woman at the shop, of whom they
had heard their brother and Mr. Sercombe speak with admiration,
qualified with the remark that she was so proper they could hardly
get a civil word out of her. She was in fact too scrupulously polite
for their taste.
It was a bright, pleasant, frosty morning, perfectly still, with an
air like wine. The harvest had vanished from the fields. The sun
shone on millions of tiny dew-suns, threaded on forsaken
spider-webs. A few small, white, frozen clouds flecked the sky. The
purple heather was not yet gone, and not any snow had yet fallen in
the valley. The burn was large, for there had been a good deal of
rain, but it was not much darker than its usual brown of
smoke-crystal. They tripped gaily along. If they had little
spiritual, they had much innocent animal life, which no great
disappointments or keen twinges of conscience had yet damped. They
were hut human kittens--and not of the finest breed.
As they crossed the root of the spur, and looked down on the autumn
fields to the east of it, they spied something going on which they
did not understand. Stopping, and gazing more intently, they beheld
what seemed a contest between man and beast, but its nature they
could not yet distinguish. Gradually it grew plain that two of the
cattle of the country, wild and shaggy, were rebelling against
control. They were in fact two young bulls, of the small black
highland breed, accustomed to gallop over the rough hills, jumping
like goats, which Alister had set himself the task of breaking to
the plough--by no means an easy one, or to be accomplished
single-handed by any but a man of some strength, and both
persistence and patience. In the summer he had lost a horse, which
he could ill afford to replace: if he could make these bulls work,
they would save him the price of the horse, would cost less to keep,
and require less attention! He bridled them by the nose, not with
rings through the gristle, but with nose-bands of iron, bluntly
spiked inside, against which they could not pull hard without pain,
and had made some progress, though he could by no means trust them
yet: every now and then a fit of mingled wildness and stubbornness
would seize them, and the contest would appear about to begin again
from the beginning; but they seldom now held out very long. The
nose-band of one of them had come off, Alister had him by a horn in
each hand, and a fierce struggle was going on between them, while
the other was pulling away from his companion as if determined to
take to the hills. It was a good thing for them that share and
coulter were pretty deep in the ground, to the help of their master;
for had they got away, they would have killed, or at least disabled
themselves. Presently, however, he had the nose-band on, and by
force and persuasion together got the better of them; the staggy
little furies gave in; and quickly gathering up his reins, he went
back to the plough-stilts, where each hand held at once a handle and
a rein. With energetic obedience the little animals began to
pull--so vigorously that it took nearly all the chief's strength to
hold at once his plough and his team.
It was something of a sight to the girls after a long dearth of
events. Many things indeed upon which they scarce cast an eye when
they came, they were now capable of regarding with a little feeble
interest. Nor, although ignorant of everything agricultural, were
they quite unused to animals; having horses they called their own,
they would not unfrequently go to the stables to give their orders,
or see that they were carried out.
They waited for some time hoping the fight would begin again, and
drew a little nearer; then, as by common consent, left the road,
passed the ruin, ran down the steep side of the ridge, and began to
toil through the stubble towards the ploughman. A sharp straw would
every now and then go through a delicate stocking, and the damp soil
gathered in great lumps on their shoes, but they plodded on,
laughing merrily as they went.
The Macruadh was meditating the power of the frost to break up the
clods of the field, when he saw the girls close to him. He pulled in
his cattle, and taking off his bonnet with one hand while the other
held both reins--
"Excuse me, ladies," he said; "my animals are young, and not quite
broken."
They were not a little surprised at such a reception, and were
driven to conclude that the man must be the laird himself. They had
heard that he cultivated his own land, but had not therefore
imagined him labouring in his own person.
In spite of the blindness produced by their conventional training,
vulgarly called education, they could not fail to perceive something
in the man worthy of their regard. Before them, on the alert toward
his cattle, but full of courtesy, stood a dark, handsome,
weather-browned man, with an eagle air, not so pronounced as his
brother's. His hair was long, and almost black,--in thick, soft
curls over a small, well-set head. His glance had the flash that
comes of victorious effort, and his free carriage was that of one
whom labour has nowise subdued, whose every muscle is instinct with
ready life. True even in trifles, he wore the dark beard that nature
had given him; disordered by the struggle with his bulls, it
imparted a certain wild look that contrasted with his speech.
Christina forgot that the man was a labourer like any other, but
noted that he did not manifest the least embarrassment in their
presence, or any consciousness of a superfluity of favour in their
approach: she did not know that neither would his hired servant, or
the poorest member of his clan. It was said of a certain Sutherland
clan that they were all gentlemen, and of a certain Argyll clan that
they were all poets; of the Macruadhs it was said they were both. As
to Mercy, the first glance of the chiefs hazel eyes, looking
straight into hers with genial respect, went deeper than any look
had yet penetrated.
Ladies in Alister's fields were not an everyday sight. Hardly before
had his work been enlivened by such a presence; and the joy of it
was in his eyes, though his behaviour was calm. Christina thought
how pleasant it would be to have him for a worshipping slave--so
interpenetrated with her charms that, like Una's lion, he would
crouch at her feet, come and go at her pleasure, live on her smiles,
and be sad when she gave him none. She would make a gentleman of
him, then leave him to dream of her! It would be a pleasant and
interesting task in the dullness of their winter's banishment, with
the days so short and the nights so unendurably long! The man was
handsome!--she would do it!--and would proceed at once to initiate
the conquest of him!
The temptation to patronize not unfrequently presents an object for
the patronage superior to the would-be patron; for the temptation is
one to which slight persons chiefly are exposed; it affords an
outlet for the vague activity of self-importance. Few have learned
that one is of no value except to God and other men. Miss Palmer
worshipped herself, and therefore would fain be worshipped--so
dreamed of a friendship de haut en bas with the country fellow.
She put on a smile--no difficult thing, for she was a good-natured
girl. It looked to Alister quite natural. It was nevertheless, like
Hamlet's false friends, "sent for."
"Do you like ploughing?" she asked.
Had she known the manners of the country, she would have added
"laird," or "Macruadh."
"Yes I do," Alister answered; "but I should plough all the same if I
did not. It has to be done."
"But why should YOU do it?"
"Because I must," laughed the laird.
What ought she to answer? Should she condole with the man because he
had to work? It did not seem prudent! She would try another tack!
"You had some trouble with your oxen! We saw it from the road, and
were quite frightened. I hope you are not hurt."
"There was no danger of that," answered Alister with a smile.
"What wild creatures they are! Ain't it rather hard work for them?
They are so small!"
"They are as strong as horses," answered the laird. "I have had my
work to break them! Indeed, I can hardly say I have done it yet!
they would very much like to run their horns into me!"
"Then it MUST be dangerous! It shows that they were not meant to
work!"
"They were meant to work if I can make them work."
"Then you approve of slavery!" said Mercy
She hardly knew what made her oppose him. As yet she had no opinions
of her own, though she did catch a thought sometimes, when it
happened to come within her reach. Alister smiled a curious smile.
"I should," he said, "if the right people were made slaves of. I
would take shares in a company of Algerine pirates to rid the social
world of certain types of the human!"
The girls looked at each other. "Sharp!" said Christina to herself.
"What sorts would you have them take?" she asked.
"Idle men in particular," answered Alister.
"Would you not have them take idle ladies as well?"
"I would see first how they behaved when the men were gone."
"You believe, then," said Mercy, "we have a right to make the lower
animals work?"
"I think it is our duty," answered Alister. "At all events, if we do
not, we must either kill them off by degrees, or cede them this
world, and emigrate. But even that would be a bad thing for my
little bulls there! It is not so many years since the last wolf was
killed--here, close by! and if the dogs turned to wolves again,
where would they be? The domestic animals would then have wild
beasts instead of men for their masters! To have the world a
habitable one, man must rule."
"Men are nothing but tyrants to them!" said Christina.
"Most are, I admit."
Ere he could prevent her, she had walked up to the near bull, and
begun to pat him. He poked a sharp wicked horn sideways at her,
catching her cloak on it, and grazing her arm. She started back very
white. Alister gave him a terrible tug. The beast shook his head,
and began to paw the earth.
"It wont do to go near him," he said. "--But you needn't be afraid;
he can't touch you. That iron band round his nose has spikes in it."
"Poor fellow!" said Christina; "it is no wonder he should be out of
temper! It must hurt him dreadfully!"
"It does hurt him when he pulls against it, but not when he is
quiet."
"I call it cruel!"
"I do not. The fellow knows what is wanted of him--just as well as
any naughty child."
"How can he when he has no reason!"
"Oh, hasn't he!"
"Animals have no reason; they have only instinct!"
"They have plenty of reason--more than many men and women. They are
not so far off us as pride makes most people think! It is only those
that don't know them that talk about the instinct of animals!"
"Do you know them?"
"Pretty well for a man; but they're often too much for me."
"Anyhow that poor thing does not know better."
"He knows enough; and if he did not, would you allow him to do as he
pleased because he didn't know better? He wanted to put his horn
into you a moment ago!"
"Still it must be hard to want very much to do a thing, and not be
able to do it!" said Mercy.
"I used to feel as if I could tear my old nurse to pieces when she
wouldn't let me do as I wanted!" said Christina.
"I suppose you do whatever you please now, ladies?"
"No, indeed. We wanted to go to London, and here we are for the
winter!"
"And you think it hard?"
"Yes, we do."
"And so, from sympathy, you side with my cattle?"
"Well--yes!"
"You think I have no right to keep them captive, and make them
work?"
"None at all," said Christina.
"Then it is time I let them go!"
Alister made for the animals' heads.
"No, no! please don't!" cried both the girls, turning, the one
white, the other red.
"Certainly not if you do not wish it!" answered Alister, staying his
step. "If I did, however, you would be quite safe, for they would
not come near me. They would be off up that hill as hard as they
could tear, jumping everything that came in their way."
"Is it not very dull here in the winter?" asked Christina, panting a
little, but trying to look as if she had known quite well he was
only joking.
"I do not find it dull."
"Ah, but you are a man, and can do as you please!"
"I never could do as I pleased, and so I please as I do," answered
Alister.
"I do not quite understand you."
"When you cannot do as you like, the best thing is to like what you
have to do. One's own way is not to be had in this world. There's a
better, though, which is to be had!"
"I have heard a parson talk like that," said Mercy, "but never a
layman!"
"My father was a parson as good as any layman. He would have laid me
on my back in a moment--here as I stand!" said Alister, drawing
himself to his height.
He broke suddenly into Gaelic, addressing the more troublesome of
the bulls. No better pleased to stand still than to go on, he had
fallen to digging at his neighbour, who retorted with the horn
convenient, and presently there was a great mixing of bull and
harness and cloddy earth. Turning quickly towards them, Alister
dropped a rein. In a moment the plough was out of the furrow, and
the bulls were straining every muscle, each to send the other into
the wilds of the unseen creation. Alister sprang to their heads, and
taking them by their noses forced them back into the line of the
furrow. Christina, thinking they had broken loose, fled; but there
was Mercy with the reins, hauling with all her might!
"Thank you, thank you!" said the laird, laughing with pleasure. "You
are a friend indeed!"
"Mercy! Mercy! come away directly," cried Christina.
But Mercy did not heed her. The laird took the reins, and
administering a blow each to the animals, made them stand still.
There are tender-hearted people who virtually object to the whole
scheme of creation; they would neither have force used nor pain
suffered; they talk as if kindness could do everything, even where
it is not felt. Millions of human beings but for suffering would
never develop an atom of affection. The man who would spare DUE
suffering is not wise. It is folly to conclude a thing ought not to
be done because it hurts. There are powers to be born, creations to
be perfected, sinners to be redeemed, through the ministry of pain,
that could be born, perfected, redeemed, in no other way. But
Christina was neither wise nor unwise after such fashion. She was
annoyed at finding the laird not easily to be brought to her feet,
and Mercy already advanced to his good graces. She was not jealous
of Mercy, for was she not beautiful and Mercy plain? but Mercy had
by her PLUCK secured an advantage, and the handsome ploughman looked
at her admiringly! Partly therefore because she was not pleased with
him, partly that she thought a little outcry would be telling,--
"Oh, you wicked man!" she cried, "you are hurting the poor brutes!"
"No more than is necessary," he answered.
"You are cruel!"
"Good morning, ladies."
He just managed to take off his bonnet, for the four-legged
explosions at the end of his plough were pulling madly. He slackened
his reins, and away it went, like a sharp knife through a Dutch
cheese.
"You've made him quite cross!" said Mercy.
"What a brute of a man!" said Christina.
She never restrained herself from teasing cat or puppy for her
amusement--did not even mind hurting it a little. Those capable of
distinguishing between the qualities of resembling actions are few.
There are some who will regard Alister as capable of vivisection.
On one occasion when the brothers were boys, Alister having lost his
temper in the pursuit of a runaway pony, fell upon it with his fists
the moment he caught it. Ian put himself between, and received,
without word or motion, more than one blow meant for the pony.
"Donal was only in fun!" he said, as soon as Alister's anger had
spent itself. "Father would never have punished him like that!"
Alister was ashamed, and never again was guilty of such an outbreak.
From that moment he began the serious endeavour to subjugate the
pig, tiger, mule, or whatever animal he found in himself. There
remained, however, this difference between them--that Alister
punished without compunction, while Ian was sorely troubled at
having to cause any suffering.
CHAPTER XI.
THE FIR-GROVE.
As the ladies went up the ridge, regarded in the neighbourhood as
the chief's pleasure-ground where nobody went except to call upon
the chief, they must, having mounted it lower down than where they
descended, pass the cottage. The grove of birch, mountain-ash, and
fir which surrounded it, was planted quite irregularly, and a narrow
foot-path went winding through it to the door. Against one of the
firs was a rough bench turned to the west, and seated upon it they
saw Ian, smoking a formless mass of much defiled sea-foam, otherwise
meer-schaum. He rose, uncovered, and sat down again. But Christina,
who regarded it as a praiseworthy kindness to address any one
beneath her, not only returned his salutation, but stopped, and
said,
"Good morning! We have been learning how they plough in Scotland,
but I fear we annoyed the ploughman."
"Fergus does sometimes LOOK surly," said Ian, rising again, and
going to her; "he has bad rheumatism, poor fellow! And then he can't
speak a word of English, and is ashamed of it!"
"The man we saw spoke English very well. Is Fergus your brother's
name?"
"No; my brother's name is Alister--that is Gaelic for Alexander."
"He was ploughing with two wild little oxen, and could hardly manage
them."
"Then it must have been Alister--only, excuse me, he could manage
them perfectly. Alister could break a pair of buffaloes."
"He seemed rather vexed, and I thought it might be that we made the
creatures troublesome.--I do not mean he was rude--only a little
rough to us."
Ian smiled, and waited for more.
"He did not like to be told he was hard on the animals. I only said
the poor things did not know better!"
"Ah--I see!--He understands animals so well, he doesn't like to be
meddled with in his management of them. I daresay he told you that,
if they didn't know better, he had to teach them better! They are
troublesome little wretches.--Yes, I confess he is a little touchy
about animals!"
Somehow Christina felt herself rebuked, and did not like it. He had
almost told her that, if she had quarrelled with his ploughman-brother,
the fault must be hers!
"But indeed, Captain Macruadh," she said--for the people called him
captain, "I am not ignorant about animals! We have horses of our
own, and know all about them.--Don't we, Mercy?"
"Yes," said Mercy; "they take apples and sugar from our hands."
"And you would have the chief's bulls tamed with apples and sugar!"
returned Ian, laughing. "But the horses were tamed before ever you
saw them! If you had taken them wild, or even when they were foals,
and taught them everything, then you would know a little about them.
An acquaintance is not a friendship! My brother loves animals and
understands them almost like human beings; he understands them
better than some human beings, for the most cunning of the animals
are yet simple. He knows what they are thinking when I cannot read a
word of their faces. I remember one terrible night, winters
ago--there had been a blinding drift on and off during the day, and
my father and mother were getting anxious about him--how he came
staggering in, and fell on the floor, and a great lump in his plaid
on his back began to wallow about, and forth crept his big colley!
They had been to the hills to look after a few sheep, and the poor
dog was exhausted, and Alister carried him home at the risk of his
life."
"A valuable animal, I don't doubt," said Christina.
"He had been, but was no more what the world calls valuable. He was
an old dog almost past work--but the wisest creature! Poor fellow,
he never recovered that day on the hills! A week or so after, we
buried him--in the hope of a blessed resurrection," added Ian, with
a smile.
The girls looked at each other as much as to say, "Good heavens!" He
caught the look, but said nothing, for he saw they had "no
understanding."
The brothers believed most devoutly that the God who is present at
the death-bed of the sparrow does not forget the sparrow when he is
dead; for they had been taught that he is an unchanging God; "and,"
argued Ian, "what God remembers, he thinks of, and what he thinks
of, IS." But Ian knew that what misses the heart falls under the
feet! A man is bound to SHARE his best, not to tumble his
SEED-PEARLS into the feeding-trough, to break the teeth of them that
are there at meat. He had but lifted a corner to give them a glimpse
of the Life eternal, and the girls thought him ridiculous! The human
caterpillar that has not yet even begun to sicken with the growth of
her psyche-wings, is among the poorest of the human animals!
But Christina was not going to give in! Her one idea of the glory of
life was the subjugation of men. As if moved by a sudden impulse,
she went close up to him.
"Do not be angry with me," she said, almost coaxingly, but with a
visible mingling of boldness and shyness, neither of them quite
assumed; for, though conscious of her boldness, she was not
frightened; and there was something in the eagle-face that made it
easy to look shy. "I did not mean to be rude. I am sorry."
"You mistake me," he said gently. "I only wanted you to know you
misjudged my brother."
"Then, if you have forgiven me, you will let me sit for a few
minutes! I am SO tired with walking in the sticky earth!"
"Do, pray, sit down," responded Ian heartily, and led the way.
But she sank gracefully at the foot of the next fir, while Mercy sat
down on the bench.
"Do go on with your pipe," she said, looking up as she arranged her
dress; "I am quite used to smoke. Papa would smoke in church if he
dared!"
"Chrissy! You KNOW he NEVER smokes in the drawing-room!" cried
Mercy, scandalized.
"I have seen him--when mamma was away."
Ian began to be a little more interested in the plain one. But what
must his mother think to see them sitting there together! He could
not help it! if ladies chose to sit down, it was not for him to
forbid them! And there WAS a glimmer of conscience in the younger!
Most men believe only what they find or imagine possible to
themselves. They may be sure of this, that there are men so
different from them that no judgment they pass upon them is worth a
straw, simply because it does not apply to them. I assert of Ian
that neither beauty nor intellect attracted him. Imagination would
entice him, but the least lack of principle would arrest its
influence. The simplest manifestation of a live conscience would
draw him more than anything else. I do not mean the conscience that
proposes questions, but the conscience that loves right and turns
from wrong.
Notwithstanding the damsel's invitation, he did not resume his pipe.
He was simple, but not free and easy--too sensitive to the relations
of life to be familiar upon invitation with any girl. If she was not
one with whom to hold real converse, it was impossible to blow
dandelions with her, and talk must confine itself to the
commonplace. After gentlest assays to know what was possible, the
result might be that he grew courteously playful, or drew back, and
confined himself to the formal.
In the conversation that followed, he soon found the younger capable
of being interested, and, having seen much in many parts of the
world, had plenty to tell her. Christina smiled sweetly, taking
everything with over-gentle politeness, but looking as if all that
interested her was, that there they were, talking about it. Provoked
at last by her persistent lack of GENUINE reception, Ian was tempted
to try her with something different: perhaps she might be moved to
horror! Any feeling would be a FIND! He thought he would tell them
an adventure he had read in a book of travels.
In Persia, alone in a fine moonlit night, the traveller had fallen
asleep on his horse, but woke suddenly, roused by something
frightful, he did not know what. The evil odour all about him
explained, however, his bewilderment and terror. Presently he was
bumped on this side, then bumped on that; first one knee, then the
other, would be struck; now the calf of one leg was caught, now the
calf of the other; then both would be caught at once, and he shoved
nearly over his pommel. His horse was very uneasy, but could ill
help himself in the midst of a moving mass of uncertain objects. The
traveller for a moment imagined himself in a boat on the sea, with a
huge quantity of wrecked cargo floating around him, whence came the
frequent collisions he was undergoing; but he soon perceived that
the vague shapes were boxes, pannierwise on the backs of mules,
moving in caravan along the desert. Of not a few the lids were
broken, of some gone altogether, revealing their contents--the
bodies of good Mussulmans, on their way to the consecrated soil of
Mecca for burial. Carelessly shambled the mules along, stumbling as
they jogged over the uneven ground, their boxes tilting from side to
side, sorely shaken, some of them, in frustration of dying hopes,
scattering their contents over the track--for here and there a mule
carried but a wreck of coffins. On and on over the rough gravelly
waste, under the dead cold moon, weltered the slow stream of death!
"You may be sure," concluded Ian, "he made haste out of the ruck!
But it was with difficulty he got clear, happily to windward--then
for an hour sat motionless on his horse, watching through the
moonlight the long dark shadow flitting toward its far-off goal.
When at length he could no longer descry it, he put his horse to his
speed--but not to overtake it."
As he spoke, Mercy's eyes grew larger and larger, never leaving his
face. She had at least imagination enough for that! Christina curled
her pretty lip, and looked disgusted. The one at a horrible tale was
horrified, the other merely disgusted! The one showed herself
capable of some reception; the other did not.
"Something might be done with that girl!" thought Ian.
"Did he see their faces?" drawled Christina.
Mercy was silent, but her eyes remained fixed on him. It was Ian's
telling, more than the story, that impressed her.
"I don't think he mentions them," answered Ian. "But shall I tell
you," he went on, "what seems to me the most unpleasant thing about
the business?"
"Do," said Christina.
"It is that the poor ghosts should see such a disagreeable fuss made
with their old clothes."
Christina smiled.
"Do you think ghosts see what goes on after they are dead?" asked
Mercy.
"The ghosts are not dead," said Ian, "and I can't tell. But I am
inclined to think some ghosts have to stay a while and look on."
"What would be the good of that?" returned Mercy.
"Perhaps to teach them the little good they were in, or got out of
the world," he answered. "To have to stick to a thing after it is
dead, is terrible, but may teach much."
"I don't understand you," said Mercy. "The world is not dead!"
"Better and better!" thought Ian with himself. "The girl CAN
understand!--A thing is always dead to you when you have done with
it," he answered her. "Suppose you had a ball-dress crumpled and
unsightly--the roses on it withered, and the tinsel shining
hideously through them--would it not be a dead dress?"
"Yes, indeed."
"Then suppose, for something you had done, or for something you
would not stop being, you had to wear that ball-dress till something
came about--you would be like the ghosts that cannot get
away.--Suppose, when you were old and wrinkled,--"
"You are very amusing, Captain Macruadh!" said Christina, with a
bell-like laugh. But Ian went on.
"Some stories tell us of ghosts with the same old wrinkled faces in
which they died. The world and its uses over, they are compelled to
haunt it still, seeing how things go but taking no share in them
beholding the relief their death is to all, feeling they have lost
their chance of beauty, and are fixed in ugliness, having wasted
being itself! They are like a man in a miserable dream, in which he
can do nothing, but in which he must stay, and go dreaming, dreaming
on without hope of release. To be in a world and have nothing to do
with it, must be awful! A little more imagination would do some
people good!"
"No, please!--no more for me!" said Christina, laughing as she rose.
Mercy was silent. Though she had never really thought about anything
herself, she did not doubt that certain people were in earnest about
something. She knew that she ought to be good, and she knew she was
not good; how to be good she did not know, for she had never set
herself, to be good. She sometimes wished she were good; but there
are thousands of wandering ghosts who would be good if they might
without taking trouble: the kind of goodness they desire would
not be worth a life to hold it.
Fear is a wholesome element in the human economy; they are merely
silly who would banish it from all association with religion. True,
there is no religion in fear; religion is love, and love casts out
fear; but until a man has love, it is well he should have fear. So
long as there are wild beasts about, it is better to be afraid than
secure.
The vague awe ready to assail every soul that has not found rest in
its source, readier the more honest the soul, had for the first time
laid hold of Mercy. The earnest face of the speaker had most to do
with it. She had never heard anybody talk like that!
The lady of the house appeared, asking, with kind dignity, if they
would not take some refreshment: to a highlander hospitality is a
law where not a passion. Christina declined the offer.
"Thanks! we were only a little tired, and are quite rested now," she
said. "How beautifully sheltered your house is!"
"On the side of the sea, yes," answered Mrs. Macruadh; "but not much
on the east where we want it most. The trees are growing, however!"
When the sisters were out of sight of the cottage--
"Well!" remarked Christina, "he's a nice young man too, is he not?
Exceedingly well bred! And what taste he has! He knows how to amuse
ladies!"
Mercy did not answer.
"I never heard anything so disgusting!" pursued Christina.
"But," suggested Mercy, "you like to READ horrid stories, Chrissy!
You said so only yesterday! And there was nothing in what he told us
that oughtn't to be spoken about."
"What!--not those hideous coffins--and the bodies dropping out of
them--all crawling, no doubt?"
"That is your own, Chrissy! You KNOW he did not go so far as that!
If Colonel Webberly had told you the story, you would have called it
charming--in fun, of course, I mean!"
But Christina never liked the argumentum ad feminam.
"I would not! You know I would not!" she exclaimed. "I do believe
the girl has fallen in love with the horrid man! Of the two, I
declare, I like the ploughman better. I am sorry I happened to vex
him; he is a good stupid sort of fellow! I can't bear this man! How
horribly he fixed his eyes on you when he was talking that rubbish
about the ball-dress!"
"He was anxious to make himself understood. I know he made me think
I must mind what I was about!"
"Oh, nonsense! We didn't come into this wilderness to be preached to
by a lay John the Baptist! He is an ill-bred fellow!"
She would not have said so much against him, had not Mercy taken his
part.
Mercy rarely contradicted her sister, but even this brief passage
with a real man had roused the justice in her.
"I don't agree with you, Chrissy," she said. "He seems to me VERY
MUCH of a gentleman!"
She did not venture to say all she felt, not choosing to be at
absolute variance, and the threatened quarrel blew over like a
shower in spring.
But some sort of impression remained from the words of Ian on the
mind of Mercy, for the next morning she read a chapter in the book
of Genesis, and said a prayer her mother had taught her.
CHAPTER XII.
AMONG THE HILLS.
When Mr. and Mrs. Palmer reached Inverness, they found they could
spend a few days there, one way and another, to good purpose, for
they had friends to visit as well as shopping to do. Mr. Palmer's
affairs calling him to the south were not immediately pressing, and
their sojourn extended itself to a full week of eight days, during
which the girls were under no rule but their own. Their parents
regarded them as perfectly to be trusted, nor were the girls
themselves aware of any reason why they should not be so regarded.
The window of Christina's bedroom overlooked a part of the road
between the New House and the old castle; and she could see from it
all the ridge as far as the grove that concealed the cottage: if now
they saw more of the young men their neighbours, and were led
farther into the wilds, thickets, or pasturage of their
acquaintance, I cannot say she had no hand in it.
She was depressed by a sense of failure; the boor, as she called
him, was much too thick-skinned for any society but that of his
bulls! and she had made no progress with the Valentine any more than
with the Orson; he was better pleased with her ugly sister than with
her beautiful self!
She would have given neither of tie men another thought, but that
there was no one else with whom to do any of that huckster business
called flirting, which to her had just harm enough in it to make it
interesting to her. She was one of those who can imagine beauty nor
enjoyment in a thing altogether right. She took it for granted that
bad and beautiful were often one; that the pleasures of the world
owed their delight to a touch, a wash, a tincture of the wicked in
them. Such have so many crooked lines in themselves that they fancy
nature laid down on lines of crookedness. They think the obliquity
the beauty of the campanile, the blurring the charm of the sketch.
I tread on delicate ground--ground which, alas! many girls tread
boldly, scattering much feather-bloom from the wings of poor Psyche,
gathering for her hoards of unlovely memories, and sowing the seed
of many a wish that they had done differently. They cannot pass over
such ground and escape having their nature more or less vulgarized.
I do not speak of anything counted wicked; it is only gambling with
the precious and lovely things of the deepest human relation! If a
girl with such an experience marry a man she loves--with what power
of loving may be left such a one--will she not now and then remember
something it would be joy to discover she had but dreamed? will she
be able always to forget certain cabinets in her brain which "it
would not do" to throw open to the husband who thinks her simple as
well as innocent? Honesty and truth, God's essentials, are perhaps
more lacking in ordinary intercourse between young men and women
than anywhere else. Greed and selfishness are as busy there as in
money-making and ambition. Thousands on both sides are constantly
seeking more than their share--more also than they even intend to
return value for. Thousands of girls have been made sad for life by
the speeches of a man careful all the time to SAY nothing that
amounted to a pledge! I do not forget that many a woman who would
otherwise have been worth little, has for her sorrow found such
consolation that she has become rich before God; these words hold
nevertheless: "It must needs be that offences come, but woe to that
man by whom the offence cometh!"
On a morning two days later, Christina called Mercy, rather
imperiously, to get ready at once for their usual walk. She obeyed,
and they set out. Christina declared she was perishing with cold,
and they walked fast. By and by they saw on the road before them the
two brothers walking slow; one was reading, the other listening.
When they came nearer they descried in Alister's hand a manuscript
volume; Ian carried an old-fashioned fowling-piece. It was a hard
frost, which was perhaps the cause of Alister's leisure so early in
the day.
Hearing the light steps of the girls behind them, the men turned.
The laird was the first to speak. The plough and the fierce bulls
not there to bewilder their judgment, the young women immediately
discovered their perception in the matter of breeding to be less
infallible than they had imagined it: no well bred woman could for a
moment doubt the man before them a gentleman--though his carriage
was more courteous and more natural than is often seen in a Mayfair
drawing-room, and his English, a little old-fashioned. Ian was at
once more like and more unlike other people. His manner was equally
courteous, but notably stiffer: he was as much at his ease, but more
reserved. To use a figure, he did not step out so far to meet them.
They walked on together.
"You are a little earlier than usual this morning, ladies!" remarked
the chief.
"How do you know that, Mr. Macruadh?" rejoined Christina.
"I often see you pass--and till now always at the same hour."
"And yet we have never met before!"
"The busy and the"--he hesitated a moment--"unbusy seldom meet,"
said the chief.
"Why don't you say the IDLE?" suggested Christina.
"Because that would be rude."
"Why would it be rude? Most people, suppose, are more idle than
busy!"
"IDLE is a word of blame; I had no right to use it."
"I should have taken you for one of those who always speak their
minds!"
"I hope I do when it is required, and I have any to speak."
"You prefer judging with closed doors!"
The chief was silent: he did not understand her. Did she want him to
say he did not think them idle? or, if they were, that they were
quite right?
"I think it hard," resumed Christina, with a tone of injury, almost
of suffering, in her voice, "that we should be friendly and open
with people, and they all the time thinking of us in a way it would
be rude to tell us! It is enough to make one vow never to speak
to--to anybody again!"
Alister turned and looked at her. What could she mean?
"You can't think it hard," he said, "that people should not tell you
what they think of you the moment they first see you!"
"They might at least tell us what they mean by calling us idle!"
"I said NOT BUSY."
"Is EVERYBODY to blame that is idle?" persisted Christina.
"Perhaps my brother will answer you that question," said Alister.
"If my brother and I tell you honestly what we thought of you when
first we saw you," said Ian, "will you tell us honestly what you
thought of us?"
The girls cast an involuntary glance at each other, and when their
eyes met, could not keep them from looking conscious. A twitching
also at the corners of Mercy's mouth showed they had been saying
more than they would care to be cross-questioned upon.
"Ah, you betray yourselves, ladies!" Ian said. "It is all very well
to challenge us, but you are not prepared to lead the way!"
"Girls are never allowed to lead!" said Christina. "The men are down
on them the moment they dare!"
"I am not that way inclined," answered Ian. "If man or woman lead TO
anything, success will justify the leader. I will propose another
thing!"
"What is it?" asked Christina.
"To agree that, when we are about to part, with no probability of
meeting again in this world, we shall speak out plainly what we
think of each other!"
"But that will be such a time!" said Christina.
"In a world that turns quite round every twenty-four hours, it may
be a very short time!"
"We shall be coming every summer, though I hope not to stay through
another winter!"
"Changes come when they are least expected!"
"We cannot know," said Alister, "that we shall never meet again!"
"There the probability will be enough."
"But how can we come to a better--I mean a FAIRER opinion of each
other, when we meet so seldom?" asked Mercy innocently.
"This is only the second time we have met, and already we are not
quite strangers!" said Christina.
"On the other hand," said Alister, "we have been within call for
more than two months, and this is our second meeting!"
"Well, who has not called?" said Christina.
The young men were silent. They did not care to discuss the question
as to which mother was to blame in the matter.
They were now in the bottom of the valley, had left the road, and
were going up the side of the burn, often in single file, Alister
leading, and Ian bringing up the rear, for the valley was thickly
strewn with lumps of gray rock, of all shapes and sizes. They seemed
to have rolled down the hill on the other side of the burn, but
there was no sign of their origin: the hill was covered with grass
below, and with heather above. Such was the winding of the way among
the stones--for path there was none--that again and again no one of
them could see another. The girls felt the strangeness of it, and
began to experience, without knowing it, a little of the power of
solitary places.
After walking thus for some distance, they found their leader
halted.
"Here we have to cross the burn," he said, "and go a long way up the
other side."
"You want to be rid of us!" said Christina.
"By no means," replied Alister. "We are delighted to have you with
us. But we must not let you get tired before turning to go back."
"If you really do not mind, we should like to go a good deal
farther. I want to see round the turn there, where another hill
comes from behind and closes up the view. We haven't anybody to go
with us, and have seen nothing of the country. The men won't take us
shooting; and mamma is always so afraid we lose ourselves, or fall
down a few precipices, or get into a bog, or be eaten by wild
beasts!"
"If this frost last, we shall have time to show you something of the
country. I see you can walk!"
"We can walk well enough, and should so like to get to the top of a
mountain!"
"For the crossing then!" said Alister, and turning to the burn,
jumped and re-jumped it, as if to let them see how to do it.
The bed of the stream was at the spot narrowed by two rocks, so
that, though there was little of it, the water went through with a
roar, and a force to take a man off his legs. It was too wide for
the ladies, and they stood eyeing it with dismay, fearing an end to
their walk and the pleasant companionship.
"Do not be frightened, ladies," said Alister: "it is not too wide
for you."
"You have the advantage of us in your dress!" said Christina.
"I will get you over quite safe," returned the chief.
Christina looked as if she could not trust herself to him.
"I will try," said Mercy.
"Jump high," answered Alister, as he sprang again to the other side,
and held out his hand across the chasm.
"I can neither jump high nor far!" said Mercy.
"Don't be in a hurry. I will take you--no, not by the hand; that
might slip--but by the wrist. Do not think how far you can jump; all
you have to do is to jump. Only jump as high as you can."
Mercy could not help feeling frightened--the water rushed so fast
and loud below.
"Are you sure you can get me over?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Then I will jump."
She sprang, and Alister, with a strong pull on her arm, landed her
easily.
"It is your turn now," he said, addressing Christina.
She was rather white, but tried to laugh.
"I--I--I don't think I can!" she said.
"It is really nothing," persuaded the chief.
"I am sorry to be a coward, but I fear I was born one."
"Some feelings nobody can help," said Ian, "but nobody need give way
to them. One of the bravest men I ever knew would always start aside
if the meanest little cur in the street came barking at him; and yet
on one occasion, when the people were running in all directions, he
took a mad dog by the throat, and held him. Come, Alister! you take
her by one arm and I will take her by the other."
The chief sprang to her side, and the moment she felt the grasp of
the two men, she had the needful courage. The three jumped together,
and all were presently walking merrily along the other bank, over
the same kind of ground, in single file--Ian bringing up the rear.
The ladies were startled by a gun going off close behind them.
"I beg your pardon," said Ian, "but I could not let the rascal go."
"What have you killed?" his brother asked.
"Only one of my own family--a red-haired fellow!" answered Ian, who
had left the path, and was going up the hill.
The girls looked, but saw nothing, and following him a few yards,
came to him behind a stone.
"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Christina, with horror in her tone,
"it's a fox!--Is it possible you have shot a fox?"
The men laughed.
"And why not?" asked Alister, as if he had no idea what she could
mean. "Is the fox a sacred animal in the south?"
"It's worse than poaching!" she cried.
"Hardly!" returned Alister. "No doubt you may get a good deal of fun
out of Reynard, but you can't make game of him! Why--you look as if
you had lost a friend! I admire his intellect, but we can't afford
to feed it on chickens and lambs."
"But to SHOOT him!"
"Why not? We do not respect him here. He is a rascal, to be sure,
but then he has no money, and consequently no friends!"
"He has many friends! What WOULD Christian or Mr. Sercombe say to
shooting, actually shooting a fox!"
"You treat him as if he were red gold!" said the chief. "We build
temples neither to Reynard nor Mammon here. We leave the men of the
south to worship them!"
"They don't worship them!" said Mercy.
"Do they not respect the rich man because he is rich, and look down
on the poor man because he is poor?" said Ian. "Though the rich be a
wretch, they think him grand; though the poor man be like Jesus
Christ, they pity him!"
"And shouldn't the poor be pitied?" said Christina.
"Not except they need pity."
"Is it not pitiable to be poor?"
"By no means. It is pitiable to be wretched--and that, I venture to
suspect, the rich are oftener than the poor.--But as to master
Reynard there--instead of shooting him, what would you have had us
do with him?"
"Hunt him, to be sure."
"Would he like that better?"
"What he would like is not the question. The sport is the thing."
"That will show you why he is not sacred here: we do not hunt him.
It would be impossible to hunt this country; you could not ride the
ground. Besides, there are such multitudes of holes, the hounds
would scarcely have a chance. No; the only dog to send after the
fellow is a leaden one."
"There's another!" exclaimed the chief; "--there, sneaking
away!--and your gun not loaded, Ian!"
"I am so glad!" said Christina. "He at least will escape you!"
"And some poor lamb in the spring won't escape him!" returned
Alister.
"Lambs are meant to be eaten!" said Christina.
"Yes; but a lamb might think it hard to feed such a creature!"
"If the fox is of no good in the world," said Mercy, "why was he
made?"
"He can't be of no good," answered the chief. "What if some things
are, just that we may get rid of them?"
"COULD they be made just to be got rid of?"
"I said--that WE might get rid of them: there is all the difference
in that. The very first thing men had to do in the world was to
fight beasts."
"I think I see what you mean," said Mercy: "if there had been no
wild beasts to fight with, men would never have grown able for
much!"
"That is it," said Alister. "They were awful beasts! and they had
poor weapons to fight them with--neither guns nor knives!"
"And who knows," suggested Ian, "what good it may be to the fox
himself to make the best of a greedy life?"
"But what is the good to us of talking about such things?" said
Christina. "They're not interesting!"
The remark silenced the brothers: where indeed could be use without
interest?
But Mercy, though she could hardly have said she found the
conversation VERY interesting, felt there was something in the men
that cared to talk about such things, that must be interesting if
she could only get at it. They were not like any other men she had
met!
Christina's whole interest in men was the admiration she looked for
and was sure of receiving from them; Mercy had hitherto found their
company stupid.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LAKE.
Silence lasted until they reached the shoulder of the hill that
closed the view up the valley. As they rounded it, the sun went
behind a cloud, and a chill wind, as if from a land where dwelt no
life, met them. The hills stood back, and they were on the shore of
a small lake, out of which ran the burn. They were very
desolate-looking hills, with little heather, and that bloomless, to
hide their hard gray bones. Their heads were mostly white with frost
and snow; their shapes had little beauty; they looked worn and
hopeless, ugly and sad--and so cold! The water below was slaty
gray, in response to the gray sky above: there seemed no life in
either. The hearts of the girls sank within them, and all at once
they felt tired. In the air was just one sign of life: high above
the lake wheeled a large fish-hawk.
"Look!" said Alister pointing; "there is the osprey that lives here
with his wife! He is just going to catch a fish!"
He had hardly spoken when the bird, with headlong descent, shot into
the water, making it foam up all about. He reappeared with a fish in
his claws, and flew off to find his mate.
"Do you know the very bird?" asked Mercy.
"I know him well. He and his wife have built on that conical rock
you see there in the middle of the water many years."
"Why have you never shot him? He would look well stuffed!" said
Christina.
She little knew the effect of her words; the chief HATED causeless
killing; and to hear a lady talk of shooting a high-soaring creature
of the air as coolly as of putting on her gloves, was nauseous to
him. Ian gave him praise afterwards for his unusual self-restraint.
But it was a moment or two ere he had himself in hand.
"Do you not think he looks much better going about God's business?"
he said.
"Perhaps; but he is not yours; you have not got him!"
"Why should I have him? He seems, indeed, the more mine the higher
he goes. A dead stuffed thing--how could that be mine at all? Alive,
he seems to soar in the very heaven of my soul!"
"You showed the fox no such pity!" remarked Mercy.
"I never killed a fox to HAVE him!" answered Alister. "The osprey
does no harm. He eats only fish, and they are very plentiful; he
never kills birds or hares, or any creature on the land. I do not
see how any one could wish to kill the bird, except from mere love
of destruction! Why should I make a life less in the world?"
"There would be more lives of fish--would there not?" said Mercy.
"I don't want you to shoot the poor bird; I only want to hear your
argument!"
The chief could not immediately reply, Ian came to his rescue.
"There are qualities in life," he said. "One cannot think the
fish-life so fine, so full of delight as the bird-life!"
"No. But," said Mercy, "have the fishes not as good a right to their
life as the birds?"
"Both have the right given them by the maker of them. The osprey was
made to eat the fish, and the fish, I hope, get some good of being
eaten by the osprey."
"Excuse me, Captain Macruadh, but that seems to me simple nonsense!"
said Christina.
"I hope it is true."
"I don't know about being true, but it must be nonsense."
"It must seem so to most people."
"Then why do you say it?"
"Because I hope it is true."
"Why should you wish nonsense to be true?"
"What is true cannot be nonsense. It looks nonsense only to those
that take no interest in the matter. Would it be nonsense to the
fishes?"
"It does seem hard," said Mercy, "that the poor harmless things
should be gobbled up by a creature pouncing down upon them from
another element!"
"As the poor are gobbled up everywhere by the rich!"
"I don't believe that. The rich are very kind to the poor."
"I beg your pardon," said Ian, "but if you know no more about the
rich than you do about the fish, I can hardly take your testimony.
The fish are the most carnivorous creatures in the world."
"Do they eat each other?"
"Hardly that. Only the cats of Kilkenny can do that."
"I used a common phrase!"
"You did, and I am rude: the phrase must bear the blame for both of
us. But the fish are even cannibals--eating the young of their own
species! They are the most destructive of creatures to other lives."
"I suppose," said Mercy, "to make one kind of creature live on
another kind, is the way to get the greatest good for the greatest
number!"
"That doctrine, which seems to content most people, appears to me a
poverty-stricken and selfish one. I can admit nothing but the
greatest good to every individual creature."
"Don't you think we had better be going, Mercy? It has got quite
cold; I am afraid it will rain," said Christina, drawing her cloak
round her with a little shiver.
"I am ready," answered Mercy.
The brothers looked at each other. They had come out to spend the
day together, but they could not leave the ladies to go home alone;
having brought them across the burn, they were bound to see them
over it again! An imperceptible sign passed between them, and
Alister turned to the girls.
"Come then," he said, "we will go back!"
"But you were not going home yet!" said Mercy.
"Would you have us leave you in this wild place?"
"We shall find our way well enough. The burn will guide us."
"Yes; but it will not jump over you; it will leave you to jump over
it!"
"I forgot the burn!" said Christina.
"Which way were you going?" asked Mercy, looking all around for road
or pathway over the encircling upheaved wildernesses.
"This way," answered Ian. "Good-bye."
"Then you are not coming?"
"No. My brother will take care of you."
He went straight as an arrow up the hill. They stood and watched him
go. At what seemed the top, he turned and waved his cap, then
vanished.
Christina felt disappointed. She did not much care for either of the
very peculiar young men, but any company was better than none; a man
was better than a woman; and two men were better than one! If these
were not equal to admiring her as she deserved, what more
remunerative labour than teaching them to do so?
The thing that chiefly disappointed her in them was, that they had
so little small talk. It was so stupid to be always speaking sense!
always polite! always courteous!--"Two sir Charles Grandisons," she
said, "are two too many!" And indeed the History of Sir Charles
Grandison had its place in the small library free to them from
childhood; but Christina knew nothing of him except by hearsay.
The young men had been brought up in a solemn school--had learned to
take life as a serious and lovely and imperative thing. Not the
less, upon occasions of merry-making, would they frolic like young
colts even yet, and that without the least reaction or sense of
folly afterwards. At the same time, although Ian had in the village
from childhood the character, especially in the workshops of the
carpenter, weaver, and shoemaker, of being 'full of humour, he was
in himself always rather sad, being perplexed with many things: his
humour was but the foam of his troubled sea.
Christina was annoyed besides that Mercy seemed not indifferent to
the opinion of the men. It was from pure inexperience of the
man-world, she said to herself, that the silly child could see
anything interesting in them! GENTLEMEN she must allow them--but of
such an old-fashioned type as to be gentlemen but by courtesy--not
gentlemen in the world's count! She was of the world; they of the
north of Scotland! All day Mercy had been on their side and against
her! It might be from sheer perversity, but she had never been like
that before! She must take care she did not make a fool of herself!
It might end in some unhappiness to the young goose! Assuredly
neither her father nor mother would countenance the thing! She must
throw herself into the breach! But which of them was she taking a
fancy to?
She was not so anxious about her sister, however, as piqued that she
had not herself gathered one expression of homage, surprised one
look of admiration, seen one sign of incipient worship in either. Of
the two she liked better the ploughman! The other was more a man of
the world--but he was not of her world! With him she was a stranger
in a very strange land!
Christina's world was a very small one, and in its temple stood her
own image. Ian belonged to the universe. He was a gentleman of the
high court. Wherever he might go throughout God's worlds, he would
be at home. How could there be much attraction between Christina and
him?
Alister was more talkative on the way back than he had been all day.
Christina thought the change caused by having them, or rather her,
to himself alone; but in reality it sprang from the prospect of soon
rejoining his brother without them. Some of the things he said,
Mercy found well worth hearing; and an old Scotch ballad which he
repeated, having learned it of a lowland nurse, appeared to her as
beautiful as it was wild and strange. For Christina, she despised
the Scotch language: it was vulgar! Had Alister informed her that
Beowulf, "the most important of all the relics of the Pagan
Anglo-Saxon, is written in undeniable Scotch, the English of the
period," it would have made no difference to Christina! Why should
it? She had never yet cared for any book beyond the novels of a
certain lady which, to speak with due restraint, do not tend to
profitable thought. At the same time, it was not for the worst in
them that she liked them; she did not understand them well enough to
see it. But there was ground to fear that, when she came to
understand, shocked at first, she would speedily get accustomed to
it, and at length like them all the better for it.
In Mercy's unawakened soul, echoed now and then a faint thrill of
response to some of the things Alister said, and, oftener, to some
of the verses he repeated; and she would look up at him when he was
silent, with an unconscious seeking glance, as if dimly aware of a
beneficent presence. Alister was drawn by the honest gaze of her yet
undeveloped and homely countenance, with its child-look in process
of sublimation, whence the woman would glance out and vanish again,
leaving the child to give disappointing answers. There was something
in it of the look a dog casts up out of his beautiful brown eyes
into the mystery of his master's countenance. She was on the edge of
coming awake; all was darkness about her, but something was pulling
at her! She had never known before that a lady might be lovely in a
ballad as well as in a beautiful gown!
Finding himself so listened to, though the listener was little more
than a child, the heart of the chief began to swell in his great
bosom. Like a child he was pleased. The gray day about him grew
sweet; its very grayness was sweet, and of a silvery sheen. When
they arrived at the burn, and, easily enough from that side, he had
handed them across, he was not quite so glad to turn from them as he
had expected to be.
"Are you going?" said Christina with genuine surprise, for she had
not understood his intention.
"The way is easy now," he answered. "I am sorry to leave you, but I
have to join Ian, and the twilight will be flickering down before I
reach the place."
"And there will be no moon!" said Mercy: "how will you get home
through the darkness?"
"We do not mean to come home to-night."
"Oh, then, you are going to friends!"
"No; we shall be with each other--not a soul besides."
"There can't surely be a hotel up there?"
Alister laughed as he answered,
"There are more ways than one of spending a night on the hills. If
you look from a window--in that direction," he said, pointing, "the
last thing before you go to bed, you will see that at least we shall
not perish with cold."
He sprang again over the burn, and with a wave of his bonnet, went,
like Ian, straight up the hill.
The girls stood for some time watching him climb as if he had been
going up a flight of stairs, until he stood clear against the sky,
when, with another wave of his bonnet, he too disappeared.
Mercy did not forget to look from her window in the direction
Alister had indicated. There was no room to mistake what he meant,
for through the dark ran a great opening to the side of a hill,
somewhere in the night, where glowed and flamed, reddening the air,
a huge crescent of fire, slowly climbing, like a column of attack,
up toward the invisible crest.
"What does it mean?" she said to herself. "Why do they make such a
bonfire--with nobody but themselves to enjoy it? What strange
men--out by themselves in the dark night, on the cold hill! What can
they be doing it for? I hope they have something to eat! I SHOULD
like to hear them talk! I wonder what they are saying about US! I am
certain we bored them!"
The brothers did speak of them, and readily agreed in some notion of
their characters; but they soon turned to other things, and there
passed a good deal that Mercy could not have followed. What would
she, for instance, have made of Alister's challenge to his brother
to explain the metaphysical necessity for the sine, tangent, and
secant of an angle belonging to its supplement as well?
When the ladies overtook them in the morning, Alister was reading,
from an old manuscript volume of his brother's which he had found in
a chest, a certain very early attempt at humour, and now they
disputed concerning it as they watched the fire. It had abundance of
faults, and in especial lacked suture, but will serve to show
something of lan's youthful ingenium.
TO A VAGRANT.
Gentle vagrant, stumping over
Several verdant fields of clover!
Subject of unnumbered knockings!
Tattered' coat and ragged stockings,
Slouching hat and roving eye,
Tell of SETTLED vagrancy!
Wretched wanderer, can it be
The poor laws have leaguered thee?
Hear'st thou, in thy thorny den,
Tramp of rural policemen,
Inly fancying, in thy rear
Coats of blue and buttons clear,
While to meet thee, in the van
Stalks some vengeful alderman?--
Each separate sense bringing a notion
Of forms that teach thee locomotion!
Beat and battered altogether,
By fellow-men, by wind and weather;
Hounded on through fens and bogs,
Chased by men and bit by dogs:
And, in thy weakly way of judging,
So kindly taught the art of trudging;
Or, with a moment's happier lot,
Pitied, pensioned, and forgot--
Cutty-pipe thy regium donum;
Poverty thy summum bonum;
Thy frigid couch a sandstone stratum;
A colder grave thy ultimatum;
Circumventing, circumvented;
In short, excessively tormented,
Everything combines to scare
Charity's dear pensioner!
--Say, vagrant, can'st thou grant to me
A slice of thy philosophy?
Haply, in thy many trudgings,
Having found unchallenged lodgings,
Thy thoughts, unused to saddle-crupper,
Ambling no farther than thy supper--
Thou, by the light of heaven-lit taper,
Mendest thy prospective paper!
Then, jolly pauper, stitch till day;
Let not thy roses drop away,
Lest, begrimed with muddy matter,
Thy body peep from every tatter,
And men--a charitable dose--
Should physic thee with food and clothes!
Nursling of adversity!
'Tis thy glory thus to be
Sinking fund of raggery!
Thus to scrape a nation's dishes,
And fatten on a few good wishes!
Or, on some venial treason bent,
Frame thyself a government,
For thy crest a brirnless hat,
Poverty's aristocrat!
Nonne habeam te tristem,
Planet of the human system?
Comet lank and melancholic
--Orbit shocking parabolic--
Seen for a little in the sky
Of the world of sympathy--
Seldom failing when predicted,
Coming most when most restricted,
Dragging a nebulous tail with thee
Of hypothetic vagrancy--
Of vagrants large, and vagrants small,
Vagrants scarce visible at all!
Matchless oracle of woe!
Anarchy in embryo!
Strange antipodes of bliss!
Parody on happiness!
Baghouse of the great creation!
Subject meet for strangulation,
By practice tutored to condense
The cautious inquiry for pence,
And skilful, with averted eye,
To hide thy latent roguery--
Lo, on thy hopes I clap a stopper!
Vagrant, thou shalt have no copper!
Gather thy stumps, and get thee hence,
Unwise solicitor of pence!
Alister, who all but worshipped Ian, and cherished every scrap from
his pen, had not until quite lately seen this foolish production, as
Ian counted it, and was delighted with it, as he would have been had
it been much worse. Ian was vexed that he should like it, and now
spent the greater part of an hour trying to show him how very bad in
parts, even senseless it was. Profusion of epithets without
applicability, want of continuity, purposelessness, silliness,
heartlessness--were but a few of his denunciations. Alister argued
it was but a bit of fun, and that anybody that knew Ian, knew
perfectly he would never amuse himself with a fellow without giving
him something, but it was in vain; Ian was bent on showing it
altogether unworthy. So, not to waste the night, they dropped the
dispute, and by the light of the blazing heather, turned to a
chapter of Boethius.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE WOLVES.
My readers may remember that Ian was on the point of acquainting his
mother with an important event in his spiritual history, when they
were interrupted by the involuntary call of the girls from the New
House. The mother, as will readily be believed, remained desirous of
listening to her son's story, though dreading it would not be of a kind
to give her much satisfaction; but partly from preventions--favoured,
it must be confessed by Ian, and yet more from direct avoidance on his
part, the days passed without her hearing anything more of it. Ian had
in truth almost repented his offer of the narrative: a certain vague
assurance that it would not be satisfactory to her, had grown upon
him until he felt it unkind to lay before her an experience whose
narration would seem to ask a sympathy she could not give. But the
mother was unable to let the thing rest. More than by interest she
was urged by anxiety. In spite of her ungodlike theories of God, it
was impossible she could be in despair about her noble Ian; still,
her hope was at best founded on the uncovenanted mercies of God, not
on the security of his bond! She did not believe that God was doing
and would do his best for every man; therefore she had no assurance
that he would bring down the pride of Ian, and compel his acceptance
of terms worthy of an old Roman father, half law-circumventing lawyer,
half heartless tyrant. But her longing to hear what her son had
proposed telling her, was chiefly inspired by the hope of getting
nearer to him, of closer sympathy becoming possible between them
through her learning more clearly what his views were. She constantly
felt as if walking along the side of a thick hedge, with occasional
thinnesses through which now and then she gained a ghostly glimpse
of her heart's treasure gliding along the other side--close to her,
yet so far that, when they spoke, they seemed calling across a gulf
of dividing darkness. Therefore, the night after that spent by her
sons on the hill, all having retired some two hours before, the mother,
finding herself unable to sleep, rose as she had often done ere now,
and stole to the door of the little room under the thatch where Ian
lay. Listening, and judging him awake, she went softly in, and sat down
by his bedside.
There had been such occasions on which, though son as well as mother
was wide awake, neither spoke a word; but this time the mother could
not be silent.
"You never told me, Ian, the story you began about something that
made you pray!"
Ian saw he could not now draw back without causing, her more trouble
than would the narration.
"Are you sure you will not take cold mother dear?" he said.
"I am warmly clad, my son; and my heart, more than I can tell you,
is longing to hear all about it."
"I am afraid you will not find my story so interesting as you
expect, mother!"
"What concerns you is more interesting to me than anything else in
the whole world, Ian."
"Not more than God, mother?" said Ian.
The mother was silent. She was as honest as her sons. The question,
dim-lucent, showed her, if but in shadow, something of the truth
concerning herself--not so that she could grasp it, for she saw it
as in a glimmer, a fluctuating, vanishing flash--namely, that she
cared more about salvation than about God--that, if she could but
keep her boy out of hell, she would be content to live on without
any nearer approach to him in whom she had her being! God was to her
an awe, not a ceaseless, growing delight!
There are centuries of paganism yet in many lovely Christian
souls--paganism so deep, therefore so little recognized, that their
earnest endeavour is to plant that paganism ineradicably in the
hearts of those dearest to them.
As she did not answer, Ian was afraid she was hurt, and thought it
better to begin his story at once.
"It was one night in the middle of winter--last winter, near
Moscow," he began, "and the frost was very bitter--the worst night
for cold I have ever known. I had gone with a companion into the
depth of a great pine forest. On our way, the cold grew so intense,
that we took refuge at a little public-house, frequented by peasants
and persons of the lowest ranks. On entering I saw a scene which
surpassed all for interest I had ever before witnessed. The little
lonely house was crammed with Russian soldiers, fierce-looking
fellows, and I daresay their number formed our protection from
violence. Many of them were among the finest looking fellows I have
ever seen. They were half drunk, and were dancing and singing with
the wildest gesticulations and grimaces; but such singing for
strange wildness and harmony combined I had never before listened
to. One would keep up a solo for some minutes, when the whole
company would join in a sort of chorus, dancing frantically about,
but with the most perfect regularity of movement. One of them came
up to me and with a low bow begged me in the name of the rest to
give them some money. I accordingly gave them a silver ruble, upon
which the whole party set up a shout, surrounded me, and in a moment
a score of brawny fellows had lifted me in the air, where I was
borne along in triumph. I took off my cap and gave three
hip-hip-hurrahs as loud as my lungs could bawl, whereupon, with the
profoundest expressions of gratitude, I was lowered from my
elevation. One of them then who seemed to be the spokesman of the
rest, seized me in his arms and gave me a hearty kiss on the cheek,
on which I took my departure amid universal acclamation.--But all
that's not worth telling you about; it was not for that I
began--only the scene came up so clear before me that it drew me
aside."
"I don't need to tell you, Ian," said his mother, with shining eyes,
"that if it were only what you had to eat on the most ordinary day
of your life, it would be interesting to me!"
"Thank you, mother dear; I seem to know that without being told; but
I could never talk to you about anything that was not interesting to
myself."
Here he paused. He would rather have stopped.
"Go on, go on, Ian. I am longing to hear."
"Well--where was I?--We left at the inn our carriage and horses, and
went with our guns far into the forest--all of straight, tall pines,
up and up; and the Little island-like tops of them, which, if there
be a breath of wind, are sure to be swaying about like the motion of
a dream, were as still as the big frosty stars in the deep blue
overhead."
"What did you want in such a lonely place at that time of the
night?" asked the mother.
She sat with firm-closed lips, and wide, night-filled eyes looking
at her son, the fear of love in her beautiful face--a face more
beautiful than any other that son had yet seen, fit window for a
heart so full of refuge to look out of; and he knew how she looked
though the darkness was between them.
"Wolves, mother," he answered.
She shuddered. She was a great reader in the long winter nights, and
had read terrible stories of wolves--the last of which in Scotland
had been killed not far from where they sat.
"What did you want with the wolves, Ian?" she faltered.
"To kill them, mother. I never liked killing animals any more than
Alister; but even he destroys the hooded crow; and wolves are yet
fairer game. They are the out-of-door devils of that country, and I
fancy devils do go into them sometimes, as they did once into the
poor swine: they are the terror of all who live near the forests.
"There was no moon--only star-light; but whenever we came to any
opener space, there was light enough from the snow to see all about;
there was light indeed from the snow all through the forest, but the
trees were thick and dark. Far away, somewhere in the mystery of the
black wood, we could now and then hear a faint howling: it came from
the red throats of the wolves."
"You are frightening me, Ian!" said the mother, as if they had been
two children telling each other tales.
"Indeed, mother, they are very horrible when they hunt in droves,
ravenous with hunger. To kill one of them, if it be but one, is to
do something for your kind. And just at that time I was oppressed
with the feeling that I had done and was doing nothing for my
people--my own humans; and not knowing anything else I could at the
moment attempt, I resolved to go and kill a wolf or two: they had
killed a poor woman only two nights before.
"As soon as we could after hearing the noise of them, we got up into
two trees. It took us some time to discover two that were fit for
our purpose, and we did not get them so near each other as we should
have liked. It was rather anxious work too until we found them, for
if we encountered on foot a pack of those demons, we could be but a
moment or two alive: killing one, ten would be upon us, and a
hundred more on the backs of those. But we hoped they would smell us
up in the trees, and search for us, when we should be able to give
account of a few of them at least: we had double-barrelled guns, and
plenty of powder and ball."
"But how could you endure the cold--at night--and without food?"
"No, mother; we did not try that! We had plenty to eat in our
pockets. My companion had a bottle of vodki, and--"
"What is that?" asked the mother with suspicion.
"A sort of raw spirit--horrible stuff--more like spirits of wine.
They say it does not hurt in such cold."
"But, Ian!" cried the mother, and seemed unable to say more.
"Don't be frightened, mother!" said Ian, with a merry laugh. "Surely
you do not imagine _I_ would drink such stuff! True, I had my
bottle, but it was full of tea. The Russians drink enormous
quantities of tea--though not so strong as you make it."
"Go on, then, Ian; go on."
"We sat a long time, and there was no sign of the wolves coming near
us. It was very cold, but our furs kept in our warmth. By and by I
fell asleep--which was not dangerous so long as I kept warm, and I
thought the cold must wake me before it began to numb me. And as 'I
slept I dreamed; but my dream did not change the place; the forest,
the tree I was in, all my surroundings were the same. I even dreamed
that I came awake, and saw everything about me just as it was. I
seemed to open my eyes, and look about me on the dazzling snow from
my perch: I was in a small tree on the border of a little clearing.
"Suddenly, out of the wood to my left, issued something, running
fast, but with soundless feet, over the snow. I doubted in my dream
whether the object were a live thing or only a shadow. It came
nearer, and I saw it was a child, a little girl, running as if for
her life. She came straight to the tree I sat in, and when close to
it, but without a moment's halt, looked up, and I saw a sweet little
face, white with terror--which somehow seemed, however, not for
herself, but for me. I called out after her to stop, and I would
take her into the tree beside me, where the wolves could not reach
her; but she only shook her head, and ran on over the clearing into
the forest. Among the holes I watched the fleeting shape appear and
disappear and appear again, until I saw it no more. Then first I
heard another kind of howl from the wolves--that of pursuit. It
strengthened and swelled, growing nearer and nearer, till at last,
through the stillness of the night and the moveless forest and the
dead snow, came to my ear a kind of soft rushing sound. I don't know
how to describe it. The rustle of dry leaves is too sharp; it was
like a very soft heavy rain on a window--a small dull padding
padding: it was the feet of the wolves. They came nearer and grew
louder and louder, but the noise was still muffled and soft. Their
howling, however, was now loud and horrid. I suppose they cannot
help howling; if they could, they would have too much power over
poor creatures, coming upon them altogether at unawares; but as it
is, they tell, whether they will or no, that they are upon the way.
At length, dark as a torrent of pitch, out of the forest flowed a
multitude of obscure things, and streamed away, black over the snow,
in the direction the child had taken. They passed close to the foot
of my tree, but did not even look up, flitting by like a shadow
whose substance was unseen. Where the child had vanished they also
disappeared: plainly they were after her!
"It was only a dream, mother! don't be so frightened," interrupted
lan, for here his mother gave a little cry, almost forgetting what
the narration was.
"Then first," he went on, "I seemed to recover my self-possession. I
saw that, though I must certainly be devoured by the wolves, and the
child could not escape, I had no choice but go down and follow, do
what I could, and die with her. Down I was the same instant, running
as I had never run before even in a dream, along the track of the
wolves. As I ran, I heard their howling, but it seemed so far off
that I could not hope to be in time to kill one of them ere they
were upon her. Still, by their howling, it did not appear they had
reached her, and I ran on. Their noise grew louder and louder, but I
seemed to run miles and miles, wondering what spell was upon me that
I could not come up with them. All at once the clamour grew hideous,
and I saw them. They were gathered round a tree, in a clearing just
like that I had left, and were madly leaping against it, but ever
falling back baffled. I looked up: in the top of the tree sat the
little girl, her white face looking down upon them with a smile. All
the terror had vanished from it. It was still white as the snow, but
like the snow was radiating a white light through the dark foliage
of the fir. I see it often, mother, so clear that I could paint it.
I was enchanted at the sight. But she was not in safety yet, and I
rushed into the heap of wolves, striking and stabbing with my
hunting-knife. I got to the tree, and was by her in a moment. But
as I took the child in my arms I woke, and knew that it was a dream.
I sat in my own tree, and up against the stem of it broke a howling,
surging black wave of wolves. They leaped at the tree-bole as a
rock-checked billow would leap. My gun was to my shoulder in a
moment, and blazed among them. Howls of death arose. Their
companions fell upon the wounded, and ate them up. The tearing and
yelling at the foot of the tree was like the tumult of devils full
of hate and malice and greed. Then for the first time I thought
whether such creatures might not be the open haunts of demons. I do
not imagine that, when those our Lord drove out of the man asked
permission to go into the swine, they desired anything unheard of
before in the demon-world. I think they were not in the way of going
into tame animals; but, as they must go out of the man, as they
greatly dreaded the abyss of the disembodied, and as no ferocious
animals fit to harbour them were near, they begged leave to go into
such as were accessible, though unsuitable; whereupon the natural
consequence followed: their presence made the poor swine miserable
even to madness, and with the instinct of so many maniacs that in
death alone lies their deliverance, they rushed straight into the
loch."
"It may be so, Ian! But I want to hear how you got away from the
wolves."
"I fired and fired; and still they kept rushing on the tree-hole,
heaping themselves against it, those behind struggling up on the
backs of those next it, in a storm of rage and hunger and jealousy.
Not a few who had just helped to eat some of their fellows, were
themselves eaten in turn, and not a scrap of them left; but it was a
large pack, and it would have taken a long time to kill enough to
satisfy those that remained. I killed and killed until my ammunition
was gone, and then there was nothing for it but await the light.
When the morning began to dawn, they answered its light with
silence, and turning away swept like a shadow back into the wood.
Strange to tell, I heard afterwards that a child had been killed by
them in the earlier part of that same night. But even now sometimes,
as I lie awake, I grow almost doubtful whether the whole was not a
hideous dream.
"Not the less for that was what I went through between the time my
powder came to an end and the dawn of the morning, a real spiritual
fact.
"In the midst of the howling I grew so sleepy that the horrible
noise itself seemed to lull me while it kept me awake, and I fell
into a kind of reverie with which my dream came back and mingled. I
seemed to be sitting in the tree with the little shining girl, and
she was my own soul; and all the wrong things I had in me, and all
the wrong things I had done, with all the weaknesses and evil
tendencies of my nature, whether mine by fault or by inheritance,
had taken shape, and, in the persons of the howling wolves below,
were besieging me, to get at me, and devour me. Suddenly my soul was
gone. Above were the still, bright stars, shining unmoved; beneath
was the white, betraying snow, and the howling wolves; away through
the forest was fleeting, ever fleeting, my poor soul, in the
likeness of a white-faced child! All at once came a great stillness,
as of a desert place, where breathed nor life of man nor life of
beast. I was alone, frightfully alone--alone as I had never been
before. The creatures at the foot of the tree were still howling,
but their cry sounded far away and small; they were in some story I
had been reading, not anywhere in my life! I was left and lost--left
by whom?--lost by whom?--in the waste of my own being, without stay
or comfort. I looked up to the sky; it was infinite--yet only a part
of myself, and much too near to afford me any refuge from the desert
of my lost self. It came down nearer; the limitless space came down,
and clasped me, and held me. It came close to me--as if I had been a
shape off which all nature was taking a mould. I was at once
everything and nothing. I cannot tell you how frightful it was! In
agony I cried to God, with a cry of utter despair. I cannot say
whether I may believe that he answered me; I know this, that a great
quiet fell upon me--but a quiet as of utter defeat and helplessness.
Then again, I cannot tell how, the quiet and the helplessness melted
away into a sense of God--a feeling as if great space all about me
was God and not emptiness. Wolf nor sin could touch me! I was a wide
peace--my very being peace! And in my mind--whether an echo from
the Bible, I do not know--were the words:--'I, even I, am he that
comforteth thee. I am God, thy saviour!' Whereas I had seemed all
alone, I was with God, the only withness man can really share! I
lifted my eyes; morning was in the east, and the wolves were
slinking away over the snow."
How to receive the strange experience the mother did not know. She
ought to say something, for she sorely questioned it! Not a word had
he spoken belonging to the religion in which she had brought him up,
except two--SIN and GOD! There was nothing in it about the
atonement! She did not see that it was a dream, say rather a vision,
of the atonement itself. To Ian her interpretation of the atonement
seemed an everlasting and hopeless severance. The patience of God
must surely be far more tried by those who would interpret him, than
by those who deny him: the latter speak lies against him, the former
speak lies for him! Yet all the time the mother felt as in the
presence of some creature of a higher world--one above the ordinary
race of men--whom the powers of evil had indeed misled, but perhaps
not finally snared. She little thought how near she was to imagining
that good may come out of evil--that there is good which is not of
God! She did not yet understand that salvation lies in being one
with Christ, even as the branch is one with the vine;--that any
salvation short of knowing God is no salvation at all. What moment a
man feels that he belongs to God utterly, the atonement is there,
the son of God is reaping his harvest.
The good mother was not, however, one of those conceited,
stiff-necked, power-loving souls who have been the curse and ruin
of the church in all ages; she was but one of those in whom
reverence for its passing form dulls the perception of unchangeable
truth. They shut up God's precious light in the horn lantern of
human theory, and the lantern casts such shadows on the path to the
kingdom as seem to dim eyes insurmountable obstructions. For the
sake of what they count revealed, they refuse all further
revelation, and what satisfies them is merest famine to the next
generation of the children of the kingdom. Instead of God's truth
they offer man's theory, and accuse of rebellion against God such as
cannot live on the husks they call food. But ah, home-hungry soul!
thy God is not the elder brother of the parable, but the father with
the best robe and the ring--a God high above all thy longing, even
as the heavens are high above the earth.
CHAPTER XV.
THE GULF THAT DIVIDED.
When Ian ceased, a silence deep as the darkness around, fell upon
them. To Ian, the silence seemed the very voice of God, clear in the
darkness; to the mother it was a darkness interpenetrating the
darkness; it was a great gulf between her and her boy. She must cry
to him aloud, but what should she cry? If she did not, an
opportunity, perhaps the last, on which hung eternal issues, would
be gone for ever! Each moment's delay was a disobedience to her
conscience, a yielding to love's sinful reluctance! With "sick
assay" she heaved at the weight on her heart, but not a word would
come. If Ian would but speak again, and break the spell of the
terrible stillness! She must die in eternal wrong if she did not
speak! But no word would come. Something in her would not move. It
was not in her brain or her lips or her tongue, for she knew all the
time she could speak if she would. The caitiff will was not all on
the side of duty! She was not FOR the truth!--could she then be OF
the truth? She did not suspect a divine reluctance to urge that
which was not good.
Not always when the will works may we lay hold of it in the act:
somehow, she knew not how, she heard herself speaking.
"Are you sure it was God, Ian?" she said.
The voice she heard was weak and broken, reedy and strained, like
the voice of one all but dead.
"No, mother," answered Ian, "but I hope it was."
"Hopes, my dear hoy, are not to be trusted."
"That is true, mother; and yet we are saved by hope."
"We are saved by faith."
"I do not doubt it."
"You rejoice my heart. But faith in what?"
"Faith in God, mother."
"That will not save you."
"No, but God will."
"The devils believe in God, and tremble."
"I believe in the father of Jesus Christ, and do not tremble."
"You ought to tremble before an unreconciled God."
"Like the devils, mother?"
"Like a sinful child of Adam. Whatever your fancies, Ian, God will
not hear you, except you pray to him in the name of his Son."
"Mother, would you take my God from me? Would you blot him out of
the deeps of the universe?"
"Ian! are you mad? What frightful things you would lay to my
charge!"
"Mother, I would gladly--oh how gladly! perish for ever, to save God
from being the kind of God you would have me believe him. I love
God, and will not think him other than good. Rather than believe he
does not hear every creature that cries to him, whether he knows
Jesus Christ or not, I would believe there was no God, and go
mourning to my grave."
"That is not the doctrine of the gospel."
"It is, mother: Jesus himself says, 'Every one that hath heard and
learned of the Father, cometh unto me.'"
"Why then do you not come to him, Ian?"
"I do come to him; I come to him every day. I believe in nobody but
him. He only makes the universe worth being, or any life worth
living!"
"Ian, I can NOT understand you! If you believe like that about
him,--"
"I don't believe ABOUT him, mother! I believe in him. He is my
life."
"We will not dispute about words! The question is, do you place your
faith for salvation in the sufferings of Christ for you?"
"I do not, mother. My faith is in Jesus himself, not in his
sufferings."
"Then the anger of God is not turned away from you."
"Mother, I say again--I love God, and will not believe such things
of him as you say. I love him so that I would rather lose him than
believe so of him."
"Then you do not accept the Bible as your guide?"
"I do, mother, for it tells me of Jesus Christ. There is no such
teaching as you say in the Bible."
"How little you know your New Testament!"
"I don't know my New Testament! It is the only book I do know! I
read it constantly! It is the only thing I could not live
without!--No, I do not mean that! I COULD do without my Testament!
Christ would BE all the same!"
"Oh, Ian! Ian! and yet you will not give Christ the glory of
satisfying divine justice by his suffering for your sins!"
"Mother, to say that the justice of God is satisfied with suffering,
is a piece of the darkness of hell. God is willing to suffer, and
ready to inflict suffering to save from sin, but no suffering is
satisfaction to him or his justice."
"What do you mean by his justice then?"
"That he gives you and me and everybody fair play."
The homeliness of the phrase offended the moral ear of the mother.
"How dare you speak lightly of HIM in my hearing!" she cried.
"Because I will speak for God even to the face of my mother!"
answered Ian. "He is more to me than you, mother--ten times more."
"You speak against God, Ian," she rejoined, calmed by the feeling
she had roused.
"No, mother. He speaks against God who says he does things that are
not good. It does not make a thing good to call it good. I speak FOR
him when I say lie cannot but give fair play. He knows he put rue
where I was sure to sin; he will not condemn me because I have
sinned; he leaves me to do that myself. He will condemn me only if I
do not turn away from sin, for he has made me able to turn from it,
and I do."
"He will forgive sin only for Christ's sake."
"He forgives it for his own name's sake, his own love's sake. There
is no such word as FOR CHRIST'S SAKE in the New Testament--except
where Paul prays us for Christ's sake to be reconciled to God. It is
in the English New Testament, but not in the Greek."
"Then you do not believe that the justice of God demands the
satisfaction of the sinner's endless punishment?"
"I do not. Nothing can satisfy the justice of God but justice in his
creature. The justice of God is the love of what is right, and the
doing of what is right. Eternal misery in the name of justice could
satisfy none but a demon whose bad laws had been broken."
"I grant you that no amount of suffering on the part of the wicked
could SATISFY justice; but it is the Holy One who suffers for our
sins!"
"Oh, mother! JUSTICE do wrong for its own satisfaction! Did Jesus
DESERVE punishment? If not, then to punish him was to wrong him!"
"But he was willing; he consented;"
"He yielded to injustice--but the injustice was man's, not God's. If
Justice, insisted on punishment, it would at least insist on the
guilty, not the innocent, being punished! it would revolt from the
idea of the innocent being punished for the guilty! Mind, I say
BEING PUNISHED, not SUFFERING: that is another thing altogether. It
is an eternal satisfaction to love to suffer for the guilty, but not
to justice that innocence should be punished for the guilty. The
whole idea of such atonement is the merest subterfuge, a figment of
the paltry human intellect to reconcile difficulties of its own
invention. Once, when Alister had done something wrong, my father
said, 'He must be punished--except some one will be punished for
him!' I offered to take his place, partly that it seemed expected of
me, partly that I was moved by vanity, and partly that I foresaw
what would follow."
"And what did follow?" asked the mother, to whom the least word out
of the past concerning her husband, was like news from the world
beyond. At the same time it seemed almost an offence that one of his
sons should know anything about him she did not know.
"He scarcely touched me, mother," answered Ian. "The thing taught me
something very different from what he had meant to teach by it. That
he failed to carry out his idea of justice helped me afterwards to
see that God could not have done it either, for that it was not
justice. Some perception of this must have lain at the root of the
heresy that Jesus did not suffer, but a cloud-phantom took his place
on the cross. Wherever people speculate instead of obeying, they
fall into endless error."
"You graceless boy! Do you dare to say your father speculated
instead of obeying?" cried the mother, hot with indignation.
"No, mother. It was not my father who invented that way of
accounting for the death of our Lord."
"He believed it!"
"He accepted it, saturated with the tradition of the elders before
he could think for himself. He does not believe it now."
"But why then should Christ have suffered?"
"It is the one fact that explains to me everything," said Ian.
"--But I am not going to talk about it. So long as your theory
satisfies you, mother, why should I show you mine? When it no longer
satisfies you, when it troubles you as it has troubled me, and as I
pray God it may trouble you, when you feel it stand between you and
the best love you could give God, then I will share my very soul
with you--tell you thoughts which seem to sublimate my very being in
adoration."
"I do not see what other meaning you can put upon the statement that
he was a sacrifice for our sins."
"Had we not sinned he would never have died; and he died to deliver
us from our sins. He against whom was the sin, became the sacrifice
for it; the Father suffered in the Son, for they are one. But if I
could see no other explanation than yours, I would not, could not
accept it--for God's sake I would not."
"How can you say you believe in Christ, when you do not believe in
the atonement!"
"It is not so, mother. I do not believe what you mean by the
atonement; what God means by it, I desire to accept. But we are
never told to believe in the atonement; we are told to believe in
Christ--and, mother, in the name of the great Father who hears me
speak, I do believe in him."
"How can you, when you do not believe what God says about him?"
"I do. God does not say those things about him you think he says.
They are mere traditions, not the teaching of those who understood
him. But I might believe all about him quite correctly, and yet not
believe in him."
"What do you call believing in him, then?"
"Obeying him, mother--to say it as shortly as I can. I try to obey
him in the smallest things he says--only there are no small things
he says--and so does Alister. I strive to be what he would have me,
nor do I hold anything else worth my care. Let a man trust in his
atonement to absolute assurance, if he does not do the things he
tells him--the very things he said--he does not believe in him. He
may be a good man, but he has not yet heard enough and learned
enough of the Father to be sent to Jesus to learn more."
"Then I do not believe in him," said the mother, with a strange, sad
gentleness--for his words awoke an old anxiety never quite at rest.
Ian was silent. The darkness seemed to deepen around them, and the
silence grew keen. The mother began to tremble.
"GOD KNOWS," said Ian at length, and again the broken silence closed
around them.
It was between God and his mother now! Unwise counsellors will
persuade the half crazy doubter in his own faith, to believe that he
does believe!--how much better to convince him that his faith is a
poor thing, that he must rise and go and do the thing that Jesus
tells him, and so believe indeed! When will men understand that it
is neither thought nor talk, neither sorrow for sin nor love of
holiness that is required of them, but obedience! To BE and to OBEY
are one.
A cold hand grasping her heart, the mother rose, and went from the
room. The gulf seemed now at last utterly, hopelessly impassable!
She had only feared it before; she knew it now! She did not see
that, while she believed evil things of God, and none the less that
she called them good, oneness was impossible between her and any
being in God's creation.
The poor mother thought herself broken-hearted, and lay down too
sick to know that she was trembling from head to foot. Such was the
hold, such the authority of traditional human dogma on her soul--a
soul that scorned the notion of priestly interposition between God
and his creature--that, instead of glorifying God that she had
given birth to such a man, she wept bitterly because he was on the
broad road to eternal condemnation.
But as she lay, now weeping, now still and cold with despair, she
found that for some time she had not been thinking. But she had not
been asleep! Whence then was this quiet that was upon her? Something
had happened, though she knew of nothing! There was in her as it
were a moonlight of peace!
"Can it be God?" she said to herself.
No more than Ian could she tell whether it was God or not; but from
that night she had an idea in her soul by which to reach after "the
peace of God." She lifted up her heart in such prayer as she had
never prayed before; and slowly, imperceptibly awoke in her the
feeling that, if she was not believing aright, God would not
therefore cast her off, but would help her to believe as she ought
to believe: was she not willing? Therewith she began to feel as if
the gulf betwixt her and Ian were not so wide as she had supposed;
and that if it were, she would yet hope in the Son of Man. Doubtless
he was in rebellion against God, seeing he would question his ways,
and refuse to believe the word he had spoken, but surely something
might be done for him! The possibility had not yet dawned upon her
that there could be anything in the New Testament but those
doctrines against which the best in him revolted. She little
suspected the glory of sky and earth and sea eternal that would one
day burst upon her! that she would one day see God not only good but
infinitely good--infinitely better than she had dared to think him,
fearing to image him better than he was! Mortal, she dreaded being
more just than God, more pure than her maker!
"I will go away to-morrow!" said Ian to himself. "I am only a pain
to her. She will come to see things better without me! I cannot
live in her sight any longer now! I will go, and come again."
His heart broke forth in prayer.
"O God, let my mother see that thou art indeed true-hearted; that
thou dost not give us life by parings and subterfuges, but
abundantly; that thou dost not make men in order to assert thy
dominion over them, but that they may partake of thy life. O God,
have pity when I cannot understand, and teach me as thou wouldst the
little one whom, if thou wert an earthly father amongst us as thy
son was an earthly son, thou wouldst carry about in thy arms. When
pride rises in me, and I feel as if I ought to be free and walk
without thy hand; when it looks as if a man should be great in
himself, nor need help from God; then think thou of me, and I shall
know that I cannot live or think without the self-willing life; that
thou art because thou art, I am because thou art; that I am deeper
in thee than my life, thou more to my being than that being to
itself. Was not that Satan's temptation, Father? Did he not take
self for the root of self in him, when God only is the root of all
self? And he has not repented yet! Is it his thought coming up in
me, flung from the hollow darkness of his soul into mine? Thou
knowest, when it comes I am wretched. I love it not. I would have
thee lord and love over all. But I cannot understand: how comes it
to look sometimes as if independence must be the greater? A lie
cannot be greater than the truth! I do not understand, but thou
dost. I cannot see my foundations; I cannot dig up the roots of my
being: that would be to understand creation! Will the Adversary ever
come to see that thou only art grand and beautiful? How came he to
think to be greater by setting up for himself? How was it that it
looked so to him? How is it that, not being true, it should ever
look so? There must be an independence that thou lovest, of which
this temptation is the shadow! That must be how 'Satan fell!--for
the sake of not being a slave!--that he might be a free being! Ah,
Lord, I see how it all comes! It is because we are not near enough
to thee to partake of thy liberty that we want a liberty of our own
different from thine! We do not see that we are one with thee, that
thy glory is our glory, that we can have none but in thee! that we
are of thy family, thy home, thy heart, and what is great for thee
is great for us! that man's meanness is to want to be great out of
his Father! Without thy eternity in us we are so small that we think
ourselves great, and are thus miserably abject and contemptible.
Thou only art true! thou only art noble! thou wantest no glory for
selfishness! thou doest, thou art, what thou requirest of thy
children! I know it, for I see it in Jesus, who casts the contempt
of obedience upon the baseness of pride, who cares only for thee and
for us, never thinking of himself save as a gift to give us! O
lovely, perfect Christ! with my very life I worship thee! Oh, pray,
Christ! make me and my brother strong to be the very thing thou
wouldst have us, as thy brothers, the children of thy Father. Thou
art our perfect brother--perfect in love, in courage, in
tenderness! Amen, Lord! Good-night! I am thine."
He was silent for a few moments, then resumed:
"Lord, thou knowest whither my thoughts turn the moment I cease
praying to thee. I dared not think of her, but that I know thee. But
for thee, my heart would be as water within me! Oh, take care of
her, come near to her! Thou didst send her where she could not learn
fast--but she did learn. And now, God, I do not know where she is!
Thou only of all in this world knowest, for to thee she lives though
gone from my sight and knowledge--in the dark to me. Pray, Father,
let her know that thou art near her, and that I love her. Thou hast
made me love her by taking her from me: thou wilt give her to me
again! In this hope I will live all my days, until thou takest me
also; for to hope mightily is to believe well in thee. I will hope
in thee infinitely. Amen, Father!"
CHAPTER XVI.
THE CLAN CHRISTMAS.
By slow degrees, with infinite subdivisions and apparent reversals
of change, the autumn had passed into winter indeed. Cloud above,
mire below, mist and rain all between, made up many days; only, like
the dreariest life, they were broken through and parted, lest they
should seem the universe itself, by such heavenly manifestations,
such gleams and glimpses of better, as come into all lives, all
winters, all evil weathers. What is loosed on earth is loosed first
in heaven: we have often shared of heaven, when we thought it but a
softening of earth's hardness. Every relief is a promise, a pledge
as well as a passing meal. The frost at length had brought with it
brightness and persuasion and rousing. In the fields it was swelling
and breaking the clods; and for the heart of man, it did something
to break up that clod too. A sense of friendly pleasure filled all
the human creatures. The children ran about like wild things; the
air seemed to intoxicate them. The mother went out walking with the
girls, and they talked of their father and Christian and Mr.
Sercombe, who were all coming together. For some time they saw
nothing of their next neighbours.
They had made some attempts at acquaintance with the people of the
glen, but unhappily were nowise courteous enough for their ideas of
good breeding, and offended both their pride and their sense of
propriety. The manners and address of these northern peasants were
blameless--nearly perfect indeed, like those of the Irish, and in
their own houses beyond criticism; those of the ladies conventional
where not rudely condescending. If Mistress Conal was an exception
to the rest of the clan, even she would be more civil to a stranger
than to her chief whom she loved--until the stranger gave her
offence. And if then she passed to imprecation, she would not curse
like an ordinary woman, but like a poetess, gaining rather than
losing dignity. She would rise to the evil occasion, no hag, but a
largely-offended sibyl, whom nothing thereafter should ever
appease. To forgive was a virtue unknown to Mistress Conal. Its more
than ordinary difficulty in forgiving is indeed a special fault of
the Celtic character.--This must not however be confounded with a
desire for revenge. The latter is by no means a specially Celtic
characteristic. Resentment and vengeance are far from inseparable.
The heart that surpasses in courtesy, except indeed that courtesy,
be rooted in love divine, must, when treated with discourtesy,
experience the worse revulsion, feel the bitterer indignation. But
many a Celt would forgive, and forgive thoroughly and heartily, with
his enemy in his power, who, so long as he remained beyond his
reach, could not even imagine circumstances in which they might be
reconciled. To a Celt the summit of wrong is a slight, but apology
is correspondingly potent with him. Mistress Conal, however, had not
the excuse of a specially courteous nature.
Christina and Mercy, calling upon her one morning, were not
ungraciously received, but had the misfortune to remark, trusting to
her supposed ignorance of English, upon the dirtiness of her floor,
they themselves having imported not a little of the moisture that
had turned its surface into a muddy paste. She said nothing, but, to
the general grudge she bore the possessors of property once
belonging to her clan, she now added a personal one; the offence lay
cherished and smouldering. Had the chief offended her, she would
have found a score of ways to prove to herself that he meant
nothing; but she desired no mitigation of the trespass of strangers.
The people at the New House did not get on very well with any of the
clan. In the first place, they were regarded not merely as
interlopers, but almost as thieves of the property--though in truth
it had passed to them through other hands. In the second place, a
rumour had got about that they did not behave with sufficient
respect to the chief's family, in the point of whose honour the clan
was the more exacting because of their common poverty. Hence the
inhabitants of the glen, though they were of course polite, showed
but little friendliness.
But the main obstacle to their reception was in themselves: the
human was not much developed in them; they understood nothing of
their own beings; they had never had any difficulty with
themselves:--how could they understand others, especially in
circumstances and with histories so different from their own! They
had not a notion how poor people feel, still less poor people poorer
than before--or how they regard the rich who have what they have
lost. They did not understand any huftian feeling--not even the
silliness they called LOVE--a godless, mindless affair, fit only
for the doll-histories invented by children: they had a feeling, or
a feeling had them, till another feeling came and took its place.
When a feeling was there, they felt as if it would never go; when it
was gone, they felt as if it had never been; when it returned, they
felt as if it had never gone. They seldom came so near anything as
to think about it, never put a question to themselves as to how a
thing affected them, or concerning the phenomena of its passage
through their consciousness! There is a child-eternity of soul that
needs to ask nothing, because it understands everything: the ways of
the spirit are open to it; but where a soul does not understand, and
has to learn, how is it to do so without thinking? They knew nothing
of labour, nothing of danger, nothing of hunger, nothing of cold,
nothing of sickness, nothing of loneliness. The realities of life,
in their lowest forms as in their highest, were far from them. If
they had nearly gone through life instead of having but entered upon
it, they would have had some ground for thinking themselves unfairly
dealt with; for to be made, and then left to be worthless, unfit
even for damnation, might be suspected for hard lines; but there is
One who takes a perfect interest in his lowliest creature, and will
not so spare it. They were girls notwithstanding who could make
themselves agreeable, and passed for clever--Christina because she
could give a sharp answer, and sing a drawingroom-song, Mercy
because as yet she mostly held her tongue. That there was at the
same time in each of them the possibility of being developed into
something of inestimable value, is merely to say that they were
human.
The days passed, and Christmas drew near. The gentlemen arrived.
There was family delight and a bustling reception. It is amazing--it
shows indeed how deep and divine, how much beyond the individual
self are the family affections--that such gladness breaks forth in
the meeting of persons who, within an hour or so of the joyous
welcome, self getting the better of the divine, will begin to feel
bored, and will each lay the blame of the disappointment on the
other.
Coats were pulled off; mufflers were unwound; pretty hands were
helping; strong hands were lifting and carrying; every room was
bright with a great fire; tea was refused, and dinner welcomed.
After dinner came the unpacking of great boxes; and in the midst of
the resultant pleasure, the proposal came to be made--none but
Christina knew how--that the inhabitants of the cottage should be
invited to dinner on Christmas-eve. It was carried at once, and the
next afternoon a formal invitation was sent.
At the cottage it caused conference, no discussion. The lady of the
New House had not called with her girls, it was true; but then
neither had the lady of the castle--for that was the clanspeople's
name for the whole ridge on which the cottage stood--called on the
new-comers! If there was offence, it was mutual! The unceremonious
invitation MIGHT indicate that it was not thought necessary to
treat them as persons who knew the ways of society; on the other
hand, if it meant that they were ready to throw aside formalities
and behave heartily, it would be wrong not to meet them half-way!
They resolved therefore to make a counter-proposal; and if the
invitation came of neighbourliness, and not of imagined patronage,
they would certainly meet it in a friendly spirit! Answer was
returned, sealed with no mere crest but with a coat of arms, to the
effect that it had been the custom since time forgotten for the
chief to welcome his people and friends without distinction on
Christmas-eve, and the custom could not be broken; but if the ladies
and gentlemen of the New House would favour them with their
company on the occasion, to dine and dance, the chief and his family
would gratefully accept any later offer of hospitality Mr. and Mrs.
Peregrine Palmer might do them, the honour to send.
This reply gave occasion to a good deal of talk at the New House,
not entirely of a sort which the friends of the chief would have
enjoyed hearing. Frequent were the bursts of laughter from the men
at the assumption of the title of CHIEF by a man with no more land
than he could just manage to live upon. The village they said, and
said truly, in which the greater number of HIS PEOPLE lived, was
not his at all--not a foot of the ground on which it stood, not a
stone or sod of which it was built--but belonged to a certain
Canadian, who was about to turn all his territory around and
adjacent into a deer forest! They could not see that, if there had
ever been anything genuine in the patriarchal relation, the mere
loss of the clan-property could no more cause the chieftainship to
cease, than could the loss of the silver-hilted Andrew Ferrara,
handed down from father to son for so many generations.
There are dull people, and just as many clever people, who look upon
customs of society as on laws of nature, and judge the worth of
others by their knowledge or ignorance of the same. So doing they
disable themselves from understanding the essential, which is, like
love, the fulfilling of the law. A certain Englishman gave great
offence in an Arab tent by striding across the food placed for the
company on the ground: would any Celt, Irish or Welsh, have been
guilty of such a blunder? But there was not any overt offence on the
present occasion. They called it indeed a cool proposal that THEY
should put off their Christmas party for that of a ploughman in
shabby kilt and hob-nailed shoes; but on their amused indignation
supervened the thought that they were in a wild part of the country,
where it would be absurd to expect the SAVOIR VIVRE of the south,
and it would be amusing to see the customs of the land. By
suggestion and seeming response, the clever Christina, unsuspected
even of Mercy, was the motive power to bring about the acceptance of
the chief's invitation.
A friendly answer was returned: they would not go to dinner, they
said, as it was their custom also to dine at home on Christmas-eve;
but they would dine early, and spend the evening with them.
To the laird the presence of the lowland girls promised a great
addition to the merry-making. During the last thirty years, all the
gentlemen-farmers of the clan, and most of the humbler tacksmen as
well, had vanished, and there was a wide intellectual space between
all those left and the family of the chief. Often when Ian was away,
would Alister, notwithstanding his love to his people and their
entire response, have felt lonely but for labour.
There being in the cottage no room equal to the reception of a large
company, and the laird receiving all the members of the
clan--"poor," I was going to say, "and rich," but there were no
rich--as well as any neighbour or traveller who chose to appear, the
father of the present chief had had good regard to the necessities
of entertainment in the construction of a new barn: companionship,
large feasting, and dancing, had been even more considered than the
storing and threshing of his corn.
There are in these days many who will mock; but for my part I am
proud of a race whose social relations are the last upon which they
will retrench, whose latest yielded pleasure is their hospitality.
It is a common feeling that only the WELL-TO-DO have a right to be
hospitable: the ideal flower of hospitality is almost unknown to the
rich; it can hardly be grown save in the gardens of the poor; it is
one of their beatitudes.
Means in Glenruadh had been shrinking for many years, but the heart
of the chief never shrank. His dwelling dwindled from a castle to a
house, from a house to a cottage; but the hospitality did not
dwindle. As the money vanished, the show diminished; the place of
entertainment from a hall became a kitchen, from a kitchen changed
to a barn; but the heart of the chief was the same; the
entertainment was but little altered, the hospitality not in the
least. When things grow hard, the first saving is generally off
others; the Macruadh's was off himself. The land was not his, save
as steward of the grace of God! Let it not be supposed he ran in
debt: with his mother at the head, or rather the heart of affairs,
that could not be. She was not one to regard as hospitality a
readiness to share what you have not!
Little did good Doctor Johnson suspect the shifts to which some of
the highland families he visited were driven--not to feed, but to
house him: and housing in certain conditions of society is the large
half of hospitality. Where he did not find his quarters comfortable,
he did not know what crowding had to be devised, what inconveniences
endured by the family, that he might have what ease and freedom were
possible. Be it in stone hall or thatched cottage, the chief must
entertain the stranger as well as befriend his own! This was the
fulfilling of his office--none the less that it had descended upon
him in evil times. That seldom if ever had a chief been Christian
enough or strong enough to fill to the full the relation of father
of his people, was nothing against the ideal fact in the existent
relation; it was rather for it: now that the chieftainship had come
to a man with a large notion of what it required of him, he was the
more, not the less ready to aim at the mark of the idea; he was not
the more easily to be turned aside from a true attempt to live up to
his calling, that many had yielded and were swept along bound slaves
in the triumph of Mammon! He looked on his calling as entirely
enough to fill full the life that would fulfil the calling. It was
ambition enough for him to be the head of his family, with the
highest of earthly relations to realize toward its members. As to
the vulgar notion of a man's obligation to himself, he had learned
to despise it.
"Rubbish!" Ian would say. "I owe my self nothing. What has my self
ever done for me, but lead me wrong? What but it has come between me
and my duty--between me and my very Father in heaven--between me
and my fellow man! The fools of greed would persuade that a man has
no right to waste himself in the low content of making and sharing a
humble living; he ought to make money! make a figure in the world,
forsooth! be somebody! 'Dwell among the people!' such would say:
'Bah! Let them look after themselves! If they cannot pay their
rents, others will; what is it to you if the rents are paid? Send
them about their business; turn the land into a deer-forest or a
sheep-farm, and clear them out! They have no rights! A man is bound
to the children of his body begotten; the people are nothing to him!
A man is not his brother's keeper--except when he has got him in
prison! And so on, in the name of the great devil!"
Whether there was enough in Alister to have met and overcome the
spirit of the world, had he been brought up at Oxford or Cambridge,
I have not to determine; there was that in him at least which would
have come to, repent bitterly had he yielded; but brought up as he
was, he was not only able to entertain the exalted idea presented to
him, but to receive and make it his. With joy he recognized the
higher dignity of the shepherd of a few poor, lean, wool-torn human
sheep, than of the man who stands for himself, however "spacious in
the possession of dirt." He who holds dead land a possession, and
living souls none of his, needs wake no curse, for he is in the very
pit of creation, a live outrage on the human family.
If Alister Macruadh was not in the highest grade of Christianity, he
was on his way thither, for he was doing the work that was given him
to do, which is the first condition of all advancement. He had much
to learn yet, but he was one who, from every point his feet touched,
was on the start to go further.
The day of the holy eve rose clear and bright. Snow was on the
hills, and frost in the valley. There had been a time when at this
season great games were played between neighbour districts or clans,
but here there were no games now, because there were so few men; the
more active part fell to the women. Mistress Macruadh was busy all
day with her helpers, preparing a dinner of mutton, and beef, and
fowls, and red-deer ham; and the men soon gave the barn something of
the aspect of the old patriarchal hall for which it was no very poor
substitute. A long table, covered with the finest linen, was laid
for all comers; and when the guests took their places, they needed
no arranging; all knew their standing, and seated themselves
according to knowledge. Two or three small farmers took modestly the
upper places once occupied by immediate relatives of the chief, for
of the old gentry of the clan there were none. But all were happy,
for their chief was with them still. Their reverence was none the
less that they were at home with him. They knew his worth, and the
roughest among them would mind what the Macruadh said. They knew
that he feared nothing; that he was strong as the red stag after
which the clan was named; that, with genuine respect for every man,
he would at the least insolence knock the fellow down; that he was
the best shot, the best sailor, the best ploughman in the clan: I
would have said THE BEST SWORDSMAN, but that, except Ian, there was
not another left to it.
Not many of them, however, understood how much he believed that he
had to give an account of his people. He was far from considering
such responsibility the clergyman's only. Again and again had he
expostulated with some, to save them from the slow gaping hell of
drink, and in one case, he had reason to hope, with success.
As they sat at dinner, it seemed to the young fellow who, with his
help, had so far been victorious, that the chief scarcely took his
eyes off him. One might think there was small danger where the
hostess allowed nothing beyond water and milk but small ale; the
chief, however, was in dread lest he should taste even that, and
caught one moment the longing look he threw at the jug as it passed.
He rose and went down the table, speaking to this one and that, but
stopped behind the lad, and putting his arm round his shoulders,
whispered in his ear. The youth looked up in his face with a solemn
smile: had not the chief embraced him before them all! He was only a
shepherd-lad, but his chief cared for him!
In the afternoon the extemporized tables were cleared away, candles
were fixed in rough sconces along the walls, not without precaution
against fire, and the floor was rubbed clean--for the barn was
floored throughout with pine, in parts polished with use. The walls
were already covered with the plaids of the men and women, each kept
in place by a stone or two on the top of the wall where the rafters
rested. In one end was a great heap of yellow oat-straw, which,
partly levelled, made a most delightful divan. What with the straw,
the plaids, the dresses, the shining of silver ornaments, and the
flash of here and there a cairngorm or an amethyst, there was not a
little colour in the barn. Some of the guests were poorly but all
were decently attired, and the shabbiest behaved as ladies and
gentlemen.
The party from the New House walked through the still, star-watched
air, with the motionless mountains looking down on them, and a
silence around, which they never suspected as a presence. The little
girls were of the company, and there was much merriment. Foolish
compliments were not wanting, offered chiefly on the part of Mr.
Sercombe, and accepted on that of Christina. The ladies, under their
furs and hoods, were in their best, with all the jewels they could
wear at once, for they had heard that highlanders have a passion for
colour, and that poor people are always best pleased when you go to
them in your finery. The souls of these Sasunnachs were full of
THINGS. They made a fine show as they emerged from the darkness of
their wraps into the light of the numerous candles; nor did the
approach of the widowed chieftainess to receive them, on the arm of
Alister, with Ian on her other side, fail in dignity. The mother was
dressed in a rich, matronly black silk; the chief was in the full
dress of his clan--the old-fashioned coat of the French court, with
its silver buttons and ruffles of fine lace, the kilt of Macruadh
tartan in which red predominated, the silver-mounted sporan--of the
skin and adorned with the head of an otter caught with, the bare
hands of one of his people, and a silver-mounted dirk of length
unusual, famed for the beauty of both hilt and blade; Ian was
similarly though less showily clad. When she saw the stately dame
advancing between her sons, one at least of her visitors felt a
doubt whether their condescension would be fully appreciated.
As soon as their reception was over, the piper--to the discomfort of
Mr. Sercombe's English ears--began his invitation to the dance, and
in a few moments the floor was, in a tumult of reels. The girls,
unacquainted with their own country's dances, preferred looking on,
and after watching reel and strathspey for some time, altogether
declined attempting either. But by and by it was the turn of the
clanspeople to look on while the lady of the house and her sons
danced a quadrille or two with their visitors; after which the chief
and his brother pairing with the two elder girls, the ladies were
astonished to find them the best they had ever waltzed with,
although they did not dance quite in the London way. Ian's dancing,
Christina said, was French; Mercy said all she knew was that the
chief took the work and left her only the motion: she felt as in a
dream of flying. Before the evening was over, the young men had so
far gained on Christina that Mr. Sercombe looked a little
commonplace.
CHAPTER XVII.
BETWEEN DANCING AND SUPPER.
The dancing began about six o'clock, and at ten it was time for
supper. It was ready, but there was no room for it except the barn;
the dancing therefore had to cease for a while, that the table might
again be covered. The ladies put on their furs and furry boots and
gloves, and went out into the night with the rest.
The laird and Christina started together, but, far from keeping at
her side, Alister went and came, now talking to this couple, now to
that, and adding to the general pleasure with every word he spoke.
Ian and Mercy walked together, and as often as the chief left her
side, Christina joined them. Mrs. Palmer stayed with their hostess;
her husband took the younger children by the hand; Mr. Sercombe and
Christian sauntered along in the company, talking now to one, now to
another of the village girls.
All through the evening Christina and Mercy noted how instantly the
word of the chief was followed in the smallest matter, and the fact
made its impression on them; for undeveloped natures in the presence
of a force, revere it as POWER--understanding by POWER, not the
strength to create, to harmonize, to redeem, to discover the true,
to suffer with patience; but the faculty of having things one's own
vulgar, self-adoring way.
Ian had not proposed to Mercy that they should walk together; but
when the issuing crowd had broken into twos and threes, they found
themselves side by side. The company took its way along the ridge,
and the road eastward. The night was clear, and like a great
sapphire frosted with topazes--reminding Ian that, solid as is the
world under our feet, it hangs in the will of God. Mercy and he
walked for some time in silence. It was a sudden change from the low
barn, the dull candles, and the excitement of the dance, to the
awful space, the clear pure far-off lights, and the great stillness.
Both felt it, though differently. There was in both of them the
quest after peace. It is not the banished demon only that wanders
seeking rest, but souls upon souls, and in ever growing numbers. The
world and Hades swarm with them. They long after a repose that is
not mere cessation of labour: there is a positive, an active rest.
Mercy was only beginning to seek it, and that without knowing what
it was she needed. Ian sought it in silence with God; she in
crepitant intercourse with her kind. Naturally ready to fall into
gloom, but healthy enough to avoid it, she would rush at anything to
do--not to keep herself from thinking, for she had hardly begun to
think, but to escape that heavy sense of non-existence, that weary
and restless want which is the only form life can take to the yet
unliving, those who have not yet awakened and arisen from the dead.
She was a human chicken that had begun to be aware of herself, but
had not yet attacked the shell that enclosed her: because it was
transparent, and she could see life about her, she did not know that
she was in a shell, or that, if she did not put forth the might of
her own life, she was sealing herself up, a life in death, in her
antenatal coffin. Many who think themselves free have never yet even
seen the shell that imprisons them--know nothing of the liberty
wherewith the Lord of our life would set them free. Men fight many a
phantom when they ought to be chipping at their shells. "Thou art
the dreamer!" they cry to him who would wake them. "See how diligent
we are to get on in the world! We labour as if we should never go
out of it!" What they call the world is but their shell, which is
all the time killing the infant Christ that houses with them.
Ian looked up to the sky, and breathed a deep breath. Mercy looked
up in his face, and saw his strangely beautiful smile.
"What are you thinking of, Captain Macruadh?" she said.
"I was thinking," he answered, "that perhaps up THERE"--he waved his
arm wide over his head--"might be something like room; but I doubt
it, I doubt it!"
Naturally, Mercy was puzzled. The speech sounded quite mad, and yet
he could not be mad, he had danced so well! She took comfort that
her father was close behind.
"Did you never feel," he resumed, "as if you could not anyhow get
room enough?"
"No," answered Mercy, "never."
Ian fell a thinking how to wake in her a feeling of what he meant.
He had perceived that one of the first elements in human education
is the sense of space--of which sense, probably, the star-dwelt
heaven is the first awakener. He believed that without the heavens
we could not have learned the largeness in things below them, could
not, for instance, have felt the mystery of the high-ascending
gothic roof--for without the greater we cannot interpret the less;
and he thought that to have the sense of largeness developed might
be to come a little nearer to the truth of things, to the
recognition of spiritual relations.
"Did you ever see anything very big?" he asked.
"I suppose London is as big as most things!" she answered, after a
moment.
"Did you ever see London?" he asked.
"We generally live there half the year."
"Pardon me; I did not ask if you had ever been to London," said Ian;
"I asked if you had ever seen London."
"I know the west end pretty well."
"Did it ever strike you as very large?"
"Perhaps not; but the west end is only a part of London."
"Did you ever see London from the top of St. Paul's?"
"No."
"Did you ever see it from the top of Hampstead heath?"
"I have been there several times, but I don't remember seeing London
from it. We don't go to London for the sights."
"Then you have not seen London!"
Mercy was annoyed. Ian did not notice that she was, else perhaps he
would not have gone on--which would have been a pity, for a little
annoyance would do her no harm. At the same time the mood was not
favourable to receiving any impression from the region of the things
that are not seen. A pause followed.
"It is so delightful," said Ian at length, "to come out of the
motion and the heat and the narrowness into the still, cold
greatness!"
"You seemed to be enjoying yourself pretty well notwithstanding,
Captain Macruadh!"
"What made you think so?" he asked, turning to her with a smile.
"You were so merry--not with me--you think me only a stupid lowland
girl; but the other young persons you danced with, laughed very much
at things you said to them."
"You are right; I did enjoy myself. As often as one comes near a
simple human heart, one's own heart finds a little room."
Ere she knew, Mercy had said--
"And you didn't find any room with me?"
With the sound of her words her face grew hot, as with a
furnace-blast, even in the frosty night-air. She would have covered
what she had said, but only stammered. Ian turned, and looking at
her, said with a gentle gravity--
"You must not be offended with me! I must answer you truly.--You do
not give me room: have you not just told me you never longed for any
yourself?"
"One ought to be independent!" said Mercy, a little nettled.
"Are you sure of that? What is called independence may really be
want of sympathy. That would indicate a kind of loneliness
anything but good."
"I wish you would find a less disagreeable companion then!--one that
would at least be as good as nobody! I am sorry I don't know how to
give you room. I would if I could. Tell me how."
Again Ian turned to her: was it possible there were tears in her
voice? But her black eyes were flashing in the starlight!
"Did you ever read Zanoni?" he asked.
"I never heard of it. What is it?"
"A romance of Bulwer's."
"My father won't let us read anything of Bulwer's. Does he write
very wicked books?"
"The one I speak of," said Ian, "is not wicked, though it is full of
rubbish, and its religion is very false."
Whether Mercy meant to take her revenge on him with consciously bad
logic, I am in doubt.
"Captain Macruadh! you astonish me! A Scotchman speak so of
religion!"
"I spoke of the religion in that book. I said it was false--which is
the same as saying it was not religion."
"Then religion is not all true!"
"All true religion is true," said Ian, inclined to laugh like one
that thought to catch an angel, and had clutched a bat! "I was going
on to say that, though the religion and philosophy of the book were
rubbish, the story was fundamentally a grand conception. It puzzles
me to think how a man could start with such an idea, and work it out
so well, and yet be so lacking both in insight and logic. It is
wonderful how much of one portion of our nature may be developed
along with so little of another!"
"What is the story about?" asked Mercy.
"What I may call the canvas of it, speaking as if it were a picture,
is the idea that the whole of space is full of life; that, as the
smallest drop of water is crowded with monsters of hideous forms and
dispositions, so is what we call space full of living creatures,--"
"How horrible!"
"--not all monsters, however. There are among them creatures not
altogether differing from us, but differing much from each other,--"
"As much as you and I?"
"--some of them lovely and friendly, others frightful in their
beauty and malignity,--"
"What nonsense!"
"Why do you call it nonsense?"
"How could anything beautiful be frightful?"
"I ought not to have said BEAUTIFUL. But the frightfullest face I
ever saw ought to have been the finest. When the lady that owned it
spoke to me, I shivered."
"But anyhow the whole thing is nonsense!"
"How is it nonsense?"
"Because there are no such creatures."
"How do you know that? Another may have seen them though you and I
never did!"
"You are making game of me! You think to make me believe anything
you choose!"
"Will you tell me something you do believe?"
"That you may prove immediately that I do not believe it!" she
retorted, with more insight than he had expected. "--You are not
very entertaining!"
"Would you like me to tell you a story then?"
"Will it be nonsense?"
"No."
"I should like a little nonsense."
"You are an angel of goodness, and as wise as you are lovely!" said
Ian.
She turned upon him, and opened wide at him her great black eyes, in
which were mingled defiance and question.
"Your reasoning is worthy of your intellect. When you dance," he
went on, looking very solemn, "your foot would not bend the neck of
a daisy asleep in its rosy crown. The west wind of May haunts you
with its twilight-odours; and when you waltz, so have I seen the
waterspout gyrate on the blue floor of the Mediterranean. Your voice
is as the harp of Selma; and when you look out of your welkin
eyes--no! there I am wrong! Allow me!--ah, I thought so!--dark as
Erebus!--But what!"
For Mercy, perceiving at last that he was treating her like the
silliest of small girls, lost her patience, and burst into tears.
"You are dreadfully rude!" she sobbed.
Ian was vexed with himself.
"You asked me to talk nonsense to you, Miss Mercy! I attempted to
obey you, and have done it stupidly. But at least it was absolute
nonsense! Shall I make up for it by telling you a pretty story?"
"Anything to put away that!" answered Mercy, trying to smile.
He began at once, and told her a wonderful tale--told first after
this fashion by Rob of the Angels, at a winter-night gathering of
the women, as they carded and spun their wool, and reeled their yarn
together. It was one well-known in the country, but Rob had filled
it after his fancy with imaginative turns and spiritual hints,
unappreciable by the tall child of seventeen walking by Ian's side.
There was not among the maidens of the poor village one who would
not have understood it better than she. It took her fancy
notwithstanding, partly, perhaps, from its unlikeness to any story
she had ever heard before. Her childhood had been starved on the
husks of new fairy-tales, all invention and no imagination, than
which more unnourishing food was never offered to God's children.
The story Ian told her under that skyful of stars, was as Rob of the
Angels had dressed it for the clan matrons and maidens, only altered
a very little for the ears of the lowland girl.
END OF VOL. I.
VOL. II.
CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAPTER
I. THE STORY TOLD BY IAN
II. ROB OF THE ANGELS
III. AT THE NEW HOUSE
IV. THE BROTHERS
V. THE PRINCESS
VI. THE TWO PAIRS
VII. AN CABRACH MOR
VIII. THE STAG'S HEAD
IX. ANNIE OF THE SHOP
X. THE ENCOUNTER
XI. A LESSON
XII. NATURE
XIII. GRANNY ANGRY
XIV. CHANGE
XV. LOVE ALLODIAL
XVI. MERCY CALLS ON GRANNIE
XVII. IN THE TOMB
WHATS'S MINE'S MINE.
CHAPTER I.
THE STORY TOLD BY IAN.
"There was once a woman whose husband was well to do, but he died
and left her, and then she sank into poverty. She did her best; but
she had a large family, and work was hard to find, and hard to do
when it was found, and hardly paid when it was done. Only hearts of
grace can understand the struggles of the poor--with everything but
God against them! But she trusted in God, and said whatever he
pleased must be right, whether he sent it with his own hand or not.
"Now, whether it was that she could not find them enough to eat, or
that she could not keep them warm enough, I do not know; I do not
think it was that they had not gladness enough, which is as
necessary for young things as food and air and sun, for it is
wonderful on how little a child can be happy; but whatever was the
cause, they began to die. One after the other sickened and lay down,
and did not rise again; and for a time her life was just a waiting
upon death. She would have wanted to die herself, but that there was
always another to die first; she had to see them all safe home
before she dared wish to go herself. But at length the last of them
was gone, and then when she had no more to provide for, the heart of
work went out of her: where was the good of working for herself!
there was no interest in it! But she knew it was the will of God she
should work and eat until he chose to take her back to himself; so
she worked on for her living while she would much rather have worked
for her dying; and comforted herself that every day brought death a
day nearer. Then she fell ill herself, and could work no more, and
thought God was going to let her die; for, able to win her bread no
longer, surely she was free to lie down and wait for death! But just
as she was going to her bed for the last time, she bethought herself
that she was bound to give her neighbour the chance of doing a good
deed: and felt that any creature dying at her door without letting
her know he was in want, would do her a great wrong. She saw it was
the will of God that she should beg, so put on her clothes again,
and went out to beg. It was sore work, and she said so to the
priest. But the priest told her she need not mind, for our Lord
himself lived by the kindness of the women who went about with him.
They knew he could not make a living for his own body and a living
for the souls of so many as well, and the least they could do was to
keep him alive who was making them alive. She said that was very
true; but he was all the time doing everything for everybody, and
she was doing nothing for anybody. The priest was a wise man, and
did not tell her how she had, since ever he knew her, been doing the
work of God in his heart, helping him to believe and trust in God;
so that in fact, when he was preaching, she was preaching. He did
not tell her that, I say, for he was jealous over her beauty, and
would have Christ's beloved sheep enter his holy kingdom with her
wool white, however torn it might be. So he left her to think she
was nobody at all; and told her that, whether she was worth keeping
alive or not, whether she was worth begging for or not, whether it
was a disgrace or an honour to beg, all was one, for it was the will
of God that she should beg, and there was no word more to be said,
and no thought more to be thought about it. To this she heartily
agreed, and did beg--enough to keep her alive, and no more.
"But at last she saw she must leave that part of the country, and go
back to the place her husband took her from. For the people about
her were very poor, and she thought it hard on them to have to help
a stranger like her; also her own people would want her to bury. For
you must know that in the clans, marriage was thought to be
dissolved by death, so far at least as the body was concerned;
therefore the body of a dead wife was generally carried back to the
burial place of her own people, there to be gathered to her fathers.
So the woman set out for her own country, begging her way thither.
Nor had she any difficulty, for there were not a few poor people on
her way, and the poor are the readiest to help the poor, also to
know whether a person is one that ought to be helped or not.
"One night she came to a farm house where a rich miserly farmer
dwelt. She knew about him, and had not meant to stop there, but she
was weary, and the sun went down as she reached his gate, and she
felt as if she could go no farther. So she went up to the door and
knocked, and asked if she could have a nights lodging. The woman
who opened to her went and asked the farmer. Now the old man did not
like hospitality, and in particular to such as stood most in need of
it; he did not enjoy throwing away money! At the same time, however,
he was very fond of hearing all the country rumours; and he thought
with himself he would buy her news with a scrap of what was going,
and a shake-down at the foot of the wall. So he told his servant to
bring her in.
"He received her not unkindly, for he wanted her to talk; and he let
her have a share of the supper, such as it was. But not until he had
asked every question about everybody he could think of, and drawn
her own history from her as well, would he allow her to have the
rest she so much needed.
"Now it was a poor house, like most in the country, and nearly
without partitions. The old man had his warm box-bed, and slept on
feathers where no draught could reach him, and the poor woman had
her bed of short rumpled straw on the earthen floor at the foot of
the wall in the coldest corner. Yet the heart of the man had been
moved by her story, for, without dwelling on her sufferings, she had
been honest in telling it. He had indeed, ere he went to sleep,
thanked God that he was so much better off than she. For if he did
not think it the duty of the rich man to share with his neighbours,
he at least thought it his duty to thank God for his being richer
than they.
"Now it may well seem strange that such a man should be privileged
to see a vision; but we do read in the Bible of a prophet who did
not even know his duty to an ass, so that the ass had to teach it
him. And the man alone saw the vision; the woman saw nothing of it.
But she did not require to see any vision, for she had truth in the
inward parts, which is better than all visions. The vision was on
this wise:--In the middle of the night the man came wide awake, and
looking out of his bed, saw the door open, and a light come in,
burning like a star, of a faint rosy colour, unlike any light he had
ever before seen. Another and another came in, and more yet, until
he counted six of them. They moved near the floor, but he could not
see clearly what sort of little creatures they were that were
carrying them. They went up to the woman's bed, and walked slowly
round it in a hovering kind of a way, stopping, and moving up and
down, and going on again; and when they had done this three times,
they went slowly out of the door again, stopping for a moment
several times as they went.
"He fell asleep, and waking not very early, was surprised to see his
guest still on her hard couch--as quiet as any rich woman, he said
to himself, on her feather bed. He woke her, told her he wondered
she should sleep so far into the morning, and narrated the curious
vision he had had. 'Does not that explain to you,' she said, 'how it
is that I have slept so long? Those were my dead children you saw
come to me. They died young, without any sin, and God lets them come
and comfort their poor sinful mother. I often see them in my dreams.
If, when I am gone, you will look at my bed, you will find every
straw laid straight and smooth. That is what they were doing last
night.' Then she gave him thanks for good fare and good rest, and
took her way to her own, leaving the farmer better pleased with
himself than he had been for a long time, partly because there had
been granted him a vision from heaven.
"At last the woman died, and was carried by angels into Abraham's
bosom. She was now with her own people indeed, that is, with God and
all the good. The old farmer did not know of her death till a long
time after; but it was upon the night she died, as near as he could
then make out, that he dreamed a wonderful dream. He never told it
to any but the priest from whom he sought comfort when he lay dying;
and the priest did not tell it till after everybody belonging to the
old man was gone. This was the dream:--
"He was lying awake in his own bed, as he thought, in the dark
night, when the poor woman came in at the door, having in her hand a
wax candle, but not alight. He said to her, 'You extravagant woman!
where did you get that candle?' She answered, 'It was put into my
hand when I died, with the word that I was to wander till I found a
fire at which to light it.' 'There!' said he, 'there's the rested
fire! Blow and get a light, poor thing! It shall never be said I
refused a body a light!' She went to the hearth, and began to blow
at the smouldering peat; but, for all she kept trying, she could not
light her candle. The old man thought it was because she was dead,
not because he was dead in sin, and losing his patience, cried, 'You
foolish woman! haven't you wit enough left to light a candle? It's
small wonder you came to beggary!' Still she went on trying, but the
more she tried, the blacker grew the peat she was blowing at. It
would indeed blaze up at her breath, but the moment she brought the
candle near it to catch the flame, it grew black, and each time
blacker than before. 'Tut! give me the candle,' cried the farmer,
springing out of bed; 'I will light it for you!' But as he stretched
out his hand to take it, the woman disappeared, and he saw that the
fire was dead out. 'Here's a fine business!' he said. 'How am I to
get a light?' For he was miles from the next house. And with that he
turned to go back to his bed. When he came near it, he saw somebody
lying in it. 'What! has the carline got into my very bed?' he cried,
and went to drive her out of the bed and out of the house. But when
he came close, he saw it was himself lying there, and knew that at
least he was out of the body, if not downright dead. The next moment
he found himself on the moor, following the woman, some distance
before him, with her unlighted candle still in her hand. He walked
as fast as he could to get up with her, but could not; he called
after her, but she did not seem to hear.
"When first he set out, he knew every step of the ground, but by and
by he ceased to know it. The moor stretched out endlessly, and the
woman walked on and on. Without a thought of turning back, he
followed. At length he saw a gate, seemingly in the side of a hill.
The woman knocked, and by the time it opened, he was near enough to
hear what passed. It was a grave and stately, but very happy-looking
man that opened it, and he knew at once it was St. Peter. When he
saw the woman, he stooped and kissed her. The same moment a light
shone from her, and the old man thought her candle was lighted at
last; but presently he saw it was her head that gave out the
shining. And he heard her say, 'I pray you, St. Peter, remember the
rich tenant of Balmacoy; he gave me shelter one whole night, and
would have let me light my candle but I could not.' St. Peter
answered, 'His fire was not fire enough to light your candle, and
the bed he gave you was of short straw!' 'True, St. Peter,' said the
woman, 'but he gave me some supper, and it is hard for a rich man to
be generous! You may say the supper was not very good, but at least
it was more than a cup of cold water!' 'Yes, verily!' answered the
saint, 'but he did not give it you because you loved God, or because
you were in need of it, but because he wanted to hear your news.'
Then the woman was sad, for she could not think of anything more to
say for the poor old rich man. And St. Peter saw that she was sad,
and said, 'But if he die to-night, he shall have a place inside the
gate, because you pray for him. He shall lie there!' And he pointed
to just such a bed of short crumpled straw as she had lain upon in
his house. But she said, 'St. Peter, you ought to be ashamed of
yourself! Is that the kind of welcome to give a poor new-dead man?
Where then would he have lain if I had not prayed for him?' 'In the
dog-kennel outside there,' answered St. Peter. 'Oh, then, please,
let me go back and warn him what comes of loving money!' she
pleaded. 'That is not necessary,' he replied; 'the man is hearing
every word you and I are this moment saying to each other.' 'I am so
glad!' rejoined the woman; 'it will make him repent.' 'He will not
be a straw the better for it!' answered the saint. 'He thinks now
that he will do differently, and perhaps when he wakes will think so
still; but in a day or two he will mock at it as a foolish dream. To
gather money will seem to him common sense, and to lay up treasure
in heaven nonsense. A bird in the hand will be to him worth ten in
the heavenly bush. And the end will be that he will not get the
straw inside the gate, and there will be many worse places than the
dog-kennel too good for him!' With that he woke.
"'What an odd dream!' he said to himself. 'I had better mind what I
am about!' So he was better that day, eating and drinking more
freely, and giving more to his people. But the rest of the week he
was worse than ever, trying to save what he had that day spent, and
so he went on growing worse. When he found himself dying, the terror
of his dream came upon him, and he told all to the priest. But the
priest could not comfort him."
By the time the story was over, to which Mercy had listened without
a word, they were alone in the great starry night, on the side of a
hill, with the snow high above them, and the heavens above the snow,
and the stars above the heavens, and God above and below everything.
Only Ian felt his presence. Mercy had not missed him yet.
She did not see much in the tale: how could she? It was very odd,
she thought, but not very interesting. She had expected a tale of
clan-feud, or a love-story! Yet the seriousness of her companion in
its narration had made some impression upon her.
"They told me you were an officer," she said, "but I see you are a
clergyman! Do you tell stories like that from the pulpit?"
"I am a soldier," answered Ian, "not a clergyman. But I have heard
my father tell such a story from the pulpit."
Ian imagined himself foiled in his attempt to interest the maiden.
If he was, it would not be surprising. He had not the least desire
to commend HIMSELF to the girl; and he would not talk rubbish even
to a child. There is sensible and senseless nonsense, good absurdity
and bad.
As Mercy recounted to her sister the story Ian had told her, it
certainly was silly enough. She had retained but the withered stalk
and leaves; the strange flower was gone. Christina judged it hardly
a story for a gentleman to tell a lady.
They returned almost in silence to find the table laid, a plentiful
supper spread, and the company seated. After supper came singing of
songs, saying of ballads, and telling of tales. I know with what
incredulity many highlanders will read of a merry-making in their own
country at which no horn went round, no punch-bowl was filled and
emptied without stint! But the clearer the brain, the better justice
is done to the more etherial wine of the soul. Of several of the
old songs Christina begged the tunes, but was disappointed to find
that, as she could not take them down, so the singers of them could
not set them down. In the tales she found no interest. The hostess
sang to her harp, and made to revering listeners eloquent music, for
her high clear tones had not yet lost their sweetness, and she had
some art to come in aid of her much feeling: loud murmurs of
delight, in the soft strange tongue of the songs themselves,
followed the profound silence with which they were heard, but
Christina wondered what there was to applaud. She could not herself
sing without accompaniment, and when she left, it was with a
regretful feeling that she had not distinguished herself. Naturally,
as they went home, the guests from the New House had much fun over
the queer fashions and poverty--stricken company, the harp and the
bagpipes, the horrible haggis, the wild minor songs, and the
unintelligible stories and jokes; but the ladies agreed that the
Macruadh was a splendid fellow.
CHAPTER II
ROB OF THE ANGELS.
Among the peasantry assembled at the feast, were two that had
neither danced, nor seated themselves at the long table where all
were welcome. Mercy wondered what might be the reason of their
separation. Her first thought was that they must be somehow, she
could not well imagine how, in lower position than any of the rest--had
perhaps offended against the law, perhaps been in prison, and
so the rest would not keep company with them; or perhaps they were
beggars who did not belong to the clan, and therefore, although fed,
were not allowed to eat with it! But she soon saw she must be wrong
in each conjecture; for if there was any avoiding, it was on the
part of the two: every one, it was clear, was almost on the alert to
wait upon them. They seemed indeed rather persons of distinction
than outcasts; for it was with something like homage, except for a
certain coaxing tone in the speech of the ministrants, that they
were attended. They had to help themselves to nothing; everything
was carried to them. Now one, now another, where all were guests and
all were servants, would rise from the table to offer them
something, or see what they would choose or might be in want of,
while they partook with the same dignity and self-restraint that was
to be noted in all.
The elder was a man about five-and-fifty, tall and lean, with a wiry
frame, dark grizzled hair, and a shaven face. His dress, which was
in the style of the country, was very poor, but decent; only his
plaid was large and thick, and bright compared with the rest of his
apparel: it was a present he had had from his clan-some giving the
wool, and others the labour in carding, dyeing, and weaving it. He
carried himself like a soldier-which he had never been, though his
father had. His eyes were remarkably clear and keen, and the way he
used them could hardly fail to attract attention. Every now and then
they would suddenly fix themselves with a gaze of earnest inquiry,
which would either grow to perception, or presently melt away and
let his glance go gently roving, ready to receive, but looking for
nothing. His face was very brown and healthy, with marked and
handsome features. Its expression seemed at first a little severe,
but soon, to reading eyes, disclosed patience and tenderness. At the
same time there was in it a something indescribably unlike the other
faces present-and indeed his whole person and carriage were
similarly peculiar. Had Mercy, however, spent on him a little more
attention, the peculiarity would have explained itself. She would
have seen that, although everybody spoke to him, he never spoke in
reply--only made signs, sometimes with his lips, oftener with hand
or head: the man was deaf and dumb. But such was the keenness of his
observation that he understood everything said to him by one he
knew, and much from the lips of a stranger.
His companion was a youth whose age it would have been difficult to
guess. He looked a lad, and was not far from thirty. His clothing
was much like his father's--poor enough, yet with the air of being
a better suit than that worn every day. He was very pale and
curiously freckled, with great gray eyes like his father's, which
had however an altogether different expression. They looked dreamy,
and seemed almost careless of what passed before them, though now
and then a certain quick, sharp turn of the head showed him not
devoid of attention.
The relation between the two was strangely interesting. Day and
night they were inseparable. Because the father was deaf, the son
gave all his attention to the sounds of the world; his soul sat in
his ears, ever awake, ever listening; while such was his confidence
in his father's sight, that he scarcely troubled himself to look
where he set his feet. His expression also was peculiar, partly from
this cause, mainly from a deeper. It was a far-away look, which a
common glance would have taken to indicate that he was "not all
there." In a lowland parish he would have been regarded as little
better than a gifted idiot; in the mountains he was looked upon as a
seer, one in communion with higher powers. Whether his people were
of this opinion from being all fools together, and therefore unable
to know a fool, or the lowland authorities would have been right in
taking charge of him, let him who pleases judge or misjudge for
himself. What his own thought of him came out in the name they gave
him: "Rob of the Angels," they called him. He was nearly a foot
shorter than his father, and very thin. Some said he looked always
cold; but I think that came of the wonderful peace on his face, like
the quiet of a lake over which lies a thin mist. Never was stronger
or fuller devotion manifested by son to father than by Rob of the
Angels to Hector of the Stags. His filial love and faith were
perfect. While they were together, he was in his own calm elysium;
when they were apart, which was seldom for more than a few minutes,
his spirit seemed always waiting. I believe his notions of God his
father, and Hector his father, were strangely mingled--the more
perhaps that the two fathers were equally silent. It would have been
a valuable revelation to some theologians to see in those two what
_love_ might mean.
So gentle was Rob of the Angels, that all the women, down to the
youngest maid-child, gave him a compassionate, mother-like love.
He had lost his mother when he was an infant; the father had brought
him up with his own hand, and from the moment of his mother's
departure had scarce let him out of his sight; but the whole
woman-remnant of the clan was as a mother to the boy. And from the
first they had so talked to him of his mother, greatly no doubt
through the feeling that from his father he could learn nothing of
her, that now his mother seemed to him everywhere: he could not see
God; why should not his mother be there though he could not see her!
No wonder the man was peaceful!
Many would be inclined to call the two but poachers and
vagabonds--vagabonds because they lived in houses not quite made
with hands, for they had several dwellings that were mostly
caves--which yet they contrived to make warm and comfortable; and
poachers because they lived by the creatures which God scatters on
his hills for his humans. Let those who inherit or purchase, avenge
the breach of law; but let them not wonder when those who are
disinherited and sold, cry out against the breach of higher law!
The land here had never, partly from the troubles besetting its
owners, but more from their regard for the poor, of the clan, been
with any care preserved; little notice was ever taken of what game
was killed, or who killed it. At the same time any wish of the chief
with regard to the deer, of which Rob's father for one knew every
antlered head, was rigidly respected. As to the parts which became
the property of others-the boundaries between were not very
definite, and sale could ill change habits, especially where owners
were but beginning to bestir themselves about the deer, or any of
the wild animals called game. Hector and Rob led their life with
untroubled conscience and easy mind.
In a world of the devil, where the justification of existence lay
in money on the one side, and work for money on the other, there
could be no justification of the existence of these men; but this
world does not belong to the devil, though it may often seem as if
it did, and father and son lived and enjoyed life, as in a manner so
to a decree unintelligible to him who, without his money and its
consolations, would know himself in the hell he has not yet
recognized. Neither of them could read or write; neither of them had a
penny laid by for wet weather; neither of them would leave any
memory beyond their generation; the will of neither would be laid up
in Doctors' Commons; neither of the two would leave on record a
single fact concerning one of the animals whose ways and habits
they knew better than any other man in the highlands; that they were
nothing, and worth nothing to anybody--even to themselves, would
have been the judgment of most strangers concerning them; but God
knew what a life of unspeakable pleasures it was that he had given
them-a life the change from which to the life beyond, would scarce
be distracting: neither would find himself much out of doors when he
died. To Rob of the Angels tow could Abraham's bosom feel strange,
accustomed to lie night after night, star-melted and soft-breathing,
or snow-ghastly and howling, with his head on--the bosom of Hector
of the Stags-an Abraham who could as ill do without his Isaac, as
his Isaac without him!
The father trusted his son's hearing as implicitly as his own sight.
When he saw a certain look come on his face, he would drop on the
instant, and crouch as still as if he had ears and knew what noise
was, watching Rob's face for news of some sound wandering through
the vast of the night.
It seemed at times, however, as if either he was not quite deaf, or
he had some gift that went toward compensation. To all motion about
him he was sensitive as no other man. I am afraid to say from how
far off the solid earth would convey to him the vibration of a
stag's footstep. Rob sometimes thought his cheek must feel the wind
of a sound to which his ear was irresponsive. Beyond a doubt he
was occasionally aware of the proximity of an animal, and knew
what animal it was, of which Rob had no intimation. His being,
corporeal and spiritual, seemed, to the ceaseless vibrations of the
great globe, a very seismograph. Often would he make his sign to
Rob to lay his ear on the ground and listen, when no indication had
reached the latter. I suspect the exceptional development in him of
some sense rudimentary in us all.
He had the keenest eyes in Glenruadh, and was a dead shot. Even the
chief was not his equal. Yet he never stalked a deer, never killed
anything, for mere sport. I am not certain he never had, but for Rob
of the Angels, he had the deep-rooted feeling of his chief in regard
to the animals. What they wanted for food, they would kill; but it
was not much they needed, for seldom can two men have lived on less,
and they had positively not a greed of any kind between them. If
their necessity was meal or potatoes, they would carry grouse or
hares down the glen, or arrange with some farmer's wife, perhaps
Mrs. Macruadh herself, for the haunches of a doe; but they never
killed from pleasure in killing. Of creatures destructive to game
they killed enough to do far more than make up for all the game they
took; and for the skins of ermine and stoat and fox and otter they
could always get money's worth; money itself they never sought or
had. If the little birds be regarded as earning the fruit and seed
they devour by the grubs and slugs they destroy, then Hector of the
Stags and Rob of the Angels also thoroughly earned their food.
When a trustworthy messenger was wanted, and Rob was within reach,
he was sure to be employed. But not even then were his father and he
quite parted. Hector would shoulder his gun, and follow in the track
of his fleet-footed son till he met him returning.
For what was life to Hector but to be with Rob! Was his Mary's son
to go about the world unattended! He had a yet stronger feeling than
any of the clan that his son was not of the common race of mortals.
To Hector also, after their own fashion, would Rob of the Angels
tell the tales that suggested the name his clanspeople gave
him--wonderful tales of the high mountain-nights, the actors in them
for the most part angels. Whether Rob believed he had intercourse
with such beings, heard them speak, and saw them, do the things he
reported, I cannot tell: it may be that, like any other poet of good
things, he but saw and believed the things his tales meant, the
things with which he represented the angels as dealing, and
concerning which he told their sayings. To the eyes of those who
knew him, Rob seemed just the sort of person with whom the angels
might be well pleased to hold converse: was he not simplicity
itself, truth, generosity, helpfulness? Did he not, when a child,
all but lose his life in the rescue of an idiot from the swollen
burn? Did he not, when a boy, fight a great golden eagle on its
nest, thinking to deliver the lamb it had carried away? Knowing his
father in want of a new bonnet, did not Rob with his bare hands
seize an otter at the mouth of its hole, and carry it home, laughing
merrily over the wounds it had given him?
His voice had in it a strangely peculiar tone, making it seem not of
this world. Especially after he had been talking for some time, it
would appear to come from far away, not from the lips of the man
looking you in the face.
It was wonderful with what solemnity of speech, and purity of form
he would tell his tales. So much in solitude with his dumb father,
his speech might well be unlike the speech of other men; but whence
the impression of cultivation it produced?
When the Christmas party broke up, most of the guests took the road
toward the village, the chief and his brother accompanying them part
of the way. Of these were Rob and his father, walking hand in hand,
Hector looking straight before him, Rob gazing up into the heavens,
as if holding counsel with the stars.
"Are you seeing any angels, Rob?" asked a gentle girl of ten.
"Well, and I'm not sure," answered Rob of the Angels.
"Sure you can tell whether you see anything!"
"Oh, yes, I see! but it is not easy to tell what will be an angel
and what will not. There's so much all blue up there, it might be
full of angels and none of us see one of them!"
"Do tell us what you see, Rob, dear Rob," said the girl.
"Well, and I will tell you. I think I see many heads close together,
talking."
"And can you hear what they will be saying?"
"Some of it."
"Tell me, do tell me-some-just a little."
"Well then, they are saying, one to the other--not very plain, but I
can hear--they are saying, 'I wonder when people will be good! It
would be so easy, if only they would mean it, and begin when they
are little!' That's what they are saying as they look down on us
walking along."
"That will be good advice, Rob!" said one of the women.
"And," he resumed, "they are saying now--at least that is what it
sounds to me--'I wish women were as good as they were when they
were little girls!'"
"Now I know they are not saying that!" remarked the woman. "How
should the angels trouble themselves about us! Rob, dear, confess
you are making it up, because the child would be asking you."
Rob made no answer, but some saw him smile a curious smile. Rob
would never defend anything he had said, or dispute anything another
said. After a moment or two, he spoke again.
"Shall I be telling you what I heard them saying to each other this
last night of all?" he asked.
"Yes, do, do!"
"It was upon Dorrachbeg; and there were two of them. They were
sitting together in the moon--in the correi on the side of the hill
over the village. I was lying in a bush near them, for I could not
sleep, and came out, and the night was not cold. Now I would never
be so bad-mannered as to listen where persons did not want me to
hear."
"What were they like, Rob, dear?" interrupted the girl.
"That does not matter much," answered Rob; "but they were white, and
their eyes not so white, but brighter; for so many sad things go in
at their eyes when they come down to the earth, that it makes them
dark."
"How could they be brighter and darker both at once?" asked the
girl, very pertinently.
"I will tell you," answered Rob. "The dark things that go in at
their eyes, they have to burn them in the fire of faith; and it is
the fire of that burning that makes their eyes bright; it is the
fire of their faith burning up the sad things they see."
"Oh, yes! I understand now!" said the girl. "And what were their
clothes like, Rob?"
"When you see the angels, you don't think much about their clothes."
"And what were they saying?"
"I spoke first--the moment I saw them, for I was not sure they knew
that I was there. I said, 'I am here, gentlemen.' 'Yes, we know
that,' they answered. 'Are you far from home, gentlemen?' I asked.
'It is all one for that,' they answered. 'Well,' said I, 'it is
true, gentlemen, for you seem as much at home here on the side of
Dorrachbeg, as if it was a hill in paradise!' 'And how do you know
it is not?' said they. 'Because I see people do upon it as they
would not in paradise,' I answered. 'Ah!' said one of them, 'the
hill may be in paradise, and the people not! But you cannot
understand these things.' 'I think I do,' I said; 'but surely, if
you did let them know they were on a hill in paradise, they would
not do as they do!' 'It would be no use telling them,' said he;
'but, oh, how they spoil the house!' 'Are the red deer, and the
hares, and the birds in paradise?' I asked. 'Certain sure!' he
answered. 'Do they know it?' said I. 'No, it is not necessary for
them; but they will know it one day.' 'You do not mind your little
brother asking you questions?' I said. 'Ask a hundred, if you will,
little brother,' he replied. 'Then tell me why you are down here
to-night.' 'My friend and I came out for a walk, and we thought we
would look to see when the village down there will have to be
reaped.' 'What do you mean?' I said. 'You cannot see what we see,'
they answered; 'but a human place is like a flower, or a field of
corn, and grows ripe, or won't grow ripe, and then some of us up
there have to sharpen our sickles.' 'What!' said I, for a great fear
came upon me, 'they are not wicked people down there!' 'No, not very
wicked, but slow and dull.' Then I could say nothing more for a
while, and they did not speak either, but sat looking before them.
'Can you go and come as you please?' I asked at length. 'Yes, just
as we are sent,' they answered. 'Would you not like better to go and
come of yourselves, as my father and I do?' I said. 'No,' answered
both of them, and something in their one voice almost frightened me;
'it is better than everything to go where we are sent. If we had to
go and come at our own will, we should be miserable, for we do not
love our own will.' 'Not love your own will?' 'No, not at all!'
'Why?' 'Because there is one--oh, ever so much better! When you and
your father are quite good, you will not be left to go and come at
your own will any more than we are.' And I cried out, and said, 'Oh,
dear angel! you frighten me!' And he said, 'That is because you are
only a man, and not a--' Now I am not sure of the word he said next;
bat I think it was CHRISTIAN; and I do not quite know what the word
meant."
"Oh, Rob, dear! everybody knows that!" exclaimed the girl.
But Rob said no more.
While he was talking, Alister had come up behind him, with Annie of
the shop, and he said--
"Rob, my friend, I know what you mean, and I want to hear the rest
of it: what did the angels say next?"
"They said," answered Rob, "--'Was it your will set you on this
beautiful hill, with all these things to love, with such air to
breathe, such a father as you've got, and such grand deer about
you?' 'No,' I answered. 'Then,' said the angel, 'there must be a
better will than yours, for you would never have even thought of
such things!' 'How could I, when I wasn't made?' said I. 'There it
is!' he returned, and said no more. I looked up, and the moon was
shining, and there were no angels on the stone. But a little way off
was my father, come out to see what had become of me."
"Now did you really see and hear all that, Rob?" said Alister.
Rob smiled a beautiful smile--with something in it common people
would call idiotic--stopped and turned, took the chief's hand, and
carried it to his lips; but not a word more would he speak, and soon
they came where the path of the two turned away over the hill.
"Will you not come and sleep at our house?" said one of the company.
But they made kindly excuse.
"The hill-side would miss us; we are expected home!" said Rob--and
away they climbed to their hut, a hollow in a limestone rock, with a
front wall of turf, there to sleep side by side till the morning
came, or, as Rob would have said, "till the wind of the sun woke
them."
Rob of the Angels made songs, and would sing one sometimes; but they
were in Gaelic, and the more poetic a thing, the more inadequate at
least, if not stupid is its translation.
He had all the old legends of the country in his head, and many
stories of ghosts and of the second sight. These stories he would
tell exactly as he had heard them, showing he believed every word of
them; but with such of the legends as were plainly no other than
poetic inventions, he would take what liberties he pleased--and they
lost nothing by it; for he not only gave them touches of fresh
interest, but sent glimmering through them hints of something
higher, of which ordinary natures perceived nothing, while others
were dimly aware of a loftier intent: according to his listeners was
their hearing. In Rob's stories, as in all the finer work of genius,
a man would find as much as, and no more than, he was capable of.
Ian's opinion of Rob was even higher than Alister's.
"What do you think, Ian, of the stories Rob of the Angels tells?"
asked Alister, as they walked home.
"That the Lord has chosen the weak things of the world to confound
the mighty," answered Ian.
"Tut! Rob confounds nobody."
"He confounds me," returned Ian.
"Does he believe what he tells?"
"He believes all of it that is to be believed," replied Ian.
"You are as bad as he!" rejoined Alister. "There is no telling,
sometimes, what you mean!"
"Tell me this, Alister: can a thing be believed that is not true?"
"Yes, certainly!"
"I say, NO. Can you eat that which is not bread?"
"I have seen a poor fellow gnawing a stick for hunger!" answered
Alister.
"Yes, gnawing! but gnawing is not eating. Did the poor fellow eat
the stick? That is just it! Many a man will gnaw at a lie all his
life, and perish of want. I mean LIE, of course, the real lie--a
thing which is in its nature false. He may gnaw at it, he may even
swallow it, but I deny that he can believe it. There is not that in
it which can be believed; at most it can but be supposed to be true.
Belief is another thing. Truth is alone the correlate of belief,
just as air is for the lungs, just as form and colour are for the
sight. A lie can no more be believed than carbonic acid can be
breathed. It goes into the lungs, true, and a lie goes into the
mind, but both kill; the one is not BREATHED, the other is not
BELIEVED. The thing that is not true cannot find its way to the home
of faith; if it could, it would be at once rejected with a loathing
beyond utterance; to a pure soul, which alone can believe, nothing
is so loathsome as a pretence of truth. A lie is a pretended truth.
If there were no truth there could be no lie. As the devil upon God,
the very being of a lie depends on that whose opposite and enemy it
is. But tell me, Alister, do you believe the parables of our Lord?"
"With all my heart."
"Was there any real person in our Lord's mind when he told that one
about the unjust judge?"
"I do not suppose there was; but there were doubtless many such."
"Many who would listen to a poor woman because she plagued them?"
"Well, it does not matter; what the story teaches is true, and that
was what he wanted believed."
"Just so. The truth in the parables is what they mean, not what they
say; and so it is, I think, with Rob of the Angels' stories. He
believes all that can be believed of them. At the same time, to a
mind so simple, the spirit of God must have freer entrance than to
ours--perhaps even teaches the man by what we call THE MAN'S OWN
WORDS. His words may go before his ideas--his higher ideas at
least--his ideas follow after his words. As the half-thoughts pass
through his mind--who can say how much generated by himself, how
much directly suggested by the eternal thought in which his spirit
lives and breathes!--he drinks and is refreshed. I am convinced that
nowhere so much as in the highest knowledge of all--what the people
above count knowledge--will the fulfilment of the saying of our
Lord, "Many first shall be last, and the last first," cause
astonishment; that a man who has been leader of the age's opinion,
may be immeasurably behind another whom he would have shut up in a
mad-house. Depend upon it, things go on in the soul of that Rob of
the Angels which the angels, whether they come to talk with him or
not, would gladly look into. Of such as he the angels may one day be
the pupils."
A silence followed.
"Do you think the young ladies of the New House could understand Rob
of the Angels, Ian?" at length asked Alister.
"Not a bit. I tried the younger, and she is the best.--They could if
they would wake up."
"You might say that of anybody!"
"Yes; but there is this among other differences--that some people do
not wake up, because they want a new brain first, such as they will
get when they die, perhaps; while others do not wake up, because
their whole education has been a rocking of them to sleep. And there
is this difference between the girls, that the one is full of
herself, and the other is not. The one has a close, the other an
open mind."
"And yet," said Alister, "if they heard you say so, the open mind
would imagine itself the close, and the close never doubt it was the
open!"
CHAPTER III
AT THE NEW HOUSE.
The ladies of the New House were not a little surprised the next day
when, as they sat waiting their guests, the door of the drawing-room
opened, and they saw the young highlanders enter in ordinary evening
dress. The plough-driving laird himself looked to Christina very
much like her patterns of Grosvenor-square. It was long since he had
worn his dress-coat, and it was certainly a little small for his
more fully developed frame, but he carried himself as straight as a
rush, and was nowise embarrassed with hands or feet. His hands were
brown and large, but they were well shaped, and not ashamed of
themselves, being as clean as his heart. Out of his hazel eyes,
looking in the candle-light nearly as dark as Mercy's, went an
occasional glance which an emergency might at once develop into a
look of command.
For Ian, he would have attracted attention anywhere, if only from
his look of quiet UNSELFNESS, and the invariable grace of the
movement that broke his marked repose; but his entertainers would
doubtless have honoured him more had they understood that his manner
was just the same and himself as much at home in the grandest court
of Europe.
The elder ladies got on together pretty well. The widow of the chief
tried to explain to her hostess the condition of the country and its
people; the latter, though knowing little and caring less about
relations beyond those of the family and social circle, nor feeling
any purely human responsibility, was yet interested enough to be
able to seem more interested than she was; while her sweet smile and
sweet manners were very pleasing to one who seldom now had the
opportunity of meeting a woman so much on her own level.
The gentlemen, too, were tolerably comfortable together. Both
Alister and Ian had plenty of talk and anecdote. The latter pleased
the ladies with descriptions of northern ways and dresses and
manners--perhaps yet more with what pleased the men also, tales of
wolf-and bear-shooting. But it seemed odd that, when the talk
turned upon the home-shooting called sport, both Alister and Ian
should sit in unsmiling silence.
There was in Ian a certain playfulness, a subdued merriment, which
made Mercy doubt her ears after his seriousness of the night before.
Life seemed to flash from him on all sides, occasionally in a keen
stroke of wit, oftener in a humorous presentation of things. His
brother alone could see how he would check the witticism on his very
lips lest it should hurt. It was in virtue of his tenderness toward
everything that had life that he was able to give such narratives
of what he had seen, such descriptions of persons he had met. When
he told a story, it was with such quiet participation, manifest in
the gleam of his gray eyes, in the smile that hovered like the very
soul of Psyche about his lips, that his hearers enjoyed the telling
more than the tale. Even the chief listened with eagerness to every
word that fell from his brother.
The ladies took note that, while the manners of the laird and his
mother were in a measure old-fashioned, those of Ian were of the
latest: with social custom, in its flow of change, he seemed at
home. But his ease never for a moment degenerated into the
free-and-easy, the dry rot of manners; there was a stateliness in
him that dominated the ease, and a courtesy that would not permit
frendliness to fall into premature familiarity. He was at ease with
his fellows because he respected them, and courteous because he
loved them.
The ladies withdrew, and with their departure came the time that
tests the man whether he be in truth a gentleman. In the presence of
women the polish that is not revelation but concealment preserves
itself only to vanish with them. How would not some women stand
aghast to hear but a specimen of the talk of their heroes at such a
time!
It had been remarked throughout the dinner that the highlanders took
no wine; but it was supposed they were reserving their powers. When
they now passed decanter and bottle and jug without filling their
glasses, it gave offence to the very soul of Mr. Peregrine Palmer.
The bettered custom of the present day had not then made progress
enough to affect his table; he was not only fond of a glass of good
wine, but had the ambition of the cellar largely developed; he would
fain be held a connaisseur in wines, and kept up a good stock of
distinguished vintages, from which he had brought of such to
Glenruadh as would best bear the carriage. Having no aspiration,
there was room in him for any number of petty ambitions; and it
vexed him not to reap the harvest of recognition. "But of course,"
he said to himself, "no highlander understands anything but whisky!"
"You don't mean you're a teetotaler, Macruadh!" he said.
"No," answered the chief; "I do not call myself one; but I never
drink anything strong."
"Not on Christmas-day? Of course you make an exception at times; and
if at any time, why not on the merriest day of the year? You are
under no pledge!"
"If that were a reason," returned Alister, laughing, "it would
rather be one for becoming pledged immediately."
"Well, you surprise me! And highlanders too! I thought better of all
highlanders; they have the reputation of good men at the bottle! You
make me sorry to have brought my wine where it meets with no
consideration.--Mr. Ian, you are a man of the world: you will not
refuse to pledge me?"
"I must, Mr. Palmer! The fact is, my brother and I have seen so much
evil come of the drinking habits of the country, which always get
worse in a time of depression, that we dare not give in to them. My
father, who was clergyman of the parish before he became head of the
clan, was of the same mind before us, and brought us up not to
drink. Throughout a whole Siberian winter I kept the rule."
"And got frost-bitten for your pains?"
"And found myself nothing the worse."
"It's mighty good of you, no doubt!" said the host, with a curl of
his shaven lip.
"You can hardly call that good which does not involve any
self-denial!" remarked Alister.
"Well," said Mr. Peregrine Palmer, "what IS the world coming to? All
the pith is leaking out of our young men. In another generation we
shall have neither soldiers nor sailors nor statesmen!"
"On what do you found such a sad conclusion?" inquired Ian.
"On the growth of asceticism in the young men. Believe me, it is
necessary to manhood that men when they are young should drink a
little, gamble a little, and sow a few wild oats--as necessary as
that a nation should found itself by the law of the strongest. How
else can we look for the moderation to follow with responsibilities?
The vices that are more than excusable in the young, are very
properly denied to the married man; the law for him is not the same
as for the young man. I do not plead for license, you see; but it
will never do for young men to turn ascetics! Let the clergy do as
they please; they are hardly to be counted men; at least their
calling is not a manly one! Depend upon it, young men who do not
follow the dictates of nature--while they are young, I mean--will
never make any mark in the world! They dry up like a nut, brain and
all, and have neither spirit, nor wit, nor force of any kind. Nature
knows best! When I was a young man,--"
"Pray spare us confession, Mr. Palmer," said Ian. "In our case your
doctrine does not enter willing ears, and I should be sorry anything
we might feel compelled to say, should have the appearance of
personality."
"Do you suppose I should heed anything you said?" cried the host,
betraying the bad blood in his breeding. "Is it manners here to
prevent a man from speaking his mind at his own table? I say a saint
is not a man! A fellow that will neither look at a woman nor drink
his glass, is not cut out for man's work in the world!"
Like a sledge-hammer came the fist of the laird on the table, that
the crystal danced and rang.
"My God!" he exclaimed, and rose in hugest indignation.
Ian laid his hand on his arm, and he sat down again.
"There may be some misunderstanding, Alister," said Ian, "between us
and our host!--Pray, Mr. Palmer, let us understand each other: do
you believe God made woman to be the slave of man? Can you believe
he ever made a woman that she might be dishonoured?--that a man
might caress and despise her?"
"I know nothing about God's intentions; all I say is, we must obey
the laws of our nature."
"Is conscience then not a law of our nature? Or is it below the
level of our instincts? Must not the lower laws be subject to the
higher? It is a law--for ever broken, yet eternal--that a man is his
brother's keeper: still more must he be his sister's keeper. Therein
is involved all civilization, all national as well as individual
growth."
Mr. Peregrine Palmer smiled a contemptuous smile. The other young
men exchanged glances that seemed to say, "The governor knows what's
what!"
"Such may be the popular feeling in this out-of-the-way spot," said
Mr. Peregrine Palmer, "and no doubt it is very praiseworthy, but the
world is not of your opinion, gentlemen."
"The world has got to come to our opinion," said the laird--at which
the young men of the house broke into a laugh.
"May we join the ladies?" said Ian, rising.
"By all means," answered the host, with a laugh meant to be
good-humoured; "they are the fittest company for you."
As the brothers went up the stair, they heard their host again
holding forth; but they would not have been much edified by the
slight change of front he had made--to impress on the young men the
necessity of moderation in their pleasures.
There are two opposite classes related by a like unbelief--those who
will not believe in the existence of the good of which they have
apprehended no approximate instance, and those who will not believe
in the existence of similar evil. I tell the one class, there are
men who would cast their very being from them rather than be such as
they; and the other, that their shutting of their eyes is no potent
reason for the shutting of my mouth. There are multitudes delicate
as they, who are compelled to meet evil face to face, and fight with
it the sternest of battles: on their side may I be found! What the
Lord knew and recognized, I will know and recognize too, be shocked
who may. I spare them, however, any more of the talk at that
dinner-table. Only let them take heed lest their refinement involve
a very bad selfishness. Cursed be the evil thing, not ignored! Mrs.
Palmer, sweet-smiled and clear-eyed, never showed the least
indignation at her husband's doctrines. I fear she was devoid of
indignation on behalf of others. Very far are such from
understanding the ways of the all-pardoning, all-punishing Father!
The three from the cottage were half-way home ere the gentlemen of
the New House rose from their wine. Then first the mother sought an
explanation of the early departure they had suggested.
"Something went wrong, sons: what was it she said?"
"I don't like the men, mother; nor does Ian," answered Alister
gloomily.
"Take care you are not unjust!" she replied.
"You would not have liked Mr. Palmer's doctrine any better than we
did, mother."
"What was it?"
"We would rather not tell you."
"It was not fit for a woman to hear."
"Then do not tell me. I trust you to defend women."
"In God's name we will!" said Alister.
"There is no occasion for an oath, Alister!" said his mother.
"Alister meant it very solemnly!" said Ian.
"Yes; but it was not necessary--least of all to me. The name of our
Lord God should lie a precious jewel in the cabinet of our hearts,
to be taken out only at great times, and with loving awe."
"I shall be careful, mother," answered Alister; "but when things
make me sorry, or glad, or angry, I always think of God first!"
"I understand you; but I fear taking the name of God in vain."
"It shall not be in vain, mother!" said the laird.
"Must it be a breach with our new neighbours?" asked the mother.
"It will depend on them. The thing began because we would not drink
with them."
"You did not make any remark?"
"Not until our host's remarks called for our reasons. By the way, I
should like to know how the man made his money."
CHAPTER IV.
THE BROTHERS.
Events, then, because of the deeper things whence they came, seemed
sorely against any cordial approach of the old and the new houses of
Glenruadh. But there was a sacred enemy within the stronghold of Mr.
Peregrine Palmer, and that enemy forbade him to break with the young
highlanders notwithstanding the downright mode in which they had
expressed their difference with him: he felt, without knowing it,
ashamed of the things he had uttered; they were not such as he would
wish proclaimed from the house-tops out of the midst of which rose
heavenward the spire of the church he had built; neither did the
fact that he would have no man be wicked on Sundays, make him feel
quite right in urging young men to their swing on other days.
Christian and Sercombe could not but admire the straightforwardness
of the brothers; their conventionality could not prevent them from
feeling the dignity with which they acted on their convictions. The
quixotic young fellows ought not to be cut for their behaviour! They
could not court their society, but would treat them with
consideration! Things could not well happen to bring them into much
proximity!
What had taken place could not definitely influence the ideas,
feelings, or opinions of the young ladies. Their father would sooner
have had his hand cut off than any word said over that fuliginous
dessert reach the ears of his daughters. Is it not an absolute
damnation of certain evil principles, that many men would be flayed
alive rather than let those they love know that they hold them? But
see the selfishness of such men: each looks with scorn on the woman
he has done his part to degrade, but not an impure breath must reach
the ears of HIS children! Another man's he will send to the devil!
Mr. Palmer did, however, communicate something of the conversation
to his wife; and although she had neither the spirit, nor the
insight, nor the active purity, to tell him he was in the wrong, she
did not like the young highlanders the worse. She even thought it a
pity the world should have been so made that they could not be in
the right.
It is wonderful how a bird of the air will carry a matter, and some
vaguest impression of what had occurred alighted on the minds of the
elder girls--possibly from hints supposed unintelligible, passing
between Mr. Sercombe and Christian: something in the social opinions
of the two highlanders made those opinions differ much from the
opinions prevailing in society! Now even Mercy had not escaped some
notion of things of which the air about her was full; and she felt
the glow of a conscious attraction towards men--somehow, she did not
know how--like old-fashioned knights errant in their relations to
women.
The attachment between the brothers was unusual both in kind and
degree. Alister regarded Ian as his better self, through whom to
rise above himself; Ian looked up to his brother as the head of the
family, uniting in himself all ancestral claims, the representative
of an ordered and harmonious commonwealth. He saw in Alister virtues
and powers he did not recognize in himself. His love blossomed into
the deeper devotion that he only had been sent to college: he was
bound to share with his elder brother what he had learned. So
Alister got more through Ian than he would have got at the best
college in the world. For Ian was a born teacher, and found
intensest delight, not in imparting knowledge--that is a
comparatively poor thing--but in leading a mind up to see what it
was before incapable of seeing. It was part of the same gift that he
always knew when he had not succeeded. In Alister he found a
wonderful docility--crossed indeed with a great pride, against
which he fought sturdily.
It is not a good sign of any age that it should find it hard to
believe in such simplicity and purity as that of these young men; it
is perhaps even a worse sign of our own that we should find it
difficult to believe in such love between men. I am sure of this,
that a man incapable of loving another man with hearty devotion, can
not be capable of loving a woman as a woman ought to be loved. From
each other these two kept positively nothing secret.
Alister had a great love of music, which however had had little
development except from the study of the violin, with the assistance
of a certain poor enough performer in the village, and what
criticism his brother could afford him, who, not himself a player,
had heard much good music. But Alister was sorely hampered by the
fact that his mother could not bear the sound of it. The late chief
was one of the few clergymen who played the violin; and at the first
wail of the old instrument in the hands of his son, his widow was
seized with such a passion of weeping, that Alister took the utmost
care she should never hear it again, always carrying it to some
place too remote for the farthest-travelling tones to reach her. But
this was not easy, for sound will travel very far among the hills.
At times he would take it to the room behind Annie's shop, at times
to the hut occupied by Hector of the Stags: there he would not
excruciate his host at least, and Rob of the Angels would endure
anything for his chief. The place which he most preferred was too
distant to be often visited; but there, soon after Christmas, the
brothers now resolved to have a day together, a long talk, and a
conference with the violin. On a clear frosty morning in January
they set out, provided for a night and two days.
The place was upon an upland pasture-ground, yet in their
possession: no farm was complete without a range in some high valley
for the sheep and cattle in summer. On the north of this valley
stood a bare hilltop, whose crest was a limestone rock, rising from
the heather about twenty feet. Every summer they had spent weeks of
their boyhood with the shepherds, in the society of this hill, and
one day discovered in its crest a shallow cave, to which thereafter
they often took their food, and the book they were reading together.
There they read the English Ossian, troubled by no ignorant
unbelief; and there they made Gaelic songs, in which Alister
excelled, while Ian did better in English.
When Ian was at home in the university-vacations, they were fonder
than ever of going to the hill. There Ian would pour out to Alister
of the fullness of his gathered knowledge, and there and then they
made their first acquaintance with Shakspere. Ian had bought some
dozen of his plays, in smallest compass and cleanest type, at a
penny a piece, and how they revelled in them the long summer
evenings! Ian had bought also, in a small thick volume, the poems of
Shelley: these gave them not only large delight, but much to talk
about, for they were quite capable of encountering his vague
philosophy. Then they had their Euclid and Virgil--and even tried
their mental teeth upon Dante, but found the Commedia without notes
too hard a nut for them. Every fresh spring, Ian brought with him
fresh books, and these they read in their cave. But I must not
forget the cave itself, which also shared in the progress of its
troglodytes.
The same week in which they first ate and read in it, they conceived
and began to embody the idea of developing the hollow into a house.
Foraging long ago in their father's library for mental pabulum, they
had come upon Belzoni's quarto, and had read, with the avidity of
imaginative boys, the tale of his discoveries, taking especial
delight in his explorations of the tombs of the kings in the rocks
of Beban el Malook: these it was that now suggested excavation.
They found serviceable tools about the place at home, and the rock
was not quite of the hardest. Not a summer, for the last seventeen
years, had passed without a good deal being done, Alister working
alone when Ian was away, and the cave had now assumed notable
dimensions. It was called by the people uamh an ceann, the cave of
the chief, and regarded as his country house. All around it was
covered with snow throughout the winter and spring, and supplied
little to the need of man beyond the blessed air, and a glorious
vision of sea and land, mountain and valley, falling water, gleaming
lake, and shadowy cliff.
Crossing the wide space where so lately they had burned the heather
that the sheep might have its young shoots in the spring, the
brothers stood, and gazed around with delight.
"There is nothing like this anywhere!" said Ian.
"Do you mean nothing so beautiful?" asked Alister.
"No; I mean just what I say: there is nothing like it. I do not care
a straw whether one scene be more or less beautiful than another;
what I do care for is--its individual speech to my soul. I feel
towards visions of nature as towards writers. If a book or a
prospect produces in my mind a mood that no other produces, then I
feel it individual, original, real, therefore precious. If a scene
or a song play upon the organ of my heart as no other scene or song
could, why should I ask at all whether it be beautiful? A bare hill
may be more to me than a garden of Damascus, but I love them both.
The first question as to any work of art is whether it puts the
willing soul into any mood at all peculiar; the second, what that
mood is. It matters to me little by whom our Ossian was composed,
and it matters nothing whoever may in his ignorance declare that
there never was an Ossian any more than a Homer: here is a something
that has power over my heart and soul, works upon them as not
anything else does. I do not ask whether its power be great or
small; it is enough that it is a peculiar power, one by itself; that
it puts my spiritual consciousness in a certain individual
condition, such in character as nothing else can occasion. Either a
man or a nation must have felt to make me so feel."
They were now climbing the last slope of the hill on whose top stood
their playhouse, dearer now than in their boyhood. Alister
occasionally went there for a few hours' solitude, and Ian would
write there for days at a time, but in general when they visited the
place it was together. Alister unlocked the door and they entered.
Unwilling to spend labour on the introductory, they had made the
first chamber hardly larger than the room required for opening the
door. Immediately within, another door opened into a room of about
eight feet by twelve, with two small windows. Its hearth was a
projection from the floor of the live stone; and there, all ready
for lighting, was a large pile of peats. The chimney went up through
the rock, and had been the most difficult part of their undertaking.
They had to work it much wider than was necessary for the smoke, and
then to reduce its capacity with stone and lime. Now and then it
smoked, but peat-smoke is sweet.
The first thing after lighting the fire, was to fill their kettle,
for which they had to take off the snow-lid of a small spring near
at hand. Then they made a good meal of tea, mutton-ham, oatcakes and
butter. The only seats in the room were a bench in each of two of
the walls, and a chair on each side of the hearth, all of the live
rock.
From this opened two rooms more--one a bedroom, with a bed in the
rock-wall, big enough for two. Dry heather stood thick between the
mattress and the stone. The third room, of which they intended
making a parlour, was not yet more than half excavated; and there,
when they had rested a while, they began to bore and chip at the
stone. Their progress was slow, for the grain was close: never, even
when the snow above was melting, had the least moisture come
through. For a time they worked and talked: both talked better when
using their hands. Then Alister stopped, and played while Ian went
on; Ian stopped next, and read aloud from a manuscript he had
brought, while his brother again worked. But first he gave Alister
the history of what he was going to read. It was suggested, he said,
by that strange poem of William Mayne's, called "The Dead Man's
Moan," founded on the silly notion that the man himself is buried,
and not merely his body.
"I wish I were up to straught my banes,
And drive frae my face the cauld, dead air;
I wish I were up, that the friendly rains
Micht wash the dark mould frae my tangled hair!"
quoted Ian, and added,
"I thought I should like to follow out the idea, and see what ought
to come of it. I therefore supposed a person seized by something of
the cataleptic kind, from which he comes to himself still in the
body, but unable to hold communication with the outer world. He
thinks therefore that he is dead and buried. Recovering from his
first horror, he reflects that, as he did not make himself think and
feel, nor can cease to think and feel if he would, there must be
somewhere--and where but within himself?--the power by which he
thinks and feels, a power whose care it must be, for it can belong
to no other, to look after the creature he has made. Then comes to
him the prayer of Job, 'Oh that thou wouldst hide me in the grave
till thy anger with me was past! Then wouldst thou desire to see
again the work of thy hands, the creature thou hadst made! Then
wouldst thou call, and I would answer.' So grandly is the man
comforted thereby, that he breaks out in a dumb song of triumph over
death and the grave. As its last tone dies in him, a kiss falls upon
his lips. It is the farewell of the earth; the same moment he bursts
the bonds and rises above the clouds of the body, and enters into
the joy of his Lord."
Having thus prepared Alister to hear without having to think as well
as attend, which is not good for poetry, Ian read his verses. I will
not trouble my reader with them; I am sure he would not think so
well of them as did Alister. What Ian desired was sympathy, not
admiration, but from Alister he had both.
Few men would care to hear the talk of those two, for they had no
interest in anything that did not belong to the reality of things.
To them the things most men count real, were the merest phantasms.
They sought what would not merely last, but must go on growing. At
strife with all their known selfishness, they were growing into
strife with all the selfishness in them as yet unknown. There was
for them no question of choice; they MUST choose what was true; they
MUST choose life; they MUST NOT walk in the way of death.
They were very near to agreeing about EVERYthing they should ask.
Few men are capable of understanding such love as theirs, of
understanding the love of David and Jonathan, of Shakspere to W. H.,
of Tennyson and Hallam. Every such love, nevertheless, is a
possession of the race; what has once been is, in possibility to
come, as well as in fact that has come. A solitary instance of
anything great is enough to prove it human, yea necessary to
humanity. I have wondered whether the man in whom such love is
possible, may not spring of an altogether happy conjunction of male
and female--a father and mother who not only loved each other, but
were of the same mind in high things, of the same lofty aims in
life, so that their progeny came of their true man-and-woman-hood.
If any unaccountable disruption or discord of soul appear in a man,
it is worth while to ask whether his father and mother were of one
aspiration. Might not the fact that their marriage did not go deep
enough, that father and mother were not of one mind, only of one
body, serve to account for the rude results of some marriages of
personable people? At the same time we must not forget the endless
and unfathomable perpetuations of ancestry. But however these things
may be, those two men, brothers born, were also brothers willed.
They ceased quarrying, and returned to the outer room. Ian betook
himself to drawing figures on one of the walls, with the intention
of carving them in dipped relief. Alister proceeded to take their
bedding from before the fire, and prepare for the night.
CHAPTER V.
THE PRINCESS.
While they were thus busied, Ian, with his face to the wall, in the
dim light of the candle by which he was making his first rough
sketches, began the story of his flight from Russia. Long ere he
ended, Alister came close behind him, and there stood, his bosom
heaving with emotion, his eyes burning with a dry fire. Ian was
perfectly composed, his voice quiet and low.
I will not give his tale in the first person; and will tell of it
only as much as I think it necessary my reader should know.
Having accepted a commission of the Czar, he was placed in a post of
trust in the palace.
In one apartment of it, lived an imperial princess, the burden of
whose rank had not even the alleviation of society. Her disclosure
of a sympathy with oppressed humanity had wakened a doubt as to her
politics, and she was virtually a prisoner, restricted to a corner
of the huge dwelling, and allowed to see hardly any but her women.
Her father had fallen into disgrace before her, and her mother was
dead of grief. All around her were spies, and love was nowhere.
Gladly would she have yielded every rag of her rank, to breathe the
air of freedom. To be a peasant girl on her father's land, would be
a life of rapture!
She knew little of the solace books might have given her. With a
mind capable of rapid development, she had been ill taught except in
music; and that, alone, cannot do much for spiritual development; it
cannot enable the longing, the aspiration it rouses, to understand
itself; it cannot lead back to its own eternal source.
She knew no one in whom to trust, or from whom to draw comfort; her
confessor was a man of the world, incapable of leading her to any
fountain of living water; she had no one to tell her of God and his
fatherhood, the only and perfect refuge from the divine miseries of
loneliness.
A great corridor went from end to end of one of the wings of the
palace, and from this corridor another passage led toward the
apartment of the princess, consisting of some five or six rooms. At
certain times of the day, Ian had to be at the beginning of the
corridor, at the head of a huge stair with a spacious hall-like
landing. Along the corridor few passed, for the attendants used a
back stair and passages. As he sat in the recess of a large window,
where stood a table and chair for his use, Ian one morning heard a
cry--whence, he never knew--and darted along the corridor, thinking
assistance might be wanted. When about halfway down, he saw a lady
enter, near the end of it, and come slowly along. He stood aside,
respectfully waiting till she should pass. Her eyes were on the
ground, but as she came near she raised them. The sadness of them
went to his heart, and his soul rushed into his. The princess, I
imagine, had never before met such an expression, and misunderstood
it. Lonely, rejected, too helpless even to hope, it seemed full of
something she had all her life been longing for--a soul to be her
refuge from the wind, her covert from the tempest, her shadow as of
a great rock in the weary land where no one cared for her. She stood
and gazed at him.
Ian at once perceived who she must be, and stood waiting for some
expression of her pleasure. But she appeared fascinated; her eyes
remained on his, for they seemed to her to be promising help. Her
fascination fascinated him, and for some moments they stood thus,
regarding each other. Ian felt he must break the spell. It was her
part to speak, his to obey, but he knew the danger of the smallest
suspicion. If she was a princess and he but a soldier on guard, she
was a woman and he was a man: he was there to protect her! "How may
I serve your imperial highness?" he asked. She was silent yet a
moment, then said, "Your name?" He gave it. "Your nation?" He stated
it. "When are you here?" He told her his hours. "I will see you
again," she said, and turned and went back.
From that moment she loved him, and thought he loved her. But,
though he would willingly have died for her, he did not love her as
she thought. Alister wondered to hear him say so. At such a moment,
and heart-free, Alister could no more have helped falling in love
with her than he could help opening his eyes when the light shone on
their lids. Ian, with a greater love for his kind than even Alister,
and with a tenderness for womankind altogether infinite, was not
ready to fall in love. Accessible indeed he was to the finest of
Nature's witcheries; ready for the response as of summer lightnings
from opposing horizons; all aware of loveliest difference, of refuge
and mysterious complement; but he was not prone to fall in love.
The princess, knowing the ways of the house, contrived to see him
pretty often. He talked to her of the hest he knew; he did what he
could to lighten her loneliness by finding her books and music; best
of all, he persuaded her--without difficulty--to read the New
Testament. In their few minutes of conference, he tried to show her
the Master of men as he showed himself to his friends; but their
time together was always so short, and their anxiety for each other
so great, seeing that discovery would be ruin to both, that they
could not go far with anything.
At length came an occasion when at parting they embraced. How it was
Ian could not tell. He blamed himself much, but Alister thought it
might not have been his fault. The same moment he was aware that he
did not love her and that he could not turn back. He was ready to do
anything, everything in honour; yet felt false inasmuch as he had
given her ground for believing that he felt towards her as he could
not help seeing she felt towards him. Had it been in his power to
order his own heart, he would have willed to love, and so would have
loved her. But the princess doubted nothing, and the change that
passed upon her was wonderful. The power of human love is next to
the power of God's love. Like a flower long repressed by cold, she
blossomed so suddenly in the sunshine of her bliss, that Ian greatly
dreaded the suspicion which the too evident alteration might arouse:
the plain, ordinary-looking young woman with fine eyes, began to put
on the robes of beauty. A softest vapour of rose, the colour of the
east when sundown sets it dreaming of sunrise, tinged her cheek; it
grew round like that of a girl; and ere two months were gone, she
looked years younger than her age. But Ian could never be absolutely
open with her; while she, poor princess, happy in her ignorance of
the shows of love, and absorbed in the joy of its great deliverance,
jealoused nothing of restraint, nothing of lack, either in his words
or in the caresses of which he was religiously sparing. He was
haunted by the dread of making her grieve who had already grieved so
much, and was but just risen from the dead.
One evening they met as usual in the twilight; in five minutes the
steps of the man would be heard coming to light the lamps of the
corridor, his guard would be over, and he must retire. Few words
passed, but they parted with more of lingering tenderness than
usual, and the princess put a little packet in his hand. The same
night his only friend in the service entered his room hurriedly, and
urged immediate flight: something had been, or was imagined to be
discovered, through which his liberty, perhaps his life, was
compromised; he must leave at once by a certain coach which would
start in an hour: there was but just time to disguise him; he must
make for a certain port on the Baltic, and there lie concealed until
a chance of getting away turned up!
Ian refused. He feared nothing, had done nothing to be ashamed of!
What was it to him if they did take his life! he could die as well
as another! Anxious about the princess, he persisted in his refusal,
and the coach went without him. Every passenger in that coach was
murdered. He saw afterward the signs of their fate in the snow.
In the middle of the night, a company of men in masks entered his
room, muffled his head, and hurried him into a carriage, which drove
rapidly away.
When it stopped, he thought he had arrived at some prison, but soon
found himself in another carriage, with two of the police. He could
have escaped had he been so minded, but he could do nothing for the
princess, and did not care what became of him. At a certain town his
attendants left him, with the assurance that if he did not make
haste out of the country, he would find they had not lost sight of
him.
But instead of obeying, he disguised himself, and took his way to
Moscow, where he had friends. Thence he wrote to his friend at St.
Petersburg. Not many letters passed ere he learned that the princess
was dead. She had been placed in closer confinement, her health gave
way, and by a rapid decline she had gained her freedom.
All the night through, not closing their eyes till the morning, the
brothers, with many intervals of thoughtful silence, lay talking.
"I am glad to think," said Alister, after one of these silences,
"you do not suffer so much, Ian, as if you had been downright in
love with her."
"I suffer far more," answered Ian with a sigh; "and I ought to
suffer more. It breaks my heart to think she had not so much from me
as she thought she had."
They were once more silent. Alister was full of trouble for his
brother. Ian at length spoke again.
"Alister," he said, "I must tell you everything! I know the truth
now. If I wronged her, she is having her revenge!"
By his tone Alister seemed through the darkness to see his sad
smile. He was silent, and Alister waited.
"She did not know much," Ian resumed. "I thought at first she had
nothing but good manners and a good heart; but the moment the sun of
another heart began to shine on her, the air of another's thought to
breathe upon her, the room of another soul to surround her, she
began to grow; and what more could God intend or man desire? As I
told you, she grew beautiful, and what sign of life is equal to
that!"
"But I want to know what you mean by her having her revenge on you?"
said Alister.
"Whether I loved her then or not, and I believe I did, beyond a
doubt I love her now. It needed only to be out of sight of her, and
see other women beside the memory of her, to know that I loved
her.--Alister, I LOVE HER!" repeated Ian with a strange exaltation.
"Oh, Ian!" groaned Alister; "how terrible for you!"
"Alister, you dear fellow!" returned Ian, "can you understand no
better than that? Do you not see I am happy now? My trouble was that
I did not love her--not that she loved me, but that I did not love
her! Now we shall love each other for ever!"
"How do you know that, Ian?"
"By knowing that I love her. If I had not come to know that, I could
not have said to myself I would love her for ever."
"But you can't marry her, Ian! The Lord said there would be no
marrying there!"
"Did he say there would be no loving there, Alister? Most people
seem to fancy he did, for how else could they forget the dead as
they do, and look so little for their resurrection? Few can be
said really to believe in any hereafter worth believing in. How many
go against the liking of the dead the moment they are gone-behave as
if they were nowhere, and could never call them to account! Their
plans do not recognize their existence; the life beyond is no factor
in their life here. If God has given me a hope altogether beyond
anything I could have generated for myself, beyond all the
likelihoods and fulfilments around me, what can I do but give him
room to verify it--what but look onward! Some people's bodies get so
tired that they long for the rest of the grave; it is my soul that
gets tired, and I know the grave can give that no rest; I look for
the rest of more life, more strength, more love. But God is not shut
up in heaven, neither is there one law of life there and another
here; I desire more life here, and shall have it, for what is
needful for this world is to be had in this world. In proportion as
I become one with God, I shall have it. This world never did seem my
home; I have never felt quite comfortable in it; I have yet to find,
and shall find the perfect home I have not felt this world, even my
mother's bosom to be. Nature herself is not lovely enough to satisfy
me. Nor can it be that I am beside myself, seeing I care only for
the will of God, not for my own. For what is madness but two or more
wills in one body? Does not the 'Bible itself tell us that we are
pilgrims and strangers in the world, that here we have no abiding
city? It is but a place to which we come to be made ready for
another. Yet I am sure those who regard it as their home, are not
half so well pleased with it as I. They are always grumbling at it.
'What wretched weather!' they say. 'What a cursed misfortune!'
they cry. 'What abominable luck!' they protest. Health is the
first thing, they say, and cannot find it. They complain that their
plans are thwarted, and when they succeed, that they do not yield
the satisfaction they expected. Yet they mock at him who says he
seeks a better country!--But I am keeping you awake, Alister! I will
talk no more. You must go to sleep!"
"It is better than any sleep to hear you talk, Ian," returned
Alister. "What a way you are ahead of me! I do love this world! When
I come to die, it will tear my heart to think that this cave which
you and I have dug out together, must pass into other hands! I love
every foot of the earth that remains to us--every foot that has been
taken from us. When I stand on the top of this rock, and breathe the
air of this mountain, I bless God we have still a spot to call our
own. It is quite a different thing from the love of mere land; I
could not feel the same toward any, however beautiful, that I had
but bought. This, our own old land, I feel as if I loved in
something the same way as I love my mother. Often in the hot
summer-days, lying on my face in the grass, I have kissed the earth
as if it were a live creature that could return my caresses! The
long grass is a passion to me, and next to the grass I love the
heather, not the growing corn. I am a fair farmer, I think, but I
would rather see the land grow what it pleased, than pass into the
hands of another. Place is to me sacred almost as body. There is at
least something akin between the love we bear to the bodies of our
friends, and that we bear to the place in which we were born and
brought up."
"That is all very true, Alister. I understand your feeling
perfectly; I have it myself. But we must be weaned, I say only
weaned, from that kind of thing; we must not love the outside as if
it were the inside! Everything comes that' we may know the sender-of
whom it is a symbol, that is, a far-off likeness of something in
him; and to him it must lead us-the self-existent, true, original
love, the making love. But I have felt all you say. I used to lie in
bed and imagine the earth alive and carrying me on her back, till I
fell asleep longing to see the face of my nurse. Once, the fancy
turned into a dream. I will try to recall a sonnet I made the same
night, before the dream came: it will help you to understand it. I
was then about nineteen, I believe. I did not care for it enough to
repeat it to you, and I fear we shall find it very bad."
Stopping often to recall and rearrange words and lines, Ian
completed at last the following sonnet:--
"She set me on my feet with steady hand, Among the crowding marvels
on her face, Bidding me rise, and run a strong man's race; Swathed
mo in circumstance's swaddling band; Fed me with her own self; then
bade me stand MYself entire,--while she was but a place Hewn for my
dwelling from the midst of space, A something better than HER sea or
land. Nay, Earth! thou bearest me upon thy back, Like a rough nurse,
and I can almost feel A touch of kindness in thy bands of steel,
Although I cannot see thy face, and track An onward purpose shining
through its black, Instinct with prophecy of future weal.
"There! It is not much, is it?"
"It is beautiful!" protested Alister.
"It is worth nothing," said Ian, "except between you and me-and that
it will make you understand my dream. That I shall never forget.
When a dream does us good we don't forget it.
"I thought I was home on the back of something great and strong-I
could not tell what; it might be an elephant or a great eagle or a
lion. It went sweeping swiftly along, the wind of its flight roaring
past me in a tempest. I began to grow frightened. Where could this
creature of such awful speed be carrying me? I prayed to God to take
care of me. The head of the creature turned to me, and I saw the
face of a woman, grand and beautiful. Never with my open eyes have I
seen such a face! And I knew it was the face of this earth, and that
I had never seen it before because she carries us upon her back.
When I woke, I knew that all the strangest things in life and
history must one day come together in a beautiful face of loving
purpose, one of the faces of the living God. The very mother of the
Lord did not for a long time understand him, and only through sorrow
came to see true glory. Alister, if we were right with God, we could
see the earth vanish and never heave a sigh; God, of whom it was but
a shimmering revelation, would still be ours!"
In the morning they fell asleep, and it was daylight, late in the
winter, when Alister rose. He roused the fire, asleep all through
the night, and prepared their breakfast of porridge and butter, tea,
oat-cake, and mutton-ham. When it was nearly ready, he woke Ian,
and when they had eaten, they read together a portion of the Bible,
that they might not forget, and start the life of the day without
trust in the life-causing God.
"All that is not rooted in him," Ian would say, "all hope or joy
that does not turn its face upward, is an idolatry. Our prayers must
rise that our thoughts may follow them."
The portion they read contained the saying of the Lord that we must
forsake all and follow him if we would be his disciples.
"I am sometimes almost terrified," said Ian, "at the scope of the
demands made upon me, at the perfection of the self-abandonment
required of me; yet outside of such absoluteness can be no
salvation. In God we live every commonplace as well as most exalted
moment of our being. To trust in him when no need is pressing, when
things seem going right of themselves, may be harder than when
things seem going wrong. At no time is there any danger except in
ourselves, and the only danger is of trusting in something else than
the living God, and so getting, as it were, outside of God. Oh
Alister, take care you do not love the land more than the will of
God! Take care you do not love even your people more than the will
of God."
They spent the day on the hill-top, and as there was no sign of
storm, remained till the dark night, when the moon came to light
them home.
"Perhaps when we are dead," said Alister as they went, "we may be
allowed to come here again sometimes! Only we shall not be able to
quarry any further, and there is pain in looking on what cannot go
on."
"It may be a special pleasure," returned Ian, "in those new
conditions, to look into such a changeless cabinet of the past. When
we are one with our life, so that no prayer can be denied, there
will be no end to the lovely possibilities."
"So I have the people I love, I think I could part with all things
else, even the land!" said Alister.
"Be sure we shall not have to part with THEM. We shall yet walk, I
think, with our father as of old, where the setting sun sent the
shadows of the big horse-gowans that glowed in his red level rays,
trooping eastward, as if they would go round the world to meet the
sun that had banished them, and die in his glory; the wind of the
twilight will again breathe about us like a thought of the living
God haunting our goings, and watching to help us; the stars will
yet call to us out of the great night, 'Love and be fearless.' 'Be
independent!' cries the world from its' great Bible of the
Belly;-says the Lord of men, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.'
Our dependence is our eternity. We cannot live on bread alone; we
need every word of God. We cannot live on air alone; we need an
atmosphere of living souls. Should we be freer, Alister, if we were
independent of each other? When I am out in the world, my heart is
always with mother and you. We must be constantly giving ourselves
away, we must dwell in houses of infinite dependence, or sit alone
in the waste of a godless universe."
It was a rough walk in the moonlight over the hills, but full of a
rare delight. And while they walked the mother was waiting them,
with the joy of St. John, of the Saviour, of God himself in her
heart, the joy of beholding how the men she loved loved each other.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TWO PAIRS.
The next morning, on the way to the village, the brothers overtook
Christina and Mercy, and they walked along together.
The young men felt inclined to be the more friendly with the girls,
that the men of their own family were so unworthy of them. A man who
does not respect a woman because she is a woman, cannot have
thorough respect for his own mother, protest as he pleases: he is
incapable of it, and cannot know his own incapacity. Alas for girls
in a family where the atmosphere of vile thinking, winnowed by the
carrion wings of degraded and degrading judgments, infolds them! One
of the marvels of the world is, that, with such fathers and
brothers, there are so few wicked women. Type of the greater number
stands Ophelia, poor, weak, and not very refined, yet honest, and,
in all her poverty, immeasurably superior to father and brother.
Christina's condescension had by this time dwindled almost to the
vanishing-point, and her talk was in consequence more natural: the
company, conversation, and whole atmosphere of the young men, tended
to wake in the girls what was best and sweetest. Reality appeals at
once to the real, opens the way for a soul to emerge from the fog of
the commonplace, the marsh of platitude, the Sahara of lies, into
the colour and air of life. The better things of humanity often need
the sun of friendship to wile them out. A girl, well-bred, tolerably
clever, and with some genius of accommodation, will appear to a man
possessed of a hundred faculties of which she knows nothing; but his
belief will help to rouse them in her. A young man will see an angel
where those who love her best see only a nice girl; but he sees not
merely what she might be, but what one day she must be.
Christina had been at first rather taken with the ploughman, but she
turned her masked batteries now mainly on the soldier. During the
dinner she had noted how entirely Ian was what she chose to call a
man of the world; and it rendered him in her eyes more worthy of
conquest. Besides, as elder sister, must she not protect the
inexperienced Mercy?
What is this passion for subjugation? this hunger for homage? Is it
of hell direct, or what is there in it of good to begin with?
Apparently it takes possession of such women as have set up each
herself for the object of her worship: she cannot then rest from the
effort to bring as many as possible to worship at the same shrine;
and to this end will use means as deserving of the fire as any
witchcraft.
Christina stopped short with a little cry, and caught Ian's arm.
"I beg your pardon," she said, "but I cannot bear it a moment
longer! Something in my boot hurts me so!"
She limped to the road-side, sat down, accepted the service of Ian
to unlace her boot, and gave a sigh of relief when he pulled it off.
He inverted and shook it, then searched and found a nail which must
have hurt her severely.
But how to get rid of the cruel projection! Ian's slender hand could
but just reach with its finger-tips the haunted spot. In vain he
tried to knock it down against a stone put inside. Alister could
suggest nothing. But Mistress Conal's cottage was near: they might
there find something to help! Only Christina could not be left
behind, and how was she to walk in a silk stocking over a road
frozen hard as glass? The chief would have carried her, but she
would not let him. Ian therefore shod her with his Glengarry bonnet,
tying it on with his handkerchief.
There was much merriment over the extemporized shoe, mingled with
apologetic gratitude from Christina, who, laughing at her poulticed
foot, was yet not displeased at its contrast with the other.
When the chief opened the door of the cottage, there was no one to
be seen within. The fire was burning hot and flameless; a
three-footed pot stood half in it; other sign of presence they saw
none. As Alister stooped searching for some implement to serve their
need, in shot a black cat, jumped over his back, and disappeared.
The same instant they heard a groan, and then first discovered the
old woman in bed, seemingly very ill. Ian went up to her.
"What is the matter with you, Mistress Conal?" he asked, addressing
her in English because of the ladies.
But in reply she poured out a torrent of Gaelic, which seemed to the
girls only grumbling, but was something stronger. Thereupon the
chief went and spoke to her, but she was short and sullen with him.
He left her to resume his search.
"Let alone," she cried. "When that nail leaves her brog, it will be
for your heart."
Ian sought to soothe her.
"She will bring misery on you all!" she insisted.
"You have a hammer somewhere, I know!" said Alister, as if he had
not heard her.
"She shall be finding no help in MY house!" answered the old woman
in English.
"Very well, Mistress Conal!" returned the chief; "the lady cannot
walk home; I shall have to carry her!"
"God forbid!" she cried. "Go and fetch a wheelbarrow."
"Mistress Conal, there is nothing for it but carry her home in my
arms!"
"Give me the cursed brog then. I will draw the nail."
But the chief would not yield the boot; he went out and searched the
hill-side until he found a smooth stone of suitable size, with which
and a pair of tongs, he beat down the nail. Christina put on the
boot, and they left the place. The chief stayed behind the rest for
a moment, but the old woman would not even acknowledge his presence.
"What a rude old thing she is! This is how she always treats us!"
said Christina.
"Have you done anything to offend her?" asked Alister.
"Not that we know of. We can't help being lowlanders!"
"She no doubt bears you a grudge," said Ian, "for having what once
belonged to us. I am sorry she is so unfriendly. It is not a common
fault with our people."
"Poor old thing! what does it matter!" said Christina.
A woman's hate was to her no more than the barking of a dog.
They had not gone far, before the nail again asserted itself; it had
been but partially subjugated. A consultation was held. It resulted
in this, that Mercy and the chief went to fetch another pair of
boots, while Ian remained with Christina.
They seated themselves on a stone by the roadside. The sun clouded
over, a keen wind blew, and Christina shivered. There was nothing
for it but go back to the cottage. The key was in the door, Ian
turned it, and they went in. Certainly this time no one was there.
The old woman so lately groaning on her bed had vanished. Ian made
up the fire, and did what he could for his companion's comfort.
She was not pleased with the tone of his attentions, but the way she
accepted them made her appear more pleased than Ian cared for, and
he became colder and more polite. Piqued by his indifference, she
took it nevertheless with a sweetness which belonged to her nature
as God made it, not as she had spoiled it; and even such a butterfly
as she, felt the influence of a man like Ian, and could not help
being more natural in his presence. His truth elicited what there
was of hers; the true being drew to the surface what there was of
true in the being that was not true. The longer she was in his
company, the more she was pleased with him, and the more annoyed
with her failure in pleasing him.
It is generally more or less awkward when a young man and maiden
between whom is no convergent rush of spiritual currents, find
themselves alone together. Ian was one of the last to feel such
awkwardness, but he thought his companion felt it; he did his best,
therefore, to make her forget herself and him, telling her story
after story which she could not but find the more interesting that
for the time she was quieted from self, and placed in the humbler
and healthier position of receiving the influence of another. For
one moment, as he was narrating a hair's-breadth escape he had had
from a company of Tartar soldiers by the friendliness of a young
girl, the daughter of a Siberian convict, she found herself under
the charm of a certain potency of which he was himself altogether
unconscious, but which had carried away hearts more indifferent than
hers.
In the meantime, Alister and Mercy were walking toward the New
House, and, walking, were more comfortable than those that sat
waiting. Mercy indeed had not much to say, but she was capable of
asking a question worth answering, and of understanding not a
little. Thinking of her walk with Ian on Christmas day,--
"Would you mind telling me something about your brother?" she said.
"What would you like to know about him?" asked Alister.
"Anything you care to tell me," she answered.
Now there was nothing pleased Alister better than talking about Ian;
and he talked so that Mercy could not help feeling what a brother he
must be himself; while on his part Alister was delighted with the
girl who took such an interest in Ian: for Ian's sake he began to
love Mercy. He had never yet been what is called in love--had
little opportunity indeed of falling in love. His breeding had been
that of a gentleman, and notwithstanding the sweetness and
gentleness of the maidens of his clan, there were differences which
had as yet proved sufficient to prevent the first approaches of
love, though, once entertained, they might have added to the depth
of it. At the same time it was by no means impossible for Alister to
fall in love with even an uneducated girl--so-called; neither would
he, in that case, have felt any difficulty about marrying her; but
the fatherly relation in which he stood toward his clan, had tended
rather to prevent the thing. Many a youth falls to premature
love-making, from the lack in his daily history of the womanly
element. Matrons in towns should be exhorted to make of their houses
a refuge. Too many mothers are anxious for what they count the
welfare of their own children, and care nothing for the children of
other women! But can we wonder, when they will wallow in meannesses
to save their own from poverty and health, and damn them into
comfort and decay.
Alister told Mercy how Ian and he used to spend their boyhood. He
recounted some of their adventures in hunting and herding and
fishing, and even in going to and from school, a distance of five
miles, in all weathers. Then he got upon the poetry of the people,
their legends, their ballads and their songs; and at last came to
the poetry of the country itself--the delights of following the
plough, the whispers and gleams of nature, her endless appeal
through every sense. The mere smell of the earth in a spring
morning, he said, always made him praise God.
"Everything we have," he went on, "must be shared with God. That is
the notion of the Jewish thank-offering. Ian says the greatest word
in the universe is ONE; the next greatest, ALL. They are but the two
ends of a word to us unknowable--God's name for himself."
Mercy had read Mrs. Barbauld's Hymns, and they had been something to
her; but most of the little poetry she had read was only platitude
sweetened with sound; she had never read, certainly never understood
a real poem. Who can tell what a nature may prove, after feeding on
good food for a while? The queen bee is only a better fed working
bee. Who can tell what it may prove when it has been ploughed with
the plough of suffering, when the rains of sorrow, the frosts of
pain, and the winds of poverty have moistened and swelled and dried
its fallow clods?
Mercy had not such a sweet temper as her sister, but she was not so
selfish. She was readier to take offence, perhaps just because she
was less self-satisfied. Before long they might change places. A
little dew from the eternal fountain was falling upon them.
Christina was beginning to be aware that a certain man, neither rich
nor distinguished nor ambitious, had yet a real charm for her. Not
that for a moment she would think seriously of such a man! That
would be simply idiotic! But it would be very nice to have a little
innocent flirtation with him, or perhaps a "Platonic friendship!
"--her phrase, not mine. What could she have to do with Plato, who,
when she said I, was aware only of a neat bundle of foolish desires,
not the God at her heart!
Mercy, on the other hand, was being drawn to the big, strong,
childlike heart of the chief. There is always, notwithstanding the
gulf of unlikeness between them, an appeal from the childish to the
childlike. The childish is but the shadow of the childlike, and
shadows are little like the things from which they fall. But to what
save the heavenly shall the earthly appeal in its sore need, its
widowhood, its orphanage? with what shall the childish take refuge
but the childlike? to what shall ignorance cry but wisdom? Mercy
felt no restraint with the chief as with Ian. His great, deep, yet
refined and musical laugh, set her at ease. Ian's smile, with its
shimmering eternity, was no more than the moon on a rain-pool to
Mercy. The moral health of the chief made an atmosphere of conscious
safety around her. By the side of no other man had she ever felt so.
With him she was at home, therefore happy. She was already growing
under his genial influence. Every being has such influence who is
not selfish.
When Christina was re-shod, and they were leaving the cottage, Ian,
happening to look behind him, spied the black cat perched on the
edge of the chimney in the smoke.
"Look at her," he said, "pretending innocence, when she has been
watching you all the time!"
Alister took up a stone.
"Don't hurt her," said Ian, and he dropped it.
CHAPTER VII.
AN CABRACH MOR.
I have already said that the young men had not done well as hunters.
They had neither experience nor trustworthy attendance: none of the
chief's men would hunt with them. They looked on them as intruders,
and those who did not share in their chiefs dislike to useless
killing, yet respected it. Neither Christian nor Sercombe had yet
shot a single stag, and the time was drawing nigh when they must
return, the one to Glasgow, the other to London. To have no proof of
prowess to display was humbling to Sercombe; he must show a stag's
head, or hide his own! He resolved, therefore, one of the next
moonlit nights, to stalk by himself a certain great, wide-horned
stag, of whose habits he had received information.
At Oxford, where Valentine made his acquaintance, Sercombe belonged
to a fast set, but had distinguished himself notwithstanding as an
athlete. He was a great favourite with a few, not the best of the
set, and admired by many for his confidence, his stature, and his
regular features. These latter wore, however, a self-assertion which
of others made him much disliked: a mean thing in itself, it had the
meanest origin--the ability, namely, to spend money, for he was the
favourite son of a rich banker in London. He knew nothing of the
first business of life--self-restraint, had never denied himself
anything, and but for social influences would, in manhood as
infancy, have obeyed every impulse. He was one of the merest slaves
in the universe, a slave in his very essence, for he counted wrong
to others freedom for himself, and the rejection of the laws of his
own being, liberty. The most righteous interference was insolence;
his likings were his rights, and any devil that could whisper him a
desire, might do with him as he pleased. From such a man every true
nature shrinks with involuntary recoil, and a sick sense of the
inhuman. But I have said more of him already than my history
requires, and more than many a reader, partaking himself of his
character to an unsuspected degree, will believe; for such men
cannot know themselves. He had not yet in the eyes of the world
disgraced himself: it takes a good many disgraceful things to bring
a rich man to outward disgrace.
His sole attendant when shooting was a clever vagabond lad belonging
to nowhere in particular, and living by any crook except the
shepherd's. From him he heard of the great stag, and the spots which
in the valleys he frequented, often scraping away the snow with his
feet to get at the grass. He did not inform him that the animal was
a special favourite with the chief of Clanruadh, or that the clan
looked upon him as their live symbol, the very stag represented as
crest to the chief's coat of arms. It was the same Nancy had
reported to her master as eating grass on the burn-side in the
moonlight. Christian and Sercombe had stalked him day after day, but
without success. And now, with one poor remaining hope, the latter
had determined to stalk him at night. To despoil him of his life,
his glorious rush over the mountain side, his plunge into the
valley, and fierce strain up the opposing hill; to see that ideal of
strength, suppleness, and joyous flight, lie nerveless and flaccid
at his feet; to be able to call the thicket-like antlers of the
splendid animal his own, was for the time the one ambition of Hilary
Sercombe; for he was of the brood of Mephistopheles, the child of
darkness, whose delight lies in undoing what God has done--the
nearest that any evil power can come to creating.
There was, however, a reason for the failure of the young hunters
beyond lack of skill and what they called their ill-luck. Hector of
the Stags was awake; his keen, everywhere-roving eyes were upon
them, seconded by the keen, all-hearkening ears of Rob of the
Angels. They had discovered that the two men had set their hearts on
the big stag, an cabrach mor by right of excellence, and every time
they were out after him, Hector too was out with his spy-glass, the
gift of an old sea-faring friend, searching the billowy hills.
While, the southrons would be toiling along to get the wind of him
unseen, for the old stag's eyes were as keen as his velvety nose,
the father and son would be lying, perhaps close at hand, perhaps
far away on some hill-side of another valley, watching now the
hunters, now the stag. For love of the Macruadh, and for love of the
stag, they had constituted themselves his guardians. Again and again
when one of them thought he was going to have a splendid
chance--perhaps just as, having reached a rock to which he had been
making his weary way over stones and bogs like Satan through chaos,
and raised himself with weary slowness, he peeped at last over the
top, and lo, there he was, well within range, quietly feeding,
nought between the great pumping of his big joyous heart and the hot
bullet but the brown skin behind his left shoulder!--a distant shot
would forestall the nigh one, a shot for life, not death, and the
stag, knowing instantly by wondrous combination of sense and
judgment in what quarter lay the danger, would, without once looking
round, measure straight a hundred yards of hillocks and rocks
between the sight-taking and the pulling of the trigger. Another
time it would be no shot, but the bark of a dog, the cry of a
moorfowl, or a signal from watching hind that started him; for the
creatures understand each the other's cries, and when an animal sees
one of any sort on the watch to warn covey or herd or flock of its
own kind, it will itself keep no watch, but feed in security. To
Christian and Sercombe it seemed as if all the life in the glen were
in conspiracy to frustrate their hearts' desire; and the latter at
least grew ever the more determined to kill the great stag: he had
begun to hate him.
The sounds that warned the stag were by no means always what they
seemed, those of other wild animals; they were often hut imitations
by Rob of the Angels. I fear the animal grew somewhat bolder and
less careful from the assurance thus given him that he was watched
over, and cultivated a little nonchalance. Not a moment, however,
did he neglect any warning from quarter soever, but from peaceful
feeder was instantaneously wind-like fleer, his great horns thrown
back over his shoulders, and his four legs just touching the ground
with elastic hoof, or tucking themselves almost out of sight as he
skipped rather than leaped over rock and gully, stone and
bush--whatever lay betwixt him and larger room. Great joy it was to
his two guardians to see him, and great game to watch the motions of
his discomfited enemies. For the sake of an cabrach Hector and Rob
would go hungry for hours. But they never imagined the luxurious
Sasunnach, incapable, as they thought, of hardship or sustained
fatigue, would turn from his warm bed to stalk the lordly animal
betwixt snow and moon.
One night, Hector of the Stags found he could not sleep. It was not
for cold, for the night was for the season a mild one. The snow
indeed lay deep around their dwelling, but they owed not a little of
its warmth to the snow. It drifted up all about it, and kept off the
terrible winds that swept along the side of the hill, like sharp
swift scythes of death. They were in the largest and most
comfortable of their huts--a deepish hollow in the limestone rock,
lined with turf, and with wattles filled in with heather, the tops
outward; its front a thick wall of turf, with a tolerable door of
deal. It was indeed so snug as to be far from airy. Here they kept
what little store of anything they had--some dried fish and venison;
a barrel of oat-meal, seldom filled full; a few skins of wild
creatures, and powder, ball, and shot.
After many fruitless attempts to catch the still fleeting vapour
sleep, raising himself at last on his elbow, Hector found that Rob
was not by his side.
He too had been unable to sleep, and at last discovered that he was
uneasy about something-what, he could not tell. He rose and went
out. The moon was shining very clear, and as there was much snow,
the night, if not so bright as day, was yet brighter than many a
day. The moon, the snow, the mountains, all dreaming awake, seemed
to Rob the same as usual; but presently he fancied the hillside
opposite had come nearer than usual: there must be a reason for
that! He searched every yard of it with keenest gaze, but saw
nothing.
They were high above Glenruadh, and commanded parts of it: late
though it was, Rob thought he saw some light from the New House,
which itself he could not see, reflected from some shadowed
evergreen in the shrubbery. He was thinking some one might be ill,
and he ought to run down and See whether a messenger was wanted,
when his father joined him. He had brought his telescope, and
immediately began to sweep the moonlight on the opposite hill. In a
moment he touched Rob on the shoulder, and handed him the telescope,
pointing with it. Rob looked and saw a dark speck on the snow,
moving along the hill-side. It was the big stag. Now and then he
would stop to snuff and search for a mouthful, but was evidently
making for one of his feeding-places--most likely that by the burn
on the chief's land. The light! could it imply danger? He had heard
the young men were going to leave: were they about to attempt a last
assault on the glory of the glen? He pointed out to his father the
dim light in the shadow of the house. Hector turned his telescope
thitherward, immediately gave the glass to Rob, went into the hut,
and came out again with his gun. They had not gone far when they
lost sight of the stag, but they held on towards the castle. At
every point whence a peep could be had in the direction of the
house, they halted to reconnoitre: if enemies were abroad, they
must, if possible, get and keep sight of them. They did not stop for
more than a glance, however, but made for the valley as fast as they
could walk: the noise of running feet would, on such a still night,
be heard too far. The whole way, without sound uttered, father and
son kept interchanging ideas on the matter.
From thorough acquaintance with the habits of the animal, they were
pretty certain he was on his way to the haunt aforementioned: if he
got there, he would be safe; it was the chiefs ground, and no one
would dare touch him. But he was not yet upon it, and was in danger;
while, if he should leave the spot in any westward direction, he
would almost at once be out of sanctuary! If they found him
therefore at his usual feed, and danger threatening, they must scare
him eastward; if no peril seemed at hand, they would watch him a
while, that he might feed in safety. Swift and all but soundless on
their quiet brogs they paced along: to startle the deer while the
hunter was far off, might be to drive him within range of his shot.
They reached the root of the spur, and approached the castle;
immediately beyond that, they would be in sight of the feeding
ground. But they were yet behind it when Rob of the Angels bounded
forward in terror at the sound of a gun. His father, however, who
was in front, was off before him. Neither hearing anything, nor
seeing Rob, he knew that a shot had been fired, and, caution being
now useless, was in a moment at full speed. The smoke of the shot
hung white in the moonlight over the end of the ridge. No red bulk
shadowed the green pasture, no thicket of horns went shaking about
over the sod. No lord of creation, but an enemy of life, stood
regarding his work, a tumbled heap of death, yet saying to himself,
like God when he made the world, "It is good." The noble creature
lay disformed on the grass; shot through the heart he had leaped
high in the air, fallen with his head under him, and broken his
neck.
Rage filled the heart of Hector of the Stags. He could not curse,
but he gave a roar like a wild beast, and raised his gun. But Rob of
the Angels caught it ere it reached his shoulder. He yielded it,
and, with another roar like a lion, bounded bare-handed upon the
enemy. He took the descent in three leaps, and the burn in one. It
was not merely that the enemy had killed an cabrach mor, the great
stag of their love; he had killed him on the chief's own land! under
the very eyes of the man whose business it was to watch over him! It
was an offence unpardonable! an insult as well as a wrong to his
chief! In the fierce majesty of righteous wrath he threw himself on
the poacher. Sercombe met him with a blow straight from the
shoulder, and he dropped.
Rob of the Angels, close behind him, threw down the gun. The devil
all but got into Rob of the Angels. His knife flashed pale in the
moonlight, and he darted on the Sasunnach. It would then have gone
ill with the bigger man, for Rob was lithe as a snake, swift not
only to parry and dodge but to strike; he could not have reached the
body of his antagonist, but Sercombe's arm would have had at least
one terrible gash from his skean-dhu, sharp as a razor, had not, at
the moment, from the top of the ridge come the stern voice of the
chief. Rob's knife, like Excalibur from the hand of Sir Bedivere,
"made lightnings in the splendour of the moon," as he threw it from
him, and himself down by his father. Then Hector came to himself and
rose. Rob rose also; and his father, trembling with excitement,
stood grasping his arm, for he saw the stalwart form of his chief on
the ridge above them. Alister had been waked by the gun, and at the
roar of his friend Hector, sprang from his bed. When he saw his
beloved stag dead on his pasture, he came down the ridge like an
avalanche.
Sercombe stood on his defence, wondering what devil was to pay, but
beginning to think he might be in some wrong box. He had taken no
trouble to understand the boundaries between Mr. Peregrine Palmer's
land and that of the chief, and had imagined himself safe on the
south side of the big burn.
Alister gazed speechless for a moment on the slaughtered stag, and
heaved a great sigh.
"Mr. Sercombe," he said, "I would rather you had shot my best horse!
Are you aware, sir, that you are a poacher?"
"I had supposed the appellation inapplicable to a gentleman!"
answered Sercombe, with entire coolness. "But by all means take me
before a magistrate."
"You are before a magistrate."
"All I have to answer then is, that I should not have shot the
animal had I not believed myself within my rights."
"On that point, and on this very ground, I instructed you myself!"
said the chief.
"I misunderstood you."
"Say rather you had not the courtesy to heed what I told you-had not
faith enough to take the word of a gentleman! And for this my poor
stag has suffered!"
He stood for some moments in conflict with himself, then quietly
resumed.
"Of course, Mr. Sercombe, I have no intention of pushing the
matter!" he said.
"I should hope not!" returned Sercombe scornfully. "I will pay
whatever you choose to set on the brute."
It would be hard to say which was less agreeable to the chief-to
have his stag called a brute, or be offered blood-money for him.
"Stag Ruadh priced like a bullock!" he said, with a slow smile, full
of sadness; "--the pride of every child in the strath! Not a
gentleman in the county would have shot Clanruadh's deer!"
Sercombe was by this time feeling uncomfortable, and it made him
angry. He muttered something about superstition.
"He was taken when a calf," the chief went on, "and given to a
great-aunt of mine. But when he grew up, he took to the hills again,
and was known by his silver collar till he managed to rid himself of
it. He shall be buried where he lies, and his monument shall tell
how the stranger Sasunnach served the stag of Clanruadh!"
"Why the deuce didn't you keep the precious monster in a paddock,
and let people know him for a tame animal?" sneered Sercombe.
"My poor Euadh!" said the chief; "he was no tame animal! He as well
as I would have preferred the death you have given him to such a
fate. He lived while he lived! I thank you for his immediate
transit. Shot right through the heart! Had you maimed him I should
have been angrier."
Sercombe felt flattered, and, attributing the chief's gentleness to
a desire to please him, began to condescend.
"Well, come now, Macruadh!" he began; but the chief turned from him.
Hector stood with his arm on Rob's shoulder, and the tears rolling
down his cheeks. He would not have wept but that the sobs of his son
shook him.
"Rob of the Angels," Alister said in their mother-tongue, "you must
make an apology to the Sasunnach gentleman for drawing the knife on
him. That was wrong, if he had killed all the deer in Benruadh."
"It was not for that, Macruadh," answered Rob of the Angels. "It was
because he struck my father, and laid a better man than himself on
the grass."
The chief turned to the Englishman. "Did the old man strike you, Mr.
Sercombe?"
"No, by Jove! I took a little care of that! If he had, I would have
broke every bone in his body!"
"Why did you strike him then?"
"Because he rushed at me."
"It was his duty to capture a poacher!--But you did not know he was
deaf and dumb!" Alister added, as some excuse.
"The deaf makes no difference!" protested Rob. "Hector of the
Stags does not fight with his hands like a woman!"
"Well, what's done is done!" laughed Sercombe. "It wasn't a bad shot
anyhow!"
"You have little to plume yourself upon, Mr. Sercombe!" said the
chief. "You are a good shot, but you need not have been so
frightened at an old man as to knock him down!"
"Come, come, Macruadh! enough's enough! It's time to drop this!"
returned Sercombe. "I can't stand much more of it!--Take ten pounds
for the head!--Come!"
The chief made one great stride towards him, but turned away, and
said,
"Come along, Rob! Tell your father you must not go up the hill again
to-night."
"No, sir," answered Rob; "there's nothing now to go up the hill for!
Poor old Buadh! God rest his soul!"
"Amen!" responded the chief; "but say rather, 'God give him room to
run!'"
"Amen! It is better.--But," added Rob, "we must watch by the body.
The foxes and hooded crows are gathering already--I hear them on the
hills; and I saw a sea-eagle as white as silver yesterday! We
cannot leave Ruadh till he is under God's plaid!"
"Then one of you come and fetch food and fire," said the chief. "I
will be with you early."
Father and son communicated in silence, and Rob went with the chief.
"They worship the stag, these peasants, as the old Egyptians the
bull!" said Sercombe to himself, walking home full of contempt.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE STAG'S HEAD.
Alister went straight to his brother's room, his heart bursting with
indignation. It was some time before Ian could get the story from
him in plain consecution; every other moment he would diverge into
fierce denunciations.
"Hadn't you better tell your master what has happened?" at length
said Ian. "He ought to know why you curse one of your fellows so
bitterly."
Alister was dumb. For a moment he looked aghast.
"Ian!" he said: "You think he wants to be told anything? I always
thought you believed in his divinity!"
"Ah!" returned Ian, "but do you? How am I to imagine it, when you go
on like that in his hearing? Is it so you acknowledge his presence?"
"Oh, Ian! you don't know how it tortures me to think of that
interloper, the low brute, killing the big stag, the Macruadh
stag-and on my land too! I feel as if I could tear him in pieces.
But for him I would have killed him on the spot! It is hard if I may
not let off my rage even to you!"
"Let it off to him, Alister; he will give you fairer play than your
small brother; he understands you better than I."
"But I could not let it off to him that way!"
"Then that is not a good way. The justice that, even in imagination,
would tear and destroy and avenge, may be justice, but it is devil's
justice. Come, begin now, and tell me all quietly-as if you had read
it in a book."
"Word for word, then, with all the imprecations!" returned
Alister, a little cooler; and Ian was soon in possession of the
story.
"Now what do you think, Ian?" said the chief, ending a recital true
to the very letter, and in a measure calm, but at various points
revealing, by the merest dip of the surface, the boiling of the
floods beneath.
"You must send him the head, Alister," answered Ian.
"Send-what-who-I don't understand you, Ian!" returned the chief,
bewildered.
"Oh, well, never mind!" said Ian. "You will think of it presently!"
And therewith he turned his face to the wall, as if he would go to
sleep.
It had been a thing understood betwixt the brothers, and that from
so far back in the golden haze of childhood that the beginning of
it was out of sight, that, the moment one of them turned his back,
not a word more was to be said, until he who thus dropped the
subject, chose to resume it: to break this unspoken compact would
have been to break one of the strands in the ancient bond of their
most fast brotherhood. Alister therefore went at once to his room,
leaving Ian loving him hard, and praying for him with his face to
the wall. He went as one knowing well the storm he was about to
encounter, but never before had he had such a storm to meet.
He closed the door, and sat down on the side of his bed like one
stunned. He did not doubt, yet could hardly allow he believed, that
Ian, his oracle, had in verity told him to send the antlers of his
cabrach mor, the late live type of his ancient crest, the pride of
Clanruadh, to the vile fellow of a Sasunnach who had sent out into
the deep the joyous soul of the fierce, bare mountains.
There were rushings to and fro in the spirit of Alister, wild and
terrible, even as those in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. He
never closed his eyes, but fought with himself all the night, until
the morning broke. Could this thing be indeed his duty? And if not
his duty, was he called to do it from mere bravado of goodness? How
frightfully would not such an action be misunderstood by such a man!
What could he take it for but a mean currying of favour with him!
Why should he move to please such a fellow! Ian was too hard upon
him! The more he yielded, the more Ian demanded! Every time it was
something harder than the last! And why did he turn his face to
the wall? Was he not fit to be argued with! Was he one that would
not listen to reason! He had never known Ian ungenerous till now!
But all the time there lay at his door a thing calling out to be
done! The thing he did not like was always the thing he had to do!
he grumbled; but this thing he hated doing! It was abominable! What!
send the grand head, with its horns spread wide like a half-moon,
and leaning--like oaks from a precipice--send it to the man that made
it a dead thing! Never! It must not be left behind! It must go to
the grave with the fleet limbs! and over it should rise a monument,
at sight of which every friendly highlandman would say, Feiich an
cabracli mor de Clanruadli! What a mockery of fate to be exposed for
ever to the vulgar Cockney gaze, the trophy of a fool, whose boast
was to kill! Such a noble beast! Such a mean man! To mutilate his
remains for the pride of the wretch who killed him! It was too
horrible!
He thought and thought--until at last he lay powerless to think any
more. But it is not always the devil that enters in when a man
ceases to think. God forbid! The cessation of thought gives
opportunity for setting the true soul thinking from another
quarter. Suddenly Alister remembered a conversation he had had
with Ian a day or two before. He had been saying to Ian that he
could not understand what Jesus meant when he said, "Whosoever shall
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also;" and was
dissatisfied with the way Ian had answered him. "You must explain it
to yourself," Ian said. He replied, "If I could do that, I should
not have to ask you." "There are many things," Ian rejoined,
"--arithmetic is one--that can be understood only in the doing of
them." "But how can I do a thing without understanding it?" objected
Alister. "When you have an opportunity of doing this very thing,"
said Ian, "do it, and see what will follow!" At the time he thought
Ian was refusing to come to the point, and was annoyingly indefinite
and illogical; but now it struck him that here was the opportunity
of which he had spoken.
"I see!" he said to himself. "It is not want of understanding that
is in the way now! A thing cannot look hateful and reasonable at the
same moment! This may be just the sort of thing Jesus meant! Even if
I be in the right, I have a right to yield my right--and to HIM I
will yield it. That was why Ian turned his face to the wall: he
wanted me to discover that here was my opportunity! How but in the
name of Jesus Christ could he have dared tell me to forgive Ruadh's
death by sending his head to his murderer! It has to be done! I've
got to do it! Here is my chance of turning the other cheek and being
hurt again! What can come of it is no business of mine! To return
evil is just to do a fresh evil! It MAY make the man ashamed of
himself! It cannot hurt the stag; it only hurts my pride, and I owe
my pride nothing! Why should not the fellow have what satisfaction
he may--something to show for his shot! He shall have the head."
Thereupon rushed into his heart the joy of giving up, of deliverance
from self; and pity, to leaven his contempt, awoke for Sercombe. No
sooner had he yielded his pride, than he felt it possible to love
the man--not for anything he was, but for what he might and must be.
"God let the man kill the stag," he said; "I will let him have the
head."
Again and yet again swelled afresh the tide of wrath and
unwillingness, making him feel as if he could not carry out his
resolve; but all the time he knew the thing was as good as
done--absolutely determined, so that nothing could turn it aside.
"To yield where one may, is the prerogative of liberty!" he said to
himself. "God only can give; who would be his child must yield!
Abroad in the fields of air, as Paul and the love of God make me
hope, what will the wind-battling Ruadh care for his old head! Would
he not say, 'Let the man have it; my hour was come, or the Some One
would not have let him kill me!'?"
Thus argued the chief while the darkness endured--and as soon as the
morning began to break, rose, took spade and pick and great knife,
and went where Hector and Rob were watching the slain.
It was bitterly cold. The burn crept silent under a continuous
bridge of ice. The grass-blades were crisp with frost. The ground
was so hard it met iron like iron.
He sent the men to get their breakfast from Nancy: none but himself
should do the last offices for Ruadh! With skilful hand he separated
and laid aside the head--in sacrifice to the living God. Then the
hard earth rang with mighty blows of the pickaxe. The labour was
severe, and long ere the grave was deep enough, Hector and Rob had
returned; but the chief would not get out of it to give them any
share in the work. When he laid hold of the body, they did not offer
to help him; they understood the heart of their chief. Not without a
last pang that he could not lay the head beside it, he began to
shovel in the frozen clods, and then at length allowed them to take
a part. When the grave was full, they rolled great stones upon it,
that it might not be desecrated. Then the chief went back to his
room, and proceeded to prepare the head, that, as the sacrifice, so
should be the gift.
"I suppose he would like glass eyes, the ruffian!" he muttered to
himself, "but I will not have the mockery. I will fill the sockets
and sew up the eyelids, and the face shall be as of one that
sleeps."
Haying done all, and written certain directions for temporary
treatment, which he tied to an ear, he laid the head aside till the
evening.
All the day long, not a word concerning it passed between the
brothers; but when evening came, Alister, with a blue cotton
handkerchief in his hand, hiding the head as far as the roots of the
huge horns, asked Ian to go for a walk. They went straight to the
New House. Alister left the head at the door, with his compliments
to Mr. Sercombe.
As soon as they were out of sight of the house, Ian put his arm
through his brother's, but did not speak.
"I know now about turning the other cheek!" said Alister. "--Poor
Euadh!"
"Leave him to the God that made the great head and nimble feet of
him," said Ian. "A God that did not care for what he had made, how
should we believe in! but he who cares for the dying sparrow, may be
trusted with the dead stag."
"Truly, yes," returned Alister.
"Let us sit down," said Ian, "and I will sing you a song I made last
night; I could not sleep after you left me."
Without reply, Alister took a stone by the wayside, and Ian one a
couple of yards from him. This was his song.
LOVE'S HISTORY.
Love, the baby,
Toddled out to pluck a flower;
One said, "No, sir;" one said, "Maybe,
At the evening hour!"
Love, the boy,
Joined the boys and girls at play;
But he left them half his joy
Ere the close of day.
Love, the youth,
Roamed the country, lightning-laden;
But he hurt himself, and, sooth,
Many a man and maiden!
Love, the man,
Sought a service all about;
But he would not take their plan,
So they cast him out.
Love, the aged,
Walking, bowed, the shadeless miles,
Bead a volume many-paged,
Full of tears and smiles.
Love, the weary,
Tottered down the shelving road:
At its foot, lo, night the starry
Meeting him from God!
"Love, the holy!"
Sang a music in her dome,
Sang it softly, sang it slowly,
"--Love is coming home!"
Ere the week was out, there stood above the dead stag a growing
cairn, to this day called Carn a' cabrach mor. It took ten men with
levers to roll one of the boulders at its base. Men still cast
stones upon it as they pass.
The next morning came a note to the cottage, in which Sercombe
thanked the Macruadh for changing his mind, and said that, although
he was indeed glad to have secured such a splendid head, he would
certainly have stalked another deer, had he known the chief set such
store by the one in question.
It was handed to Alister as he sat at his second breakfast with his
mother and Ian: even in winter he was out of the house by six
o'clock, to set his men to work, and take his own share. He read to
the end of the first page with curling lip; the moment he turned the
leaf, he sprang from his seat with an exclamation that startled his
mother.
"The hound!--I beg my good dogs' pardon, one and all!" he cried.
"--Look at this, Ian! See what comes of taking your advice!"
"My dear fellow, I gave you no advice that had the least regard to
the consequence of following it! That was the one thing you had
nothing to do with."
"READA," insisted Alister, as he pranced about the room. "No, don't
read the letter; it's not worth, reading. Look at the paper in it."
Ian looked, and saw a cheque for ten pounds. He burst into loud
laughter.
"Poor Ruadh's horns! they're hardly so long as their owner's ears!"
he said.
"I told you so!" cried the chief.
"No, Alister! You never suspected such a donkey!"
"What is it all about?" asked the mother.
"The wretch who shot Ruadh," replied Alister, "--to whom I gave his
head, all to please Ian,--"
"Alister!" said Ian.
The chief understood, and retracted.
"--no, not to please Ian, but to do what Ian showed me was right:--I
believe it was my duty!--I hope it was!--here's the murdering fellow
sends me a cheque for ten pounds!--I told you, Ian, he offered me
ten pounds over the dead body!"
"I daresay the poor fellow was sorely puzzled what to do, and
appealed to everybody in the house for advice!"
"You take the cheque to represent the combined wisdom of the New
House?"
"You must have puzzled them all!" persisted Ian. "How could people
with no principle beyond that of keeping to a bargain, understand
you otherwise! First, you perform an action such persons think
degrading: you carry a fellow's bag for a shilling, and then himself
for nothing! Next, in the very fury of indignation with a man for
killing the finest stag in the country on your meadow, you carry him
home the head with your own hands! It all comes of that unlucky
divine motion of yours to do good that good may come! That shilling
of Mistress Conal's is at the root of it all!"
Ian laughed again, and right heartily. The chief was too angry to
enter into the humour of the thing.
"Upon my word, Ian, it is too bad of you! What ARE you laughing at?
It would become you better to tell me what I am to do! Am I free to
break the rascal's bones?"
"Assuredly not, after that affair with the bag!"
"Oh, damn the bag!--I beg your pardon, mother."
"Am I to believe my ears, Alister?"
"What does it matter, mother? What harm can it do the bag? I wished
no evil to any creature!"
"It was the more foolish."
"I grant it, mother. But you don't know what a relief it is
sometimes to swear a little!--You are quite wrong, Ian; it all comes
of giving him the head!"
"You wish you had not given it him?"
"No!" growled Alister, as from a pent volcano.
"You will break my ears, Alister!" cried the mother, unable to keep
from laughing at the wrath in which he went straining through the
room.
"Think of it," insisted Ian: "a man like could not think otherwise
without a revolution of his whole being to which the change of the
leopard's spots would be nothing.--What you meant, after all, was
not cordiality; it was only generosity; to which his response, his
countercheck friendly, was an order for ten pounds!--All is right
between you!"
"Now, really, Ian, you must not go on teasing your elder brother
so!" said the mother.
Alister laughed, and ceased fuming. "But I must answer the brute!"
he said. "What am I to say to him?"
"That you are much obliged," replied Ian, "and will have the cheque
framed and hung in the hall."
"Come, come! no more of that!"
"Well, then, let me answer the letter."
"That is just what I wanted!"
Ian sat down at his mother's table, and this is what he wrote.
"Dear sir,--My brother desires me to return the cheque which you
unhappily thought it right to send him. Humanity is subject to
mistake, but I am sorry for the individual who could so
misunderstand his courtesy. I have the honour to remain, sir, your
obedient servant, Ian Macruadh."
As Ian guessed, the matter had been openly discussed at the New
House; and the money was sent with the approval of all except the
two young ladies. They had seen the young men in circumstances more
favourable to the understanding of them by ordinary people.
"Why didn't the chief write himself?" said Christian.
"Oh," replied Sercombe, "his little brother had been to school, and
could write better!"
Christina and Mercy exchanged glances.
"I will tell you," Mercy said, "why Mr. lau answered the note: the
chief had done with you!"
"Or," suggested Christina, "the chief was in such a rage that he
would write nothing but a challenge."
"I wish to goodness he had! It would have given me the chance of
giving the clodhopper a lesson."
"For sending you the finest stag's head and horns in the country!"
remarked Mercy.
"I shot the stag! Perhaps you don't believe I shot him!"
"Indeed I do! No one else would have done it. The chief would have
died sooner!"
"I'm sick of your chief!" said Christian. "A pretty chief without a
penny to bless himself! A chief, and glad of the job of carrying a
carpet-bag! You'll be calling him MY LORD, next!"
"He may at least write BARONET after his name when he pleases,"
returned Mercy.
"Why don't he then? A likely story!"
"Because," answered Christina, "both his father and himself were
ashamed of how the first baronet got his title. It had to do with
the sale of a part of the property, and they counted the land the
clan's as well as the chief's. They regarded it as an act of
treachery to put the clan in the power of a stranger, and the chief
looks on the title as a brand of shame."
"I don't question the treachery," said Christian. "A highlander is
treacherous."
Christina had asked a friend in Glasgow to find out for her anything
known among the lawyers concerning the Macruadhs, and what she had
just recounted was a part of the information she had thereby
received.
Thenceforward silence covered the whole transaction. Sercombe
neither returned the head, sent an apology, nor recognized the gift.
That he had shot the stag was enough!
But these things wrought shaping the idea of the brothers in the
minds of the sisters, and they were beginning to feel a strange
confidence in them, such as they had never had in men before. A
curious little halo began to shimmer about the heads of the young
men in the picture-gallery of the girls' fancy. Not the less,
however, did they regard them as enthusiasts, unfitted to this
world, incapable of self-protection, too good to live--in a word,
unpractical! Because a man would live according to the laws of his
being as well as of his body, obeying simple, imperative, essential
human necessity, his fellows forsooth call him UNPRACTICAL! Of the
idiotic delusions of the children of this world, that of being
practical is one of the most ludicrous.
Here is a translation, made by Ian, of one of Alister's Gaelic
songs.
THE SUN'S DAUGHTER.
A bright drop of water
In the gold tire
Of a sun's daughter
Was laughing to her sire;
And from all the flowers about,
That never toiled or spun,
The soul of each looked out,
Clear laughing to the sun.
I saw them unfolding
Their hearts every one!
Every soul holding
Within it the sun!
But all the sun-mirrors
Vanished anon;
And their flowers, mere starers,
Grew dry in the sun.
"My soul is but water,
Shining and gone!
She is but the daughter,"
I said, "of the sun!"
My soul sat her down
In a deep-shaded gloom;
Her glory was flown,
Her earth was a tomb,
Till night came and caught her,
And then out she shone;
And I knew her no daughter
Of that shining sun--
Till night came down and taught her
Of a glory yet unknown;
And I knew my soul the daughter
Of a sun behind the sun.
Back, back to him that wrought her
My soul shall haste and run;
Straight back to him, his daughter,
To the sun behind the sun.
CHAPTER IX.
ANNIE OF THE SHOP.
At the dance in the chief's barn, Sercombe had paired with Annie of
the shop oftener than with any other of the girls. That she should
please him at all, was something in his favour, for she was a
simple, modest girl, with the nicest feeling of the laws of
intercourse, the keenest perception both of what is in itself right,
and what is becoming in the commonest relation. She understood by a
fine moral instinct what respect was due to her, and what respect
she ought to show, and was therefore in the truest sense well-bred.
There are women whom no change of circumstances would cause to alter
even their manners a hair's-breadth: such are God's ladies; there
are others in whom any outward change will reveal the vulgarity of a
nature more conscious of claim than of obligation.
I need not say that Sercomhe, though a man of what is called
education, was but conventionally a gentleman. If in doubt whether a
man be a gentleman or not, hear him speak to a woman he regards as
his inferior: his very tone will probably betray him. A true
gentleman, that is a true man, will be the more carefully
respectful. Sercombe was one of those who regard themselves as
respectable because they are prudent; whether they are human, and
their brother and sister's keeper, they have never asked themselves.
To some minds neither innocent nor simple, there is yet something
attractive in innocence and simplicity. Perhaps it gives them a
pleasing sense of their superiority--a background against which to
rejoice in their liberty, while their pleasure in it helps to
obscure the gulf between what the man would fain hold himself to be,
and what in reality he is. There is no spectre so terrible as the
unsuspected spectre of a man's own self; it is noisome enough to the
man who is ever trying to better it: what must it appear to the man
who sees it for the first time! Sercombe's self was ugly, and he did
not know it; he thought himself an exceptionally fine fellow. No one
knows what a poor creature he is but the man who makes it his
business to be true. The only mistake worse than thinking well of
himself, is for a man to think God takes no interest in him.
One evening, sorely in lack of amusement, Sercombe wandered out into
a star-lit night, and along the road to the village. There he went
into the general shop, where sat Annie behind the counter. Now the
first attention he almost always paid a woman, that is when he cared
and dared, was a compliment--the fungus of an empty head or a false
heart; but with Annie he took no such initiative liberty, and she,
accustomed to respectful familiarity from the chief and his brother,
showed no repugnance to his friendly approach.
"Upon my word, Miss Annie," said Sercombe, venturing at length a
little, "you were the best dancer on the floor that night!"
"Oh, Mr. Sercombe! how can you say so--with such dancers as the
young ladies of your party!" returned Annie.
"They dance well," he returned, "but not so well as you."
"It all depends on the dance--whether you are used to it or not."
"No, by Jove! If you had a lesson or two such as they have been
having all their lives, you would dance out of their sight in the
twinkling of an eye. If I had you for a partner every night for a
month, you would dance better than any woman I have ever seen--off
the stage--any lady, that is."
The grosser the flattery, the surer with a country girl, he thought.
But there was that in his tone, besides the freedom of sounding her
praises in her own ears, which was unpleasing to Annie's ladyhood,
and she held her peace.
"Come out and have a turn," he said thereupon. "It is lovely
star-light. Have you had a walk to-day?"
"No, I have not," answered Annie, casting how to get rid of him.
"You wrong your beauty by keeping to the house."
"My beauty," said Annie, flushing, "may look after itself; I have
nothing to do with it--neither, excuse me, sir, have you."
"Why, who has a right to be offended with the truth! A man can't
help seeing your face is as sweet as your voice, and your figure, as
revealed by your dancing, a match for the two!"
"I will call my mother," said Annie, and left the shop.
Sercombe did not believe she would, and waited. He took her
departure for a mere coquetry. But when a rather grim, handsome old
woman appeared, asking him--it took the most of her English--"What
would you be wanting, sir?" as if he had just come into the shop, he
found himself awkwardly situated. He answered, with more than his
usual politeness, that, having had the pleasure of dancing with her
daughter at the chief's hall, he had taken the liberty of looking in
to inquire after her health; whereupon, perplexed, the old woman in
her turn called Annie, who came at once, but kept close to her
mother. Sercombe began to tell them about a tour he had made in
Canada, for he had heard they had friends there; but the mother did
not understand him, and Annie more and more disliked him. He soon
saw that at least he had better say nothing more about a walk, and
took himself off, not a little piqued at repulse from a peasant-girl
in the most miserable shop he had ever entered.
Two days after, he went again--this time to buy tobacco. Annie was
short with him, but he went yet again and yet sooner: these
primitive people objected to strangers, he said; accustomed to him
she would be friendly! he would not rest until he had gained some
footing of favour with her! Annie grew heartily offended with the
man. She also feared what might be said if he kept coming to the
shop--where Mistress Conal had seen him more than once, and looked
poison at him. For her own sake, for the sake of Lachlan, and for
the sake of the chief, she resolved to make the young father of the
ancient clan acquainted with her trouble. It was on the day after
his rejection of the ten-pound note that she found her opportunity,
for the chief came to see her.
"Was he rude to you, Annie?" he asked.
"No, sir--too polite, I think: he must have seen I did not want his
company.--I shall feel happier now you know."
"I will see to it," said the chief.
"I hope it will not put you to any trouble, sir!"
"What am I here for, Annie! Are you not my clanswoman! Is not
Lachlan my foster-brother!--He will trouble you no more, I think."
As Alister walked home, he met Sercombe, and after a greeting not
very cordial on either side, said thus:
"I should be obliged to you, Mr. Sercombe, if you would send for
anything you want, instead of going to the shop yourself. Annie
Macruadh is not the sort of girl you may have found in such a
position, and you would not wish to make her uncomfortable!"
Sercombe was, ashamed, I think; for the refuge of the fool when
dissatisfied with himself, is offence with his neighbour, and
Sercombe was angry.
"Are you her father--or her lover?" he said.
"She has a right to my protection--and claims it," rejoined Alister
quietly.
"Protection! Oh!--What the devil would you protect her from?"
"From you, Mr. Sercombe."
"Protect her, then."
"I will. Force yourself on that young woman's notice again, and you
will have to do with me."
They parted. Alister went home. Sercombe went straight to the shop.
He was doing what he could to recommend himself to Christina; but
whether from something antagonistic between them, or from
unwillingness on her part to yield her position of advantage and so
her liberty, she had not given him the encouragement he thought he
deserved. He believed himself in love with her, and had told her so;
but the truest love such a man can feel, is a poor thing. He
admired, and desired, and thought he loved her beauty, and that he
called being in love with HER! He did not think much about her
money, but had she then been brought to poverty, he would at least
have hesitated about marrying her.
In the family he was regarded as her affianced, although she did not
treat him as such, but merely went on bewitching him, pleased that
at least he was a man of the world.
While one is yet only IN LOVE, the real person, the love-capable,
lies covered with the rose-leaves of a thousand sleepy-eyed dreams,
and through them come to the dreamer but the barest hints of the
real person of whom is the dream. A thousand fancies fly out,
approach, and cross, but never meet; the man and the woman are
pleased, not with each other, but each with the fancied other. The
merest common likings are taken for signs of a wonderful sympathy,
of a radical unity--of essential capacity, therefore, of loving and
being loved; at a hundred points their souls seem to touch, but
their contacts are the merest brushings as of insect-antennae; the
real man, the real woman, is all the time asleep under the
rose-leaves. Happy is the rare fate of the true--to wake and come
forth and meet in the majesty of the truth, in the image of God, in
their very being, in the power of that love which alone is being.
They love, not this and that about each other, but each the very
other--a love as essential to reality, to truth, to religion, as the
love of the very God. Where such love is, let the differences of
taste, the unfitnesses of temperament be what they may, the two must
by and by be thoroughly one.
Sercombe saw no reason why a gentleman should not amuse himself with
any young woman he pleased. What was the chief to him! He was not
his chief! If he was a big man in the eyes of his little clan, he
was nothing much in the eyes of Hilary Sercombe.
CHAPTER X
THE ENCOUNTER.
Annie came again to her chief, with the complaint that Mr. Sercombe
persisted in his attentions. Alister went to see her home. They had
not gone far when Sercombe overtook them, and passed. The chief told
Annie to go on, and called after him,
"I must have a word or two with you, Mr. Sercombe!"
He turned and came up with long steps, his hands in his
coat-pockets.
"I warned you to leave that girl alone!" said the chief.
"And I warn you now," rejoined Sercombe, "to leave me alone!"
"I am bound to take care of her."
"And I of myself."
"Not at her expense!"
"At yours then!" answered Sercombe, provoking an encounter, to which
he was the more inclined that he saw Ian coming slowly up the ridge.
"It was your deliberate intention then to forget the caution I gave
you?" said the chief, restraining his anger.
"I make a point of forgetting what I do not think worth
remembering."
"I forget nothing!"
"I congratulate you."
"And I mean to assist your memory, Mr. Sercombe."
"Mr. Macruadh!" returned Sercombe, "if you expect me not to open my
lips to any hussy in the glen without your leave,--"
His speech was cut short by a box on the ear from the open hand of
the chief. He would not use his fist without warning, but such a
word applied to any honest woman of his clan demanded instant
recognition.
Sercomhe fell back a step, white with rage, then darting forward,
struck straight at the front of his adversary. Alister avoided the
blow, but soon found himself a mere child at such play with the
Englishman. He had not again touched Sercombe, and was himself
bleeding fast, when Ian came up running.
"Damn you! come on!" cried Sercombe when he saw him; "I can do the
precious pair of you!"
"Stop!" cried Ian, laying hold of his brother from behind, pinning
his arms to his sides, wheeling him round, and taking his place.
"Give over, Alister," he went on. "You can't do it, and I won't see
you punished when it is he that deserves it. Go and sit there, and
look on."
"YOU can't do it, Ian!" returned Alister. "It is my business. One
blow in will serve. He jumps about like a goat that I can't hit
him!"
"You are blind with blood!" said Ian, in a tone that gave Sercombe
expectation of too easy a victory. "Sit down there, I tell you!"
"Mind, I don't give in!" said Alister, but turning went to the bank
at the roadside. "If he speak once again to Annie, I swear I will
make him repent it!"
Sercombe laughed insultingly.
"Mr. Sercombe," said Ian, "had we not better put off our bout till
to-morrow? You have fought already!"
"Damn you for a coward, come on!"
"Would you not like to take your breath for a moment?"
"I have all I am likely to need."
"It is only fair," persisted Ian, "to warn you that you will not
find my knowledge on the level of my brother's!"
"Shut up," said Sercombe savagely, "and come on."
For a few rounds Ian seemed to Alister to be giving Sercombe time to
recover his wind; to Sercombe he seemed to be saving his own. He
stood to defend, and did not attempt to put in a blow.
"Mr. Sercombe," he said at length, "you cannot serve me as you did
my brother."
"I see that well enough. Come on!"
"Will you give your word to leave Annie of the shop alone?"
Sercombe answered with a scornful imprecation.
"I warn you again, I am no novice in this business!" said Ian.
Sercombe struck out, but did not reach his antagonist.
The fight lasted but a moment longer. As his adversary drew back
from a failed blow, Alister saw Ian's eyes flash, and his left arm
shoot out, as it seemed, to twice its length. Sercombe neither
reeled nor staggered but fell supine, and lay motionless. The
brothers were by his side in a moment.
"I struck too hard!" said Ian.
"Who can think about that in a fight!" returned Alister.
"I could have helped it well enough, and a better man would.
Something shot through me--I hope it wasn't hatred; I am sure it was
anger--and the man went down! What if the devil struck the blow!"
"Nonsense, Ian!" said Alister, as they raised Sercombe to carry him
to the cottage. "It was pure indignation, and nothing to blame in
it!"
"I wish I could be sure of that!"
They had not gone far before he began to come to himself.
"What are you about?" he said feebly but angrily. "Set me down."
They did so. He staggered to the road-side, and leaned against the
bank.
"What's been the row?" he asked. "Oh, I remember!--Well, you've had
the best of it!"
He held out his hand in a vague sort of way, and the gesture invaded
their soft hearts. Each took the hand.
"I was all right about the girl though," said Sercombe. "I didn't
mean her any harm."
"I don't think you did," answered Alister; "and I am sure you could
have done her none; but the girl did not like it."
"There is not a girl of the clan, or in the neighbourhood, for whom
my brother would not have done the same." said Ian.
"You're a brace of woodcocks!" cried Sercombe. "It's well you're not
out in the world. You would be in hot water from morning to night! I
can't think how the devil you get on at all!"
"Get on! Where?" asked Ian with a smile.
"Come now! You ain't such fools as you want to look! A man must make
a place for himself somehow in the world!"
He rose, and they walked in the direction of the cottage.
"There is a better thing than that," said Ian!
"What?"
"To get clean out of it."
"What! cut your throats?"
"I meant that to get out of the world clean was better than to get
on in it."
"I don't understand you. I don't choose to think the man that
thrashed me a downright idiot!" growled Sercombe.
"What you call getting on," rejoined Ian, "we count not worth a
thought. Look at our clan! it is a type of the world itself.
Everything is passing away. We believe in the kingdom of heaven."
"Come, come! fellows like you must know well enough that's all bosh!
Nobody nowadays--nobody with any brains--believes such rot!"
"We believe in Jesus Christ," said Ian, "and are determined to do
what he will have us do, and take our orders from nobody else."
"I don't understand you!"
"I know you don't. You cannot until you set about changing your
whole way of life."
"Oh, be damned! what an idea! a sneaking, impossible idea!"
"As to its being an impossible idea, we hold it, and live by it. How
absurd it must seem to you, I know perfectly. But we don't live in
your world, and you do not even see the lights of ours."
"'There is a world beyond the stars'!--Well, there may be; I know
nothing about it; I only know there is one on this side of them,--a
very decent sort of world too! I mean to make the best of it."
"And have not begun yet!"
"Indeed I have! I deny myself nothing. I live as I was made to
live."
"If you were not made to obey your conscience or despise yourself,
you are differently made from us, and no communication is possible
between us. We must wait until what differences a man from a beast
make its appearance in you."
"You are polite!"
"You have spoken of us as you think; now we speak of you as we
think. Taking your representation of yourself, you are in the
condition of the lower animals, for you claim inclination as the law
of your life."
"My beast is better than your man!"
"You mean you get more of the good of life!"
"Right! I do."
The brothers exchanged a look and smile.
"But suppose," resumed Ian, "the man we have found in us should one
day wake up in you! Suppose he should say, 'Why did you make a
beast of me?'! It will not be easy for you to answer him!"
"That's all moonshine! Things are as you take them."
"So said Lady Macbeth till she took to walking in her sleep, and
couldn't get rid of the smell of the blood!"
Sercombe said no more. He was silent with disgust at the nonsense of
it all.
They reached the door of the cottage. Alister invited him to walk
in. He drew back, and would have excused himself.
"You had better lie down a while," said Alister.
"You shall come to my room," said Ian. "We shall meet nobody."
Sercombe yielded, for he felt queer. He threw himself on Ian's bed,
and in a few minutes was fast asleep.
When he woke, he had a cup of tea, and went away little the worse.
The laird could not show himself for several days.
After this Annie had no further molestation. But indeed the young
men's time was almost up--which was quite as well, for Annie of the
shop, after turning a corner of the road, had climbed the hill-side,
and seen all that passed. The young ladies, hearing contradictory
statements, called upon Annie to learn the truth, and the
intercourse with her that followed was not without influence on
them. Through Annie they saw further into the character of the
brothers, who, if they advocated things too fine for the world the
girls had hitherto known, DID things also of which it would by no
means have approved. They valued that world and its judgment not a
straw!
CHAPTER XI.
A LESSON.
All the gentlemen at the New House left it together, and its ladies
were once more abandoned to the society of Nature, who said little
to any of them. For, though she recognized her grandchildren, and
did what she could for them, it was now time they should make some
move towards acquaintance with her. A point comes when she must
stand upon her dignity, for it is great. If you would hear her
wonderful tales, or see her marvellous treasures, you must not
trifle with her; you must not talk as if you could rummage her
drawers and cabinets as you pleased. You must believe in her; you
must reverence her; else, although she is everywhere about the
house, you may not meet her from the beginning of one year to the
end of another.
To allude to any aspect of nature in the presence of the girls was
to threaten to bore them; and I heartily confess to being bored
myself with common talk about scenery; but these ladies appeared
unaware of the least expression on the face of their grand-mother.
Doubtless they received some good from the aspect of things--that
they could not help; there Grannie's hidden, and therefore
irresistible power was in operation; but the moment they had their
thoughts directed to the world around them, they began to gape
inwardly. Even the trumpet and shawm of her winds, the stately march
of her clouds, and the torrent-rush of her waters, were to them
poor facts, no vaguest embodiment of truths eternal. It was small
wonder then that verse of any worth should be to them but sounding
brass and clanging cymbals. What they called society, its ways and
judgments, its decrees and condemnations, its fashions and pomps and
shows, false, unjust, ugly, was nearly all they cared for. The truth
of things, without care for which man or woman is the merest puppet,
had hitherto been nothing to them. To talk of Nature was
sentimental. To talk of God was both irreverent and ill-bred.
Wordsworth was an old woman; St. Paul an evangelical churchman. They
saw no feature of any truth, but, like all unthinkers, wrapped the
words of it in their own foolishness, and then sneered at them. They
were too much of ladies, however, to do it disagreeably; they only
smiled at the foolish neighbour who believed things they were too
sensible to believe. It must, however, be said for them, that they
had not yet refused anything worth believing--as presented to them.
They had not yet actually looked upon any truth and refused it. They
were indeed not yet true enough in themselves to suspect the
presence of either a truth or a falsehood.
A thaw came, and the ways were bad, and they found the time hang yet
heavier on their unaided hands. An intercourse by degrees
established itself between Mrs. Macruadh and the well-meaning,
handsome, smiling Mrs. Palmer, and rendered it natural for the girls
to go rather frequently to the cottage. They made themselves
agreeable to the mother, and subject to the law of her presence
showed to better advantage.
With their love of literature, it was natural also that the young
men should at such times not only talk about books, but occasionally
read for their entertainment from some favourite one; so that now,
for the first time in their lives, the young ladies were brought
under direct teaching of a worthy sort--they had had but a mockery
of it at school and church--and a little light began to soak through
their unseeking eyes. Among many others, however, less manifest, one
obstruction to their progress lay in the fact that Christina, whose
perceptions in some directions was quick enough, would always make a dart
at the comical side of anything that could be comically turned, so
disturbing upon occasion the whole spiritual atmosphere about some
delicate epiphany: this to both Alister and Ian was unbearable. She
offended chiefly in respect of Wordsworth--who had not humour enough
always to perceive what seriously meant expression might suggest a
ludicrous idea.
One time, reading from the Excursion, Ian came to the verse--not to
be found, I think, in later editions--
"Perhaps it is not he but some one else":--
"Awful idea!" exclaimed Christina, with sepulchral tone; "--'some
one else!' Think of it! It makes me shudder! Who might it not have
been!"
Ian closed the book, and persistently refused to read more that day.
Another time he was reading, in illustration of something,
Wordsworth's poem, "To a Skylark," the earlier of the two with that
title: when he came to the unfortunate line,--
"Happy, happy liver!"--
"Oh, I am glad to know that!" cried Christina. "I always thought the
poor lark must have a bad digestion--he was up so early!"
Ian refused to finish the poem, although Mercy begged hard.
The next time they came, he proposed to "read something in Miss
Palmer's style," and taking up a volume of Hood, and avoiding both
his serious and the best of his comic poems, turned to two or three
of the worst he could find. After these he read a vulgar rime about
an execution, pretending to be largely amused, making flat jokes of
his own, and sometimes explaining elaborately where was no occasion.
"Ian!" said his mother at length; "have you bid farewell to your
senses?"
"No, mother," he answered; "what I am doing is the merest
consequence of the way you brought us up."
"I don't understand that!" she returned.
"You always taught us to do the best we could for our visitors. So
when I fail to interest them, I try to amuse them."
"But you need not make a fool of yourself!"
"It is better to make a fool of myself, than let Miss Palmer make a
fool of--a great man!"
"Mr. Ian," said Christina, "it is not of yourself but of me you have
been making a fool.--I deserved it!" she added, and burst into
tears.
"Miss Palmer," said Ian, "I will drop my foolishness, if you will
drop your fun."
"I will," answered Christina.
And Ian read them the poem beginning--
"Three years she grew in sun and shower."
Scoffing at what is beautiful, is not necessarily a sign of evil; it
may only indicate stupidity or undevelopment: the beauty is not
perceived. But blame is often present in prolonged undevelopment.
Surely no one habitually obeying his conscience would long be left
without a visit from some shape of the beautiful!
CHAPTER XII.
NATURE.
The girls had every liberty; their mother seldom interfered. Herself
true to her own dim horn-lantern, she had confidence in the
discretion of her daughters, and looked for no more than discretion.
Hence an amount of intercourse was possible between them and the
young men, which must have speedily grown to a genuine intimacy had
they inhabited even a neighbouring sphere of conscious life.
Almost unknown to herself, however, a change for the better had
begun in Mercy. She had not yet laid hold of, had not yet perceived
any truth; but she had some sense of the blank where truth ought to
be. It was not a sense that truth was lacking; it was only a sense
that something was not in her which was in those men. A nature such
as hers, one that had not yet sinned against the truth, was not one
long to frequent such a warm atmosphere of live truth, without
approach to the hour when it must chip its shell, open its eyes, and
acknowledge a world of duty around it.
One lovely star-lit night of keen frost, the two mothers were
sitting by a red peat-fire in the little drawing-room of the
cottage, and Ian was talking to the girls over some sketches he had
made in the north, when the chief came in, bringing with him an air
of sharp exhilaration, and proposed a walk.
"Come and have a taste of star-light!" he said.
The girls rose at once, and were ready in a minute.
The chief was walking between the two ladies, and Ian was a few
steps in front, his head bent as in thought. Suddenly, Mercy saw him
spread out his arms toward the starry vault, with his face to its
serrated edge of mountain-tops. The feeling, almost the sense of
another presence awoke in her, and as quickly vanished. The thought,
IS HE A PANTHEIST? took its place. Had she not surprised him in an
act of worship? In that wide outspreading of the lifted arms, was he
not worshipping the whole, the Pan? Sky and stars and mountains and
sea were his God! She walked aghast, forgetful of a hundred things
she had heard him say that might have settled the point. She had,
during the last day or two, been reading an article in which
PANTHEISM was once and again referred to with more horror than
definiteness. Recovering herself a little, she ventured approach to
the subject.
"Macruadh," she said, "Mr. Ian and you often say things about NATURE
that I cannot understand: I wish you would tell me what you mean by
it."
"By what?" asked Alister.
"By NATURE" answered Mercy. "I heard Mr. Ian say, for instance, the
other night, that he did not like Nature to take liberties with him;
you said she might take what liberties with you she pleased; and
then you went on talking so that I could not understand a word
either of you said!"
While she spoke, Ian had turned and rejoined them, and they were now
walking in a line, Mercy between the two men, and Christina on Ian's
right. The brothers looked at each other: it would be hard to make
her understand just that example! Something more rudimentary must
prepare the way! Silence fell for a moment, and then Ian said--
"We mean by nature every visitation of the outside world through our
senses."
"More plainly, please Mr. Ian! You cannot imagine how stupid I feel
when you are talking your thinks, as once I heard a child call
them."
"I mean by nature, then, all that you see and hear and smell and
taste and feel of the things round about you."
"If that be all you mean, why should you make it seem so difficult?"
"But that is not all. We mean the things themselves only for the
sake of what they say to us. As our sense of smell brings us news of
fields far off, so those fields, or even the smell only that comes
from them, tell us of things, meanings, thoughts, intentions beyond
them, and embodied in them."
"And that is why you speak of Nature as a person?" asked Mercy.
"Whatever influences us must be a person. But God is the only real
person, being in himself, and without help from anybody; and so we
talk even of the world which is but his living garment, as if that
were a person; and we call it SHE as if it were a woman, because so
many of God's loveliest influences come to us through her. She
always seems to me a beautiful old grandmother."
"But there now! when you talk of her influences, and the liberties
she takes, I do not know what you mean. She seems to do and be
something to you which certainly she does not and is not to me. I
cannot tell what to make of it. I feel just as when our music-master
was talking away about thorough bass: I could not get hold, head or
tail, of what the man was after, and we all agreed there was no
sense in it. Now I begin to suspect there must have been too much!"
"There is no fear of her!" said Ian to himself.
"My heart told me the truth about her!" thought Alister jubilant.
"Now we shall have talk!"
"I think I can let you see into it, Miss Mercy," said Ian. "Imagine
for a moment how it would be if, instead of having a roof like 'this
most excellent canopy the air, this brave o'erhanging, this
majestical roof, fretted with golden fire,'--"
"Are you making the words, or saying them out of a book?"
interrupted Mercy.
"Ah! you don't know Hamlet? How rich I should feel myself if I had
the first reading of it before me like you!--But imagine how
different it would have been if, instead of such a roof, we had only
clouds, hanging always down, like the flies in a theatre, within a
yard or two of our heads!"
Mercy was silent for a moment, then said,
"It would be horribly wearisome."
"It would indeed be wearisome! But how do you think it would affect
your nature, your being?"
Mercy held the peace which is the ignorant man's wisdom.
"We should have known nothing of astronomy," said Christina.
"True; and the worst would have been, that the soul would have had
no astronomy--no notion of heavenly things."
"There you leave me out again!" said Mercy.
"I mean," said Ian, "that it would have had no sense of
outstretching, endless space, no feeling of heights above, and
depths beneath. The idea of space would not have come awake in it."
"I understand!" said Christina. "But I do not see that we should
have been much the worse off. Why should we have the idea of more
than we want? So long as we have room, I do not see what space
matters to us!"
"Ah, but when the soul wakes up, it needs all space for room! A
limit of thousands of worlds will not content it. Mere elbow-room
will not do when the soul wakes up!"
"Then my soul is not waked up yet!" rejoined Christina with a laugh.
Ian did not reply, and Christina felt that he accepted the
proposition, absurd as it seemed to herself.
"But there is far more than that," he resumed. "What notion could
you have had of majesty, if the heavens seemed scarce higher than
the earth? what feeling of the grandeur of him we call God, of his
illimitation in goodness? For space is the body to the idea of
liberty. Liberty is--God and the souls that love; these are the
limitless room, the space, in which thoughts, the souls of things,
have their being. If there were no holy mind, then no freedom, no
spiritual space, therefore no thoughts; just as, if there were no
space, there could be no things."
Ian saw that not even Alister was following him, and changed his
key.
"Look up," he said, "and tell me what you see.--What is the shape
over us?"
"It is a vault," replied Christina.
"A dome--is it not?" said Mercy.
"Yes; a vault or a dome, recognizable at the moment mainly by its
shining points. This dome we understand to be the complement or
completing part of a correspondent dome on the other side of the
world. It follows that we are in the heart of a hollow sphere of
loveliest blue, spangled with light. Now the sphere is the one
perfect geometrical form. Over and round us then we have the one
perfect shape. I do not say it is put there for the purpose of
representing God; I say it is there of necessity, because of its
nature, and its nature is its relation to God. It is of God's
thinking; and that half-sphere above men's heads, with influence
endlessly beyond the reach of their consciousness, is the beginning
of all revelation of him to men. They must begin with that. It is
the simplest as well as most external likeness of him, while its
relation to him goes so deep that it represents things in his very
nature that nothing else could."
"You bewilder me," said Mercy. "I cannot follow you. I am not fit
for such high things!"
"I will go on; you will soon begin to see what I mean: I know what
you are fit for better than you do yourself, Miss Mercy.--Think
then how it would be if this blue sky were plainly a solid. Men of
old believed it a succession of hollow spheres, one outside the
other; it is hardly a wonder they should have had little gods. No
matter how high the vault of the inclosing sphere; limited at all it
could not declare the glory of God, it could only show his
handiwork. In our day it is a sphere only to the eyes; it is a
foreshortening of infinitude that it may enter our sight; there is
no imagining of a limit to it; it is a sphere only in this, that in
no one direction can we come nearer to its circumference than in
another. This infinitive sphere, I say then, or, if you like it
better, this spheric infinitude, is the only figure, image, emblem,
symbol, fit to begin us to know God; it is an idea incomprehensible;
we can only believe in it. In like manner God cannot by searching be
found out, cannot be grasped by any mind, yet is ever before us, the
one we can best know, the one we must know, the one we cannot help
knowing; for his end in giving us being is that his humblest
creature should at length possess himself, and be possessed by him."
"I think I begin," said Mercy--and said no more.
"If it were not for the outside world," resumed Ian, "we should have
no inside world to understand things by. Least of all could we
understand God without these millions of sights and sounds and
scents and motions, weaving their endless harmonies. They come out
from his heart to let us know a little of what is in it!"
Alister had been listening hard. He could not originate such things,
but he could understand them; and his delight in them proved them
his own, although his brother had sunk the shaft that laid open
their lode.
"I never heard you put a thing better, Ian!" he said.
"You gentlemen," said Mercy, "seem to have a place to think in that
I don't know how to get into! Could you not open your church-door a
little wider to let me in? There must be room for more than two!"
She was looking up at Alister, not so much afraid of him; Ian was to
her hardly of this world. In her eyes Alister saw something that
seemed to reflect the starlight; but it might have been a luminous
haze about the waking stars of her soul!
"My brother has always been janitor to me," replied Alister; "I do
not know how to open any door. But here no door needs to be opened;
you have just to step straight into the temple of nature, among all
the good people worshipping."
"There! that is what I was afraid of!" cried Mercy: "you are
pantheists!"
"Bless my soul, Mercy!" exclaimed Christina; "what do you mean?"
"Yes," answered Ian. "If to believe that not a lily can grow, not a
sparrow fall to the ground without our Father, be pantheism, Alister
and I are pantheists. If by pantheism you mean anything that would
not fit with that, we are not pantheists."
"Why should we trouble about religion more than is required of us!"
interposed Christina.
"Why indeed?" returned Ian. "But then how much is required?"
"You require far more than my father, and he is good enough for me!"
"The Master says we are to love God with all our hearts and souls
and strength and mind."
"That was in the old law, Ian," said Alister.
"You are right. Jesus only justified it--and did it."
"How then can you worship in the temple of Nature?" said Mercy.
"Just as he did. It is Nature's temple, mind, for the worship of
God, not of herself!"
"But how am I to get into it? That is what I want to know."
"The innermost places of the temple are open only to such as already
worship in a greater temple; but it has courts into which any honest
soul may enter."
"You wouldn't set me to study Wordsworth?"
"By no means."
"I am glad of that--though there must be more in him than I see, or
you couldn't care for him so much!"
"Some of Nature's lessons you must learn before you can understand
them."
"Can you call it learning a lesson if you do not understand it?"
"Yes--to a certain extent. Did you learn at school to work the rule
of three?"
"Yes; and I was rather fond of it."
"Did you understand it?"
"I could work sums in it."
"Did you see how it was that setting the terms down so, and working
out the rule, must give you a true answer. Did you perceive that it
was safe to buy or sell, to build a house, or lay out a garden, by
the rule of three?"
"I did not. I do not yet."
"Then one may so far learn a lesson without understanding it! All
do, more or less, in Dame Nature's school. Not a few lessons must be
so learned in order to be better learned. Without being so learned
first, it is not possible to understand them; the scholar has not
facts enough about the things to understand them. Keats's youthful
delight in Nature was more intense even than Wordsworth's, but he
was only beginning to understand her when he died. Shelley was much
nearer understanding her than Keats, but he was drowned before he
did understand her. Wordsworth was far before either of them. At the
same time, presumptuous as it may appear, I believe there are
regions to be traversed, beyond any point to which Wordsworth leads
us."
"But how am I to begin? Do tell me. Nothing you say helps me in the
least."
"I have all the time been leading you toward the door at which you
want to go in. It is not likely, however, that it will open to you
at once. I doubt if it will open to you at all except through
sorrow."
"You are a most encouraging master!" said Christina, with a light
laugh.
"It was Wordsworth's bitter disappointment in the outcome of the
French revolution," continued Ian, "that opened the door to him. Yet
he had gone through the outer courts of the temple with more
understanding than any who immediately preceded him.--Will you let
me ask you a question?"
"You frighten me!" said Mercy.
"I am sorry for that. We will talk of something else."
"I am not afraid of what you may ask me; I am frightened at what you
tell me. I fear to go on if I must meet Sorrow on the way!"
"You make one think of some terrible secret society!" said
Christina.
"Tell me then, Miss Mercy, is there anything you love very much? I
don't say any PERSON, but any THING."
"I love some animals."
"An animal is not a thing. It is possible to love animals and not
the nature of which we are speaking. You might love a dog dearly,
and never care to see the sun rise!--Tell me, did any flower ever
make you cry?
"No," answered Mercy, with a puzzled laugh; "how could it?"
"Did any flower ever make you a moment later in going to bed, or a
moment earlier in getting out of it?"
"No, certainly!"
"In that direction, then, I am foiled!"
"You would not really have me cry over a flower, Mr. Ian? Did ever a
flower make you cry yourself? Of course not! it is only silly women
that cry for nothing!"
"I would rather not bring myself in at present," answered Ian
smiling. "Do you know how Chaucer felt about flowers?"
"I never read a word of Chaucer."
"Shall I give you an instance?"
"Please."
"Chaucer was a man of the world, a courtier, more or less a man of
affairs, employed by Edward III. in foreign business of state: you
cannot mistake him for an effeminate or sentimental man! He does not
anywhere, so far as I remember, say that ever he cried over a
flower, but he shows a delight in some flowers so delicate and deep
that it must have a source profounder than that of most people's
tears. When we go back I will read you what he says about the daisy;
but one more general passage I think I could repeat. There are
animals in it too!"
"Pray let us hear it," said Christina.
He spoke the following stanzas--not quite correctly, but supplying
for the moment's need where he could not recall:--
A gardein saw I, full of blosomed bowis,
Upon a river, in a grene mede,
There as sweetnesse evermore inough is,
With floures white, blewe, yelowe, and rede,
And cold welle streames, nothing dede,
That swommen full of smale fishes light,
With finnes rede, and scales silver bright.
On every bough the birdes heard I sing,
With voice of angell, in hir armonie,
That busied hem, hir birdes forth to bring,
The little pretty conies to hir play gan hie,
And further all about I gan espie,
The dredeful roe, the buck, the hart, and hind,
Squirrels, and beastes small, of gentle kind.
Of instruments of stringes in accorde,
Heard I so play, a ravishing swetnesse,
That God, that maker is of all and Lorde,
Ne heard never better, as I gesse,
Therewith a wind, unneth it might be lesse,
Made in the leaves grene a noise soft,
Accordant to the foules song on loft.
The aire of the place so attempre was,
That never was ther grevance of hot ne cold,
There was eke every noisome spice and gras,
Ne no man may there waxe sicke ne old,
Yet was there more joy o thousand fold,
Than I can tell or ever could or might,
There is ever clere day, and never night.
He modernized them also a little in repeating them, so that his
hearers missed nothing through failing to understand the words: how
much they gained, it were hard to say.
"It reminds one," commented Ian, "of Dante's paradise on the top of
the hill of purgatory."
"I don't know anything about Dante either," said Mercy regretfully.
"There is plenty of time!" said Ian.
"But there is so much to learn!" returned Mercy in a hopeless tone.
"That is the joy of existence!" Ian replied. "We are not bound to
know; we are only bound to learn.--But to return to my task: a man
may really love a flower. In another poem Chaucer tells us that such
is his delight in his books that no other pleasure can take him from
them--
Save certainly, when that the month of May
Is comen, and that I heare the foules sing,
And that the floures ginnen for to spring,
Farwell my booke, and my devotion!
Poor people love flowers; rich people admire them."
"But," said Mercy, "how can one love a thing that has no life?"
Ian could have told her that whatever grows must live; he could
further have told her his belief that life cannot be without its
measure of consciousness; but it would have led to more difficulty,
and away from the end he had in view. He felt also that no
imaginable degree of consciousness in it was commensurate with the
love he had himself for almost any flower. His answer to Mercy's
question was this:--
"The flowers come from the same heart as man himself, and are sent
to be his companions and ministers. There is something divinely
magical, because profoundly human in them. In some at least the
human is plain; we see a face of childlike peace and confidence that
appeals to our best. Our feeling for many of them doubtless owes
something to childish associations; but how did they get their hold
of our childhood? Why did they enter our souls at all? They are
joyous, inarticulate children, come with vague messages from the
father of all. If I confess that what they say to me sometimes makes
me weep, how can I call my feeling for them anything but love? The
eternal thing may have a thousand forms of which we know nothing
yet!"
Mercy felt Ian must mean something she ought to like, if only she
knew what it was; but he had not yet told her anything to help her!
He had, however, neither reached his end nor lost his way; he was
leading her on--gently and naturally.
"I did not mean," he resumed, "that you must of necessity begin with
the flowers. I was only inquiring whether at that point you were
nearer to Nature.--Tell me--were you ever alone?"
"Alone!" repeated Mercy, thinking. "--Surely everybody has been many
times alone!"
"Could you tell when last you were alone?"
She thought, but could not tell.
"What I want to ask you," said Ian, "is--did you ever feel alone?
Did you ever for a moment inhabit loneliness? Did it ever press
itself upon you that there was nobody near--that if you called
nobody would hear? You are not alone while you know that you can
have a fellow creature with you the instant you choose."
"I hardly think I was ever alone in that way."
"Then what I would have you do," continued Ian, "is--to make
yourself alone in one of Nature's withdrawing-rooms, and seat
yourself in one of Grannie's own chairs.--I am coming to the point
at last!--Upon a day when the weather is fine, go out by yourself.
Tell no one where you are going, or that you are going anywhere.
Climb a hill. If you cannot get to the top of it, go high on the
side of it. No book, mind! nothing to fill your thinking-place from
another's! People are always saying 'I think,' when they are not
thinking at all, when they are at best only passing the thoughts of
others whom they do not even know.
"When you have got quite alone, when you do not even know the
nearest point to anybody, sit down and be lonely. Look out on the
loneliness, the wide world round you, and the great vault over you,
with the lonely sun in the middle of it; fold your hands in your
lap, and be still. Do not try to think anything. Do not try to call
up any feeling or sentiment or sensation; just be still. By and by,
it may be, you will begin to know something of Nature. I do not know
you well enough to be sure about it; but if you tell me afterwards
how you fared, I shall then know you a little better, and perhaps be
able to tell you whether Nature will soon speak to you, or not
until, as Henry Vaughan says, some veil be broken in you."
They were approaching the cottage, and little more was said. They
found Mrs. Palmer prepared to go, and Mercy was not sorry: she had
had enough for a while. She was troubled at the thought that perhaps
she was helplessly shut out from the life inhabited by the brothers.
When she lay down, her own life seemed dull and poor. These men,
with all their kindness, respect, attention, and even attendance
upon them, did not show them the homage which the men of their own
circle paid them!
"They will never miss us!" she said to herself. "They will go on
with their pantheism, or whatever it is, all the same!"
But they should not say she was one of those who talk but will not
do! That scorn she could not bear!
All the time, however, the thing seemed to savour more of spell or
cast of magic than philosophy: the means enjoined were suggestive of
a silent incantation!
CHAPTER XIII.
GRANNY ANGRY.
It must not be supposed that all the visiting was on the part of
those of the New House. The visits thence were returned by both
matron and men. But somehow there was never the same freedom in the
house as in the cottage. The difference did not lie in the presence
of the younger girls: they were well behaved, friendly, and nowise
disagreeable children. Doubtless there was something in the absence
of books: it was of no use to jump up when a passage occurred; help
was not at hand. But it was more the air of the place, the presence
of so many common-place things, that clogged the wheels of thought.
Neither, with all her knowledge of the world and all her sweetness,
did Mrs. Palmer understand the essentials of hospitality half so
well as the widow of the late minister-chief. All of them liked, and
confessed that they liked the cottage best. Even Christina felt
something lacking in their reception. She regretted that the house
was not grand enough to show what they were accustomed to.
Mrs. Palmer seldom understood the talk, and although she sat looking
persistently content, was always haunted with a dim feeling that her
husband would not be hest pleased at so much intercourse between his
rich daughters and those penniless country-fellows. But what could
she do! the place where he had abandoned them was so dull, so
solitary! the girls must not mope! Christina would wither up without
amusement, and then good-bye to her beauty and all that depended
upon it! In the purity of her motherhood, she more than liked the
young men: happy mother she would think herself, were her daughters
to marry such men as these! The relations between them and their
mother delighted her: they were one! their hearts were together!
they understood each other! She could never have such bliss with her
sons! Never since she gave them birth had she had one such look from
either of hers as she saw pass every now and then from these to
their mother! It would be like being born again to feel herself
loved in that way! For any danger to the girls, she thought with a
sigh how soon in London they would forget the young highlanders. Was
there no possibility of securing one of them? What chance was there
of Mercy's marrying well! she was so decidedly plain! Was the idea
of marrying her into an old and once powerful family like that of
the Macruadh, to her husband inconceivable? Could he not restore its
property as the dowry of his unprized daughter! it would be to him
but a trifle!--and he could stipulate that the chief should
acknowledge the baronetcy and use his title! Mercy would then be a
woman of consequence, and Peregrine would have the Bible-honour of
being the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell
in!--Such were some of the thoughts that would come and go in the
brain of the mother as she sat; nor were they without a share in her
readiness to allow her daughters to go out with the young men: she
had an unquestioning conviction of their safety with them.
The days went by, and what to Christina had seemed imprisonment,
began to look like some sort of liberty. She had scarce come nearer
to sympathy with those whose society consoled her, but their talk
had ceased to sound repulsive. She was infinitely more than a
well-modelled waxflower, and yet hardly a growing plant. More was
needed to wake her than friends awake. It is wonderful how long the
sleeping may go with the waking, and not discover any difference
between them. But Grannie Nature was about to interfere.
The spring drew gently on. It would be long ere summer was summer
enough to show. There seemed more of the destructive in the spring
itself than of the genial--cold winds, great showers, days of steady
rain, sudden assaults of hail and sleet. Still it was spring, and at
length, one fine day with a bright sun, snow on the hills, and
clouds in the east, but no sign of any sudden change, the girls went
out for a walk, and took the younger girls with them.
A little way up the valley, out of sight of the cottage, a small
burn came down its own dell to join that which flowed through the
chiefs farm. Its channel was wide, but except in time of rain had
little water in it. About half a mile up its course it divided, or
rather the channel did, for in one of its branches there was seldom
any water. At the fork was a low rocky mound, with an ancient ruin
of no great size-three or four fragments of thick walls, within
whose plan grew a slender birch-tree. Thither went the little party,
wandering up the stream: the valley was sheltered; no wind but the
south could reach it; and the sun, though it could not make it very
warm, as it looked only aslant on its slopes, yet lighted both sides
of it. Great white clouds passed slowly across the sky, with now and
then a nearer black one threatening rain, but a wind overhead was
carrying them quickly athwart.
Ian had seen the ladies pass, but made no effort to overtake them,
although he was bound in the same direction: he preferred sauntering
along with a book of ballads. Suddenly his attention was roused by a
peculiar whistle, which he knew for that of Hector of the Stags: it
was one of the few sounds he could make. Three times it was
hurriedly repeated, and ere the third was over, Ian had discovered
Hector high on a hill on the opposite side of the burn, waving his
arms, and making eager signs to him. He stopped and set himself to
understand. Hector was pointing with energy, but it was impossible
to determine the exact direction: all that Ian could gather was,
that his presence was wanted somewhere farther on. He resumed his
walk therefore at a rapid pace, whereupon Hector pointed higher.
There on the eastern horizon, towards the north, almost down upon
the hills, Ian saw a congeries of clouds in strangest commotion,
such as he had never before seen in any home latitude--a mass of
darkly variegated vapours manifesting a peculiar and appalling
unrest. It seemed tormented by a gyrating storm, twisting and
contorting it with unceasing change. Now the gray came writhing out,
now the black came bulging through, now a dirty brown smeared the
ashy white, and now the blue shone calmly out from eternal
distances. At the season he could hardly think it a thunderstorm,
and stood absorbed in the unusual phenomenon. But again, louder and
more hurried, came the whistling, and again he saw Hector
gesticulating, more wildly than before. Then he knew that someone
must be in want of help or succour, and set off running as hard as
he could: he saw Hector keeping him in sight, and watching to give
him further direction: perhaps the ladies had got into some
difficulty!
When he arrived at the opening of the valley just mentioned,
Hector's gesticulations made it quite plain it was up there he must
go; and as soon as he entered it, he saw that the cloudy turmoil was
among the hills at its head. With that he began to suspect the
danger the hunter feared, and almost the same instant heard the
merry voices of the children. Running yet faster, he came in sight
of them on the other side of the stream,--not a moment too soon. The
valley was full of a dull roaring sound. He called to them as he
ran, and the children saw and came running down toward him, followed
by Mercy. She was not looking much concerned, for she thought it
only the grumbling of distant thunder. But Ian saw, far up the
valley, what looked like a low brown wall across it, and knew what
it was.
"Mercy!" he cried, "run up the side of the hill directly; you will
be drowned--swept away if you do not."
She looked incredulous, and glanced up the hill-side, but carne on
as if to cross the burn and join him.
"Do as I tell you," he cried, in a tone which few would have
ventured to disregard, and turning darted across the channel toward
her.
Mercy did not wait his coming, but took the children, each by a
hand, and went a little way up the hill that immediately bordered
the stream.
"Farther! farther!" cried Ian as he ran. "Where is Christina?"
"At the ruin," she answered.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Ian, and darted off, crying, "Up the hill
with you! up the hill!"
Christina was standing by the birch-tree in the ruin, looking down
the burn. She had heard Ian calling, and saw him running, but
suspected no danger.
"Come; come directly; for God's sake, come!" he cried. "Look up the
burn!" he added, seeing her hesitate bewildered.
She turned, looked, and came running to him, down the channel, white
with terror. It was too late. The charging water, whose front rank
was turf, and hushes, and stones, was almost upon her. The solid
matter had retarded its rush, but it was now on the point of
dividing against the rocky mound, to sweep along both sides, and
turn it into an island. Ian bounded to her in the middle of the
channel, caught her by the arm, and hurried her back to the mound as
fast as they could run: it was the highest ground immediately
accessible. As they reached it, the water broke with a roar against
its rocky base, rose, swelled--and in a moment the island was
covered with a brown, seething, swirling flood.
"Where's Mercy and the children?" gasped Christina, as the water
rose upon her.
"Safe, safe!" answered Ian. "We must get to the ruin!"
The water was halfway up his leg, and rising fast. Their danger was
but beginning. Would the old walls, in greater part built without
mortar, stand the rush? If a tree should strike them, they hardly
would! If the flood came from a waterspout, it would soon be
over--only how high it might first rise, who could tell! Such were
his thoughts as they struggled to the ruin, and stood up at the end
of a wall parallel with the current.
The water was up to Christina's waist, and very cold. Here out of
the rush, however, she recovered her breath in a measure, and showed
not a little courage. Ian stood between her and the wall, and held
her fast. The torrent came round the end of the wall from both
sides, but the encounter and eddy of the two currents rather pushed
them up against it. Without it they could not have stood.
The chief danger to Christina, however, was from the cold. With the
water so high on her body, and flowing so fast, she could not long
resist it! Ian, therefore, took her round the knees, and lifted her
almost out of the water.
"Put your arms up," he said, "and lay hold of the wall. Don't mind
blinding me; my eyes are of little use at present. There--put your
feet in my hands. Don't be frightened; I can hold you."
"I can't help being frightened!" she panted.
"We are in God's arms," returned Ian. "He is holding us."
"Are you sure we shall not be drowned?" she asked.
"No; but I am sure the water cannot take us out of God's arms."
This was not much comfort to Christina. She did not know anything
about God--did not believe in him any more than most people. She
knew God's arms only as the arms of Ian--and THEY comforted her, for
she FELT them!
How many of us actually believe in any support we do not immediately
feel? in any arms we do not see? But every help I from God; Ian's
help was God's help; and though to believe in Ian was not to believe
in God, it was a step on the road toward believing in God. He that
believeth not in the good man whom he hath seen, how shall he
believe in the God whom he hath not seen?
She began to feel a little better; the ghastly choking at her heart
was almost gone.
"I shall break your arms!" she said.
"You are not very heavy," he answered; "and though I am not so
strong as Alister, I am stronger than most men. With the help of the
wall I can hold you a long time."
How was it that, now first in danger, self came less to the front
with her than usual? It was that now first she was face to face with
reality. Until this moment her life had been an affair of
unrealities. Her selfishness had thinned, as it were vaporized,
every reality that approached her. Solidity is not enough to teach
some natures reality; they must hurt themselves against the solid
ere they realize its solidity. Small reality, small positivity of
existence has water to a dreaming soul, half consciously gazing
through half shut eyes at the soft river floating away in the
moonlight: Christina was shivering in its grasp on her person, its
omnipresence to her skin; its cold made her gasp and choke; the push
and tug of it threatened to sweep her away like a whelmed log! It is
when we are most aware of the FACTITUDE of things, that we are most
aware of our need of God, and most able to trust in him; when most
aware of their presence, the soul finds it easiest to withdraw from
them, and seek its safety with the maker of it and them. The
recognition of inexorable reality in any shape, or kind, or way,
tends to rouse the soul to the yet more real, to its relations with
higher and deeper existence. It is not the hysterical alone for whom
the great dash of cold water is good. All who dream life instead of
living it, require some similar shock. Of the kind is every
disappointment, every reverse, every tragedy of life. The true in
even the lowest kind, is of the truth, and to be compelled to feel
even that, is to be driven a trifle nearer to the truth of being, of
creation, of God. Hence this sharp contact with Nature tended to
make Christina less selfish: it made her forget herself so far as to
care for her helper as well as herself.
It must be remembered, however, that her selfishness was not the
cultivated and ingrained selfishness of a long life, but that of an
uneducated, that is undeveloped nature. Her being had not
degenerated by sinning against light known as light; it had not been
consciously enlightened at all; it had scarcely as yet begun to
grow. It was not lying dead, only unawaked. I would not be
understood to imply that she was nowise to blame--but that she was
by no means so much to blame as one who has but suspected the
presence of a truth, and from selfishness or self-admiration has
turned from it. She was to blame wherever she had not done as her
conscience had feebly told her; and she had not made progress just
because she had neglected the little things concerning which she had
promptings. There are many who do not enter the kingdom of heaven
just because they will not believe the tiny key that is handed them,
fit to open its hospitable gate.
"Oh, Mr. Ian, if you should be drowned for my sake!" she faltered
with white lips. "You should not have come to me!"
"I would not wish a better death," said Ian.
"How can you talk so coolly about it!" she cried.
"Well," he returned, "what better way of going out of the world is
there than by the door of help? No man cares much about what the
idiots of the world call life! What is it whether we live in this
room or another? The same who sent us here, sends for us out of
here!"
"Most men care very much! You are wrong there!"
"I don't call those who do, men! They are only children! I know many
men who would no more cleave to this life than a butterfly would
fold his wings and creep into his deserted chrysalis-case. I do care
to live--tremendously, but I don't mind where. He who made this room
so well worth living in, may surely be trusted with the next!"
"I can't quite follow you," stammered Christina. "I am sorry.
Perhaps it is the cold. I can't feel my hands, I am so cold."
"Leave the wall, and put your arms round my neck. The change will
rest me, and the water is already falling! It will go as rapidly as
it came!"
"How do you know that?"
"It has sunk nearly a foot in the last fifteen minutes: I have been
carefully watching it, you may be sure! It must have been a
waterspout, and however much that may bring, it pours it out all at
once."
"Oh!" said Christina, with a tremulous joyfulness; "I thought it
would go on ever so long!"
"We shall get out of it alive!--God's will be done!"
"Why do you say that? Don't you really mean we are going to be
saved?"
"Would you want to live, if he wanted you to die?"
"Oh, but you forget, Mr. Ian, I am not ready to die, like you!"
sobbed Christina.
"Do you think anything could make it better for you to stop here,
after God thought it better for you to go?"
"I dare not think about it."
"Be sure God will not take you away, if it be better for you to live
here a little longer. But you will have to go sometime; and if you
contrived to live after God wanted you to go, you would find
yourself much less ready when the time came that you must. But, my
dear Miss Palmer, no one can be living a true life, to whom dying is
a terror."
Christina was silent. He spoke the truth! She was not worth
anything! How grand it was to look death in the face with a smile!
If she had been no more than the creature she had hitherto shown
herself, not all the floods of the deluge could have made her think
or feel thus: her real self, her divine nature had begun to wake.
True, that nature was as yet no more like the divine, than the
drowsy, arm-stretching, yawning child is like the merry elf about to
spring from his couch, full of life, of play, of love. She had no
faith in God yet, but it was much that she felt she was not worth
anything.
You are right: it was odd to hold such a conversation at such a
time! But Ian was an odd man. He actually believed that God was
nearer to him than his own consciousness, yet desired communion with
him! and that Jesus Christ knew what he said when he told his
disciples that the Father cared for his sparrows.
Only one human being witnessed their danger, and he could give no
help. Hector of the Stags had crossed the main valley above where
the torrent entered it, and coming over the hill, saw with
consternation the flood-encompassed pair. If there had been help in
man, he could have brought none; the raging torrent blocked the way
both to the village and to the chief's house. He could only stand
and gaze with his heart in his eyes.
Beyond the stream lay Mercy on the hillside, with her face in the
heather. Frozen with dread, she dared not look up. Had she moved but
ten yards, she would have seen her sister in Ian's arms.
The children sat by her, white as death, with great lumps in their
throats, and the silent tears rolling down their cheeks. It was the
first time death had come near them.
A sound of sweeping steps came through the heather. They looked up:
there was the chief striding toward them.
The flood had come upon him at work in his fields, whelming his
growing crops. He had but time to unyoke his bulls, and run for his
life. The bulls, not quite equal to the occasion, were caught and
swept away. They were found a week after on the hills, nothing the
worse, and nearly as wild as when first the chief took them in hand.
The cottage was in no danger; and Nancy got a horse and the last of
the cows from the farm-yard on to the crest of the ridge, against
which the burn rushed roaring, just as the water began to invade the
cowhouse and stable. The moment he reached the ridge, the chief set
out to look for his brother, whom he knew to be somewhere up the
valley; and having climbed to get an outlook, saw Mercy and the
girls, from whose postures he dreaded that something had befallen
them.
The girls uttered a cry of welcome, and the chief answered, but
Mercy did not lift her head.
"Mercy," said Alister softly, and kneeling laid his hand on her.
She turned to him such a face of blank misery as filled him with
consternation.
"What has happened?" he asked.
She tried to speak, but could not.
"Where is Christina?" he went on.
She succeeded in bringing out the one word "ruin."
"Is anybody with her?"
"Ian."
"Oh!" he returned cheerily, as if then all would be right. But a
pang shot through his heart, and it was as much for himself as for
Mercy that he went on: "But God is with them, Mercy. If he were not,
it would be bad indeed! Where he is, all is well!"
She sat up, and putting out her hand, laid it in his great palm.
"I wish I could believe that!" she said; "but you know people ARE
drowned sometimes!"
"Yes, surely! but if God be with them what does it matter! It is no
worse than when a mother puts her baby into a big bath."
"It is cruel to talk like that to me when my sister is drowning!"
She gave a stifled shriek, and threw herself again on her face.
"Mercy," said the chief--and his voice trembled a little, "you do
not love your sister more than I love my brother, and if he be
drowned I shall weep; but I shall not be miserable as if a mocking
devil were at the root of it, and not one who loves them better than
we ever shall. But come; I think we shall find them somehow alive
yet! Ian knows what to do in an emergency; and though you might not
think it, he is a very strong man."
She rose immediately, and taking like a child the hand he offered
her, went up the hill with him.
The girls ran before them, and presently gave a scream of joy.
"I see Chrissy! I see Chrissy!" cried one.
"Yes! there she is! I see her too!" cried the other.
Alister hurried up with Mercy. There was Christina! She seemed
standing on the water!
Mercy burst into tears.
"But where's Ian?" she said, when she had recovered herself a
little; "I don't see him!"
"He is there though, all right!" answered Alister. "Don't you see
his hands holding her out of the water?"
And with that he gave a great shout:--
"Ian! Ian! hold on, old boy! I'm coming!"
Ian heard him, and was filled with terror, but had neither breath
nor strength to answer. Along the hillside went Alister bounding
like a deer, then turning sharp, shot headlong down, dashed into the
torrent--and was swept away like a cork. Mercy gave a scream, and
ran down the hill.
He was not carried very far, however. In a moment or two he had
recovered himself, and crept out gasping and laughing, just below
Mercy. Ian did not move. He was so benumbed that to change his
position an inch would, he well knew, be to fall.
And now Hector began to behave oddly. He threw a stone, which went
in front of Ian and Christina. Then he threw another, which went
behind them. Then he threw a third, and Christina felt her hat
caught by a bit of string. She drew it toward her as fast as
numbness would permit, and found at the end a small bottle. She
managed to get it uncorked, and put it to Ian's lips. He swallowed a
mouthful, and made her take some. Hector stood on one side, the
chief on the other, and watched the proceeding.
"What would mother say, Alister!" cried Ian across the narrowing
water.
In the joy of hearing his voice, Alister rushed again into the
torrent; and, after a fierce struggle, reached the mound, where he
scrambled up, and putting his arms round Ian's legs with a shout,
lifted the two at once like a couple of babies.
"Come! come, Alister! don't be silly!" said Ian. "Set me down!"
"Give me the girl then."
"Take her!"
Christina turned on him a sorrowful gaze as Alister took her.
"I have killed you!" she said.
"You have done me the greatest favour," he replied.
"What?" she asked.
"Accepted help."
She burst out crying. She had not shed a tear before.
"Get on the top of the wall, Ian, out of the wet," said Alister.
"You can't tell what the water may have done to the foundations,
Alister! I would rather not break my leg! It is so frozen it would
never mend again!"
As they talked, the torrent had fallen so much, that Hector of the
Stags came wading from the other side. A few minutes more, and
Alister carried Christina to Mercy.
"Now," he said, setting her down, "you must walk."
Ian could not cross without Hector's help; he seemed to have no
legs. They set out at once for the cottage.
"How will your crops fare, Alister?" asked Ian.
"Part will be spoiled," replied the chief; "part not much the
worse."
The torrent had rushed half-way up the ridge, then swept along the
flank of it, and round the end in huge bulk, to the level on the
other side. The water lay soaking into the fields. The valley was
desolated. What green things had not been uprooted or carried away
with the soil, were laid flat. Everywhere was mud, and scattered all
over were lumps of turf, with heather, brushwood, and small trees.
But it was early in the year, and there was hope!
I will spare the description of the haste and hurrying to and fro in
the little house--the blowing of fires, the steaming pails and
blankets, the hot milk and tea! Mrs. Macruadh rolled up her sleeves,
and worked like a good housemaid. Nancy shot hither and thither on
her bare feet like a fawn--you could not say she ran, and certainly
she did not walk. Alister got Ian to bed, and rubbed him with rough
towels--himself more wet than he, for he had been rolled over and
over in the torrent. Christina fell asleep, and slept many hours.
When she woke, she said she was quite well; but it was weeks before
she was like herself. I doubt if ever she was quite as strong again.
For some days Ian confessed to an aching in his legs and arms. It
was the cold of the water, he said; but Alister insisted it was from
holding Christina so long.
"Water could not hurt a highlander!" said Alister.
CHAPTER XIV
CHANGE.
Christina walked home without difficulty, but the next day did not
leave her bed, and it was a fortnight before she was able to be out
of doors. When Ian and she met, her manner was not quite the same as
before. She seemed a little timid. As she shook hands with him her
eyes fell; and when they looked up again, as if ashamed of their
involuntary retreat, her face was rosy; but the slight embarrassment
disappeared as soon as they began to talk. No affectation or
formality, however, took its place: in respect of Ian her falseness
was gone. The danger she had been in, and her deliverance through
the voluntary sharing of it by Ian, had awaked the simpler, the real
nature of the girl, hitherto buried in impressions and their
responses. She had lived but as a mirror meant only to reflect the
outer world: something of an operative existence was at length
beginning to appear in her. She was growing a woman. And the first
stage in that growth is to become as a little child.
The child, however, did not for some time show her face to any but
Ian. In his presence Christina had no longer self-assertion or wile.
Without seeking his notice she would yet manifest an almost childish
willingness to please him. It was no sudden change. She had, ever
since their adventure, been haunted, both awake and asleep, by his
presence, and it had helped her to some discoveries regarding
herself. And the more she grew real, the nearer, that is, that she
came to being a PERSON, the more she came under the influence of his
truth, his reality. It is only through live relation to others that
any individuality crystallizes.
"You saved my life, Ian!" she said one evening for the tenth time.
"It pleased God you should live," answered Ian.
"Then you really think," she returned, "that God interfered to save
us?"
"No, I do not; I don't think he ever interferes."
"Mr. Sercombe says everything goes by law, and God never interferes;
my father says he does interfere sometimes."
"Would you say a woman interfered in the management of her own
house? Can one be said to interfere where he is always at work? He
is the necessity of the universe, ever and always doing the best
that can be done, and especially for the individual, for whose sake
alone the cosmos exists. If we had been drowned, we should have
given God thanks for saving us."
"I do not understand you!"
"Should we not have given thanks to find ourselves lifted out of the
cold rushing waters, in which we felt our strength slowly sinking?"
"But you said DROWNED! How could we have thanked God for deliverance
if we were drowned?"
"What!--not when we found ourselves above the water, safe and well,
and more alive than ever? Would it not be a dreadful thing to lie
tossed for centuries under the sea-waves to which the torrent had
borne us? Ah, how few believe in a life beyond, a larger life, more
awake, more earnest, more joyous than this!"
"Oh, _I_ do! but that is not what one means by LIFE; that is quite a
different kind of thing!"
"How do you make out that it is so different? If I am I, and you are
you, how can it be very different? The root of things is
individuality, unity of idea, and persistence depends on it. God is
the one perfect individual; and while this world is his and that
world is his, there can be no inconsistency, no violent difference,
between there and here."
"Then you must thank God for everything--thank him if you are
drowned, or burnt, or anything!"
"Now you understand me! That is precisely what I mean."
"Then I can never be good, for I could never bring myself to that!"
"You cannot bring yourself to it; no one could. But we must come to
it. I believe we shall all be brought to it."
"Never me! I should not wish it!"
"You do not wish it; but you may be brought to wish it; and without
it the end of your being cannot be reached. No one, of course, could
ever give thanks for what he did not know or feel as good. But what
IS good must come to be felt good. Can you suppose that Jesus at any
time could not thank his Father for sending him into the world?"
"You speak as if we and he were of the same kind!"
"He and we are so entirely of the same kind, that there is no bliss
for him or for you or for me but in being the loving obedient child
of the one Father."
"You frighten me! If I cannot get to heaven any other way than that,
I shall never get there."
"You will get there, and you will get there that way and no other.
If you could get there any other way, it would be to be miserable."
"Something tells me you speak the truth; but it is terrible! I do
not like it."
"Naturally."
She was on the point of crying. They were alone in the drawing-room
of the cottage, but his mother might enter any moment, and Ian said
no more.
It was not a drawing toward the things of peace that was at work in
Christina: it was an urging painful sense of separation from Ian.
She had been conscious of some antipathy even toward him, so unlike
were her feelings, thoughts, judgments, to his: this feeling had
changed to its opposite.
A meeting with Ian was now to Christina the great event of day or
week; but Ian, in love with the dead, never thought of danger to
either.
One morning she woke from a sound and dreamless sleep, and getting
out of bed, drew aside the curtains, looked out, and then opened her
window. It was a lovely spring-morning. The birds were singing loud
in the fast greening shrubbery. A soft wind was blowing. It came to
her, and whispered something of which she understood only that it
was both lovely and sad. The sun, but a little way up, was shining
over hills and cone-shaped peaks, whose shadows, stretching eagerly
westward, were yet ever shortening eastward. His light was gentle,
warm, and humid, as if a little sorrowful, she thought, over his
many dead children, that he must call forth so many more to the new
life of the reviving year. Suddenly as she gazed, the little clump
of trees against the hillside stood as she had never seen it stand
before--as if the sap in them were no longer colourless, but red
with human life; nature was alive with a presence she had never seen
before; it was instinct with a meaning, an intent, a soul; the
mountains stood against the sky as if reaching upward, knowing
something, waiting for something; over all was a glory. The change
was far more wondrous than from winter to summer; it was not as if a
dead body, but a dead soul had come alive. What could it mean? Had
the new aspect come forth to answer this glow in her heart, or was
the glow in her heart the reflection of this new aspect of the
world? She was ready to cry aloud, not with joy, not from her
feeling of the beauty, but with a SENSATION almost, hitherto
unknown, therefore nameless. It was a new and marvellous interest in
the world, a new sense of life in herself, of life in everything, a
recognition of brother-existence, a life-contact with the universe,
a conscious flash of the divine in her soul, a throb of the pure joy
of being. She was nearer God than she had ever been before. But she
did not know this--might never in this world know it; she understood
nothing of what was going on in her, only felt it go on; it was not
love of God that was moving in her. Yet she stood in her white dress
like one risen from the grave, looking in sweet bliss on a new
heaven and a new earth, made new by the new opening of her eyes. To
save man or woman, the next thing to the love of God is the love of
man or woman; only let no man or woman mistake the love of love for
love!
She started, grew white, stood straight up, grew red as a
sunset:--was it--could it be?--"Is this love?" she said to herself,
and for minutes she hardly moved.
It was love. Whether love was in her or not, she was in love--and it
might get inside her. She hid her face in her hands, and wept.
With what opportunities I have had of studying, I do not say
UNDERSTANDING, the human heart, I should not have expected such
feeling from Christina--and she wondered at it herself. Till a child
is awake, how tell his mood?--until a woman is awaked, how tell her
nature? Who knows himself?--and how then shall he know his
neighbour?
For who can know anything except on the supposition of its remaining
the same? and the greatest change of all, next to being born again,
is beginning to love. The very faculty of loving had been hitherto
repressed in the soul of Christina--by poor education, by low family
and social influences, by familiarity with the worship of riches, by
vanity, and consequent hunger after the attentions of men; but now
at length she was in love.
At breakfast, though she was silent, she looked so well that her
mother complimented her on her loveliness. Had she been more of a
mother, she might have seen cause for anxiety in this fresh
bourgeoning of her beauty.
CHAPTER XV.
LOVE ALLODIAL.
While the chief went on in his humble way, enjoying life and his
lowly position; seeming, in the society of his brother, to walk the
outer courts of heaven; and, unsuspicious of the fact, growing more
and more in love with the ill educated, but simple, open, and wise
Mercy, a trouble was gathering for him of which he had no
presentiment. We have to be delivered from the evils of which we are
unaware as well as from those we hate; and the chief had to be set
free from his unconscious worship of Mammon. He did not worship
Mammon by yielding homage to riches; he did not make a man's money
his pedestal; had he been himself a millionaire, he would not have
connived at being therefore held in honour; but, ever consciously
aware of the deteriorating condition of the country, and pitifully
regarding the hundred and fifty souls who yet looked to him as their
head, often turning it over in his mind how to shepherd them should
things come to a crisis, his abiding, ever-recurring comfort was the
money from the last sale of the property, accumulating ever since,
and now to be his in a very few years: he always thought, I say,
first of this money and not first of God. He imagined it an
inexhaustible force, a power with which for his clan he could work
wonders. It is the common human mistake to think of money as a force
and not as a mere tool. But he never thought of it otherwise than as
belonging to the clan; never imagined the least liberty to use it
save in the direct service of his people. And all the time, the very
shadow of this money was disappearing from the face of the earth!
It had scarcely been deposited where the old laird judged it as safe
as in the Bank of England, when schemes and speculations were
initiated by the intrusted company which brought into jeopardy
everything it held, and things had been going from bad to worse ever
since. Nothing of this was yet known, for the directors had from the
first carefully muffled up the truth, avoiding the least economy
lest it should be interpreted as hinting at any need of prudence;
living in false show with the very money they were thus lying away,
warming and banqueting their innocent neighbours with fuel and wine
stolen from their own cellars; and working worse wrong and more
misery under the robe of imputed righteousness, that is,
respectability, than could a little army of burglars. Unawares to a
trusting multitude, the vacant eyes of loss were drawing near to
stare them out of hope and comfort; and annihilation had long closed
in upon the fund which the chief regarded as the sheet-anchor of his
clan: he trusted in Mammon, and Mammon had played him one of his
rogue's-tricks. The most degrading wrong to ourselves, and the worst
eventual wrong to others, is to trust in any thing or person but the
living God: it was an evil thing from which the chief had sore need
to be delivered. Even those who help us we must regard as the loving
hands of the great heart of the universe, else we do God wrong, and
will come to do them wrong also.
And there was more yet of what we call mischief brewing in another
quarter to like hurt.
Mr. Peregrine Palmer was not now so rich a man as when he bought
his highland property; also he was involved in affairs of doubtful
result. It was natural, therefore, that he should begin to think of
the said property not merely as an ornament of life, but as
something to fall back upon. He feared nothing, however, more
unpleasant than a temporary embarrassment. Had not his family been
in the front for three generations! Had he not a vested right in
success! Had he not a claim for the desire of his heart on whatever
power it was that he pictured to himself as throned in the heavens!
It never came into his head that, seeing there were now daughters in
the family, it might be worth the while of that Power to make a poor
man of him for their sakes; or that neither he, his predecessors,
nor his sons, had ever come near enough to anything human to be fit
for having their pleasures taken from them. But what I have to do
with is the new aspect his Scotch acres now put on: he must see to
making the best of them! and that best would be a deer-forest! He
and his next neighbour might together effect something worth doing!
Therefore all crofters or villagers likely to trespass must be got
rid of--and first and foremost the shepherds, for they had endless
opportunities of helping themselves to a deer. Where there were
sheep there must be shepherds: they would make a clearance of both!
The neighbour referred to, a certain Mr. Brander, who had made his
money by sharp dealing in connection with a great Russian railway,
and whom Mr. Peregrine Palmer knew before in London, had enlightened
him on many things, and amongst others on the shepherds' passion for
deer-stalking. Being in the company of the deer, he said, the whole
day, and the whole year through, they were thoroughly acquainted
with their habits, and were altogether too much both for the deer
and for their owners. A shepherd would take the barrel of his gun
from the stock, and thrust it down his back, or put it in a hollow
crook, and so convey it to the vicinity of some spot frequented by a
particular animal, to lie hidden there for his opportunity. In the
hills it was impossible to tell with certainty whence came the sound
of a shot; and no rascal of them would give information concerning
another! In short, there was no protecting the deer without
uprooting and expelling the peasantry!
The village of the Clanruadh was on Mr. Brander's land, and was
dependent in part on the produce of small pieces of ground, the
cultivators of which were mostly men with other employment as well.
Some made shoes of the hides, others cloth and clothes of the wool
of the country. Some were hinds on neighbouring farms, but most were
shepherds, for there was now very little tillage. Almost all the
land formerly cultivated had been given up to grass and sheep, and
not a little of it was steadily returning to that state of nature
from which it had been reclaimed, producing heather, ling,
blueberries, cnowperts, and cranberries. The hamlet was too far from
the sea for much fishing, but some of its inhabitants would join
relatives on the coast and go fishing with them, when there was
nothing else to be done. But many of those who looked to the sea for
help had lately come through a hard time, in which they would have
died but for the sea-weed and shellfish the shore afforded them; yet
such was their spirit of independence that a commission appointed to
inquire into their necessity, found scarcely one willing to
acknowledge any want: such was the class of men and women now
doomed, at the will of two common-minded, greedy men, to expulsion
from the houses and land they had held for generations, and loved
with a love unintelligible to their mean-souled oppressors.
Ian, having himself learned the lesson that, so long as a man is
dependent on anything earthly, he is not a free man, was very
desirous to have his brother free also. He could not be satisfied to
leave the matter where, on their way home that night from THE TOMB,
as they called their cave-house, their talk had left it. Alister's
love of the material world, of the soil of his ancestral acres, was,
Ian plainly saw, not yet one with the meaning and will of God: he
was not yet content that the home of his fathers should fare as the
father of fathers pleased. He was therefore on the outlook for the
right opportunity of having another talk with him on the subject.
That those who are trying to be good are more continuously troubled
than the indifferent, has for ages been a puzzle. "I saw the wicked
spreading like a green bay tree," says king David; and he was far
from having fathomed the mystery when he got his mind at rest about
it. Is it not simply that the righteous are worth troubling? that
they are capable of receiving good from being troubled? As a man
advances, more and more is required of him. A wrong thing in the
good man becomes more and more wrong as he draws nearer to freedom
from it. His friends may say how seldom he offends; but every time
he offends, he is the more to blame. Some are allowed to go on
because it would be of no use to stop them yet; nothing would yet
make them listen to wisdom. There must be many who, like Dives, need
the bitter contrast between the good things of this life and the
evil things of the next, to wake them up. In this life they are not
only fools, and insist on being treated as fools, but would have God
consent to treat them as if he too had no wisdom! The laird was one
in whom was no guile, but he was far from perfect: any man is far
from perfect whose sense of well-being could be altered by any
change of circumstance. A man unable to do without this thing or
that, is not yet in sight of his perfection, therefore not out of
sight of suffering. They who do not know suffering, may well doubt
if they have yet started on the way TO BE. If clouds were gathering
to burst in fierce hail on the head of the chief, it was that he
might be set free from yet another of the cords that bound him. He
was like a soaring eagle from whose foot hung, trailing on the
earth, the line by which his tyrant could at his will pull him back
to his inglorious perch.
To worship truly is to treat according to indwelling worth. The
highest worship of Nature is to worship toward it, as David and
Daniel worshipped toward the holy place. But even the worship of
Nature herself might be an ennobling idolatry, so much is the divine
present in her. There is an intense, almost sensuous love of Nature,
such as the chief confessed to his brother, which is not only one
with love to the soul of Nature, but tends to lift the soul of man
up to the lord of Nature. To love the soul of Nature, however, does
not secure a man from loving the body of Nature in the low
Mammon-way of possession. A man who loves the earth even as the meek
love it, may also love it in a way hostile to such possession of it
as is theirs. The love of possessing as property, must, unchecked,
come in time to annihilate in a man the inheritance of the meek.
A few acres of good valley-land, with a small upland pasturage, and
a space of barren hill-country, had developed in the chief a greater
love of the land as a possession than would have come of entrance
upon an undiminished inheritance. He clave to the ground remaining
to him, as to the last remnant of a vanishing good.
One day the brothers were lying on the westward slope of the ridge,
in front of the cottage. A few sheep, small, active, black-faced,
were feeding around them: it was no use running away, for the
chief's colley was lying beside him! The laird every now and then
buried his face in the short sweet mountain-grass-like that of the
clowns in England, not like the rich sown grass on the cultivated
bank of the burn.
"I believe I love the grass," he said, "as much, Ian, as your
Chaucer loved the daisy!"
"Hardly so much, I should think!" returned Ian.
"Why do you think so?"
"I doubt if grass can be loved so much as a flower."
"Why not?"
"Because the one is a mass, the other an individual."
"I understand."
"I have a fear, Alister, that you are in danger of avarice," said
Ian, after a pause.
"Avarice, Ian! What can you mean?"
"You are as free, Alister, from the love of money, as any man I ever
knew, but that is not enough. Did you ever think of the origin of
the word AVARICE?"
"No."
"It comes--at least it seems to me to come--from the same root as
the verb HAVE. It is the desire to call THINGS ours--the desire of
company which is not of our kind--company such as, if small enough,
you would put in your pocket and carry about with you. We call the
holding in the hand, or the house, or the pocket, or the power,
HAVING; but things so held cannot really be HAD; HAVING is but an
illusion in regard to THINGS. It is only what we can be WITH that we
can really possess--that is, what is of our kind, from God to the
lowest animal partaking of humanity. A love can never be lost; it is
a possession; but who can take his diamond ring into the somewhere
beyond?--it is not a possession. God only can be ours perfectly;
nothing called property can be ours at all."
"I know it--with my head at least," said Alister; "but I am not sure
how you apply it to me."
"You love your country--don't you, Alister?"
"I do."
"What do you mean by LOVING YOUR COUNTRY?"
"It is hard to say all at once. The first thing that comes to me is,
that I would rather live in it than in any other."
"Would you care to vaunt your country at the expense of any other?"
"Not if it did not plainly excel--and even then it might be neither
modest nor polite!"
"Would you feel bound to love a man more because he was a
fellow-countryman?"
"Other things being equal, I could not help it."
"Other things not being equal,--?"
"I should love the best man best--Scotsman or negro."
"That is as I thought of you. For my part, my love for my own people
has taught me to love every man, be his colour or country what it
may. The man whose patriotism is not leading him in that direction
has not yet begun to be a true patriot. Let him go to St. Paul and
learn, or stay in his own cellar and be an idiot.--But now, from
loving our country, let us go down the other way:--Do you love the
highlands or the lowlands best? You love the highlands, of course,
you say. And what district do you like best? Our own. What parish?
Your father's. What part of the parish? Why this, where at this
moment we are lying. Now let me ask, have you, by your love for this
piece of the world, which you will allow me to call ours, learned to
love the whole world in like fashion?"
"I cannot say so. I do not think we can love the whole world in the
same way as our own part of it--the part where we were born and
bred! It is a portion of our very being."
"If your love to what we call our own land is a love that cannot
spread, it seems to me of a questionable kind--of a kind involving
the false notion of HAVING? The love that is eternal is alone true,
and that is the love of the essential, which is the universal. We
love indeed individuals, even to their peculiarities, but only
BECAUSE of what lies under and is the life of them--what they share
with every other, the eternal God-born humanity WHICH IS THE PERSON.
Without this humanity where were your friend? Mind, I mean no
abstraction, but the live individual humanity. Do you see what I am
driving at? I would extend my love of the world to all the worlds;
my love of humanity to all that inhabit them. I want, from being a
Scotsman, to be a Briton, then a European, then a cosmopolitan,
then a dweller of the universe, a lover of all the worlds I see, and
shall one day know. In the face of such a hope, I find my love for
this ground of my father's--not indeed less than before, but very
small. It has served its purpose in having begun in me love of the
revelation of God. Wherever I see the beauty of the Lord, that shall
be to me his holy temple. Our Lord was sent first to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel:-how would you bear to be told that he loved
them more than Africans or Scotsmen?"
"I could not bear it."
"Then, Alister, do you not see that the love of our mother earth is
meant to be but a beginning; and that such love as yours for the
land belongs to that love of things which must perish? You seem to
me not to allow it to blossom, but to keep it a hard bud; and a bud
that will not blossom is a coffin. A flower is a completed idea, a
thought of God, a creature whose body is most perishable, bat whose
soul, its idea, cannot die. With the idea of it in you, the
withering of the flower you can bear. The God in it is yours always.
Every spring you welcome the daisy anew; every time the primrose
departs, it grows more dear by its death. I say there must be a
better way of loving the ground on which we were born, than that
whence the loss of it would cause us torture."
Alister listened as to a prophecy of evil.
"Rather than that cottage and those fields should pass into the
hands of others," he said, almost fiercely, "I would see them sunk
in a roaring tide!"
Ian rose, and walked slowly away.
Alister lay clutching the ground with his hands. For a passing
moment Ian felt as if he had lost him.
"Lord, save him from this demon-love," he said, and sat down among
the pines.
In a few minutes, Alister came to him.
"You cannot mean, Ian," he said-and his face was white through all
its brown, "that I am to think no more of the fields of my fathers
than of any other ground on the face of the earth!" "Think of them
as the ground God gave to our fathers, which God may see fit to take
from us again, and I shall be content--for the present," answered
Ian.
"Do not be vexed with me," cried Alister. "I want to think as well
as do what is right; but you cannot know how I feel or you would
spare me. I love the very stones and clods of the land! The place is
to me as Jerusalem to the Jews:--you know what the psalm says:--
Thy saints take pleasure in her stones,
Her very dust to them is dear!"
"They loved their land as theirs," said Ian, "and have lost it!"
"I know I must be cast out of it! I know I must die and go from it;
but I shall come back and wander about the fields and the hills with
you and our father and mother!"
"And how about horse and dog?" asked Ian, willing to divert his
thoughts for a moment.
"Well! Daoimean and Luath are so good that I don't see why I should
not have them!"
"No more do I!" responded Ian. "We may be sure God will either let
you have them, or show you reason to content you for not having
them. No love of any thing is to be put in the same thought-pocket
with love for the poorest creature that has life. But I am sometimes
not a little afraid lest your love for the soil get right in to your
soul. We are here but pilgrims and strangers. God did not make the
world to be dwelt in, but to be journeyed through. We must not love
it as he did not mean we should. If we do, he may have great trouble
and we much hurt ere we are set free from that love. Alister, would
you willingly walk out of the house to follow him up and down for
ever?"
"I don't know about willingly," replied Alister, "but if I were sure
it was he calling me, I am sure I would walk out and follow him."
"What if your love of house and lands prevented you from being sure,
when he called you, that it was he?"
"That would be terrible! But he would not leave me so. He would not
forsake me in my ignorance!"
"No. Having to take you from everything, he would take everything
from you!"
Alister went into the house.
He did not know how much of the worldly mingled with the true in
him. He loved his people, and was unselfishly intent on helping them
to the utmost; but the thought that he was their chief was no small
satisfaction to him; and if the relation between them was a grand
one, self had there the more soil wherein to spread its creeping
choke-grass roots. In like manner, his love of nature nourished the
parasite possession. He had but those bare hill-sides, and those few
rich acres, yet when, from his eyry on the hill-top, he looked down
among the valleys, his heart would murmur within him, "From my feet
the brook flows gurgling to water my fields! The wild moors around
me feed my sheep! Yon glen is full of my people!" Even with the pure
smell of the earth, mingled the sense of its possession. When,
stepping from his cave-house, he saw the sun rise on the
outstretched grandeur of the mountain-world, and felt the earth a new
creation as truly as when Adam first opened his eyes on its glory,
his heart would give one little heave more at the thought that a
portion of it was his own. But all is man's only because it is
God's. The true possession of anything is to see and feel in it what
God made it for; and the uplifting of the soul by that knowledge,
is the joy of true having. The Lord had no land of his own. He did
not care to have it, any more than the twelve legions of angels he
would not pray for: his pupils must not care for things he did not
care for. He had no place to lay his head in-had not even a grave of
his own. For want of a boat he had once to walk the rough Galilean
sea. True, he might have gone with the rest, but he had to stop
behind to pray: he could not do without that. Once he sent a fish to
fetch him money, but only to pay a tax. He had even to borrow the
few loaves and little fishes from a boy, to feed his five thousand
with.
The half-hour which Alister spent in the silence of his chamber,
served him well: a ray as of light polarized entered his soul in its
gloom. He returned to Ian, who had been all the time walking up and
down the ridge.
"You are right, Ian!" he said. "I do love the world! If I were
deprived of what I hold, I should doubt God! I fear, oh, I fear,
Ian, he is going to take the land from me!"
"We must never fear the will of God, Alister! We are not right until
we can pray heartily, not say submissively, 'Thy will be done!' We
have not one interest, and God another. When we wish what he does
not wish, we are not more against him than against our real selves.
We are traitors to the human when we think anything but the will
of God desirable, when we fear our very life."
It was getting toward summer, and the days were growing longer.
"Let us spend a night in the tomb!" said Ian; and they fixed a day
in the following week.
CHAPTER XVI.
MERCY CALLS ON GRANNIE.
Although the subject did not again come up, Mercy had not forgotten
what Ian had said about listening for the word of Nature, and had
resolved to get away the first time she could, and see whether
Grannie, as Ian had called her, would have anything to do with her.
It were hard to say what she expected--something half magical rather
than anything quite natural. The notions people have of spiritual
influence are so unlike the facts, that, when it begins they never
recognize it, but imagine something common at work. When the Lord
came, those who were looking for him did not know him:--was he not a
man like themselves! did they not know his father and mother!
It was a fine spring morning when Mercy left the house to seek an
interview with Nature somewhere among the hills. She took a path she
knew well, and then struck into a sheep-track she had never tried.
Up and up she climbed, nor spent a thought on the sudden changes to
which at that season, and amongst those hills, the weather is
subject. With no anxiety as to how she might fare, she was yet
already not without some awe: she was at length on her pilgrimage
to the temple of Isis!
Not until she was beyond sight of any house, did she begin to feel
alone. It was a new sensation, and of a mingled sort. But the slight
sense of anxiety and fear that made part of it, was soon overpowered
by something not unlike the exhilaration of a child escaped from
school. This grew and grew until she felt like a wild thing that had
been caught, and had broken loose. Now first, almost, she seemed to
have begun to live, for now first was she free! She might lie in the
heather, walk in the stream, do as she pleased! No one would
interfere with her, no one say Don't! She felt stronger and fresher
than ever in her life; and the farther she went, the greater grew
the pleasure. The little burn up whose banks, now the one and now
the other, she was walking, kept on welcoming her unaccustomed
feet to the realms of solitude and liberty. For ever it seemed
coming to meet her, hasting, running steep, as if straight out of
the heaven to which she was drawing nearer and nearer. The wind woke
now and then, and blew on her for a moment, as if tasting her, to
see what this young Psyche was that had floated up into the wild
thin air of the hills. The incessant meeting of the brook made it a
companion to her although it could not go her way, and was always
leaving her. But it kept her from the utter loneliness she sought;
for loneliness is imperfect while sound is by, especially a
sing-sound, and the brook was one of Nature's self--playing
song--instruments. But she came at length to a point where the
ground was too rough to let her follow its path any more, and
turning from it, she began to climb a steep ridge. The growing and
deepening silence as she went farther and farther from the brook,
promised the very place for her purpose on the top of the heathery
ridge.
But when she reached it and looked behind her, lo, the valley she
had left lay at her very feet! The world had rushed after and caught
her! She had not got away from it! It was like being enchanted! She
thought she was leaving it far behind, but the nature she sought to
escape that she might find Nature, would not let her go! It kept
following her as if to see that she fell into no snare, neither was
too sternly received by the loftier spaces. She could distinguish
one of the laird's men, ploughing in the valley below: she knew him
by his red waistcoat! Almost fiercely she turned and made for the
next ridge: it would screen her from the world she had left; it
should not spy upon her! The danger of losing her way back never
suggested itself. She had not learned that the look of things as you
go, is not their look when you turn to go back; that with your
attitude their mood will have altered. Nature is like a lobster-pot:
she lets you easily go on, but not easily return.
When she gained the summit of the second ridge, she looked abroad on
a country of which she knew nothing. It was like the face of an
utter stranger. Not far beyond rose yet another ridge: she must see
how the world looked from that! On and on she went, crossing ridge
after ridge, but no place invited her to stay and be still.
She found she was weary, and spying in the midst of some short
heather a great stone, sat down, and gave herself up to the rest
that stole upon her. Though the sun was warm, the air was keen, and,
hot with climbing, she turned her face to it, and drank in its
refreshing with delight. She looked around; not a trace of humanity
was visible-nothing but brown and gray and green hills, with the
clear sky over her head, and in the north a black cloud creeping
up from the horizon. Another sense than that of rest awoke in her;
now first in her life the sense of loneliness absolute began to
possess her. And therewith suddenly descended upon her a farther
something she had never known; it was as if the loneliness, or what
is the same thing, the presence of her own being without another to
qualify and make it reasonable and endurable, seized and held her.
The silence gathered substance, grew as it were solid, and closing
upon her, imprisoned her. Was it not rather that the Soul of Nature,
unprevented, unthwarted by distracting influences, found a freer
entrance to hers, but she, not yet in harmony with it, felt its
contact as alien-as bondage therefore and not liberty? She was nearer
than ever she had been to knowing the presence of the God who is
always nearer to us than aught else. Yea, something seemed, through
the very persistence of its silence, to say to her at last, and keep
saying, "Here I am!" She looked behind her in sudden terror: 110
form was there. She sent out her gaze to the horizon: the huge waves
of the solid earth stood up against the sky, sinking so slowly she
could not see them sink: they stood mouldering away, biding their
time. They were of those "who only stand and wait," fulfilling the
will of him who set them to crumble till the hour of the new heavens
and the new earth arrive. There was no visible life between her and
the great silent mouldering hills. On her right hand lay a blue
segment of the ever restless sea, but so far that its commotion
seemed a yet deeper rest than that of the immovable hills.
She sat and sat, but nothing came, nothing seemed coming to her. The
hope Ian had given her was not to be fulfilled! For here there was
no revelation! She was not of the kind Nature could speak to!
She began to grow uncomfortable--to feel as if she had done
something wrong--as if she was a child put into the corner--a corner
of the great universe, to learn to be sorry for something. Certainly
something was wrong with her-but what? Why did she feel so
uncomfortable? Was she so silly as mind being alone? There was
nothing in these mountains that would hurt her! The red deer were
sometimes dangerous, but none were even within sight! Yet something
like fear was growing in her! Why should she be afraid? Everything
about her certainly did look strange, as if she had nothing to do
with it, and it had nothing to do with her; but that was all! Ian
Macruadh must be wrong! How could there be any such bond as he said
between Nature and the human heart, when the first thing she felt
when alone with her, was fear! The world was staring at her! She was
the centre of a fixed, stony regard from all sides! The earth, and
the sea, and the sky, were watching her! She did not like it! She
would rise and shake off the fancy! But she did not rise; something
held her to her thinking. Just so she would, when a child in
the dark, stand afraid to move lest the fear itself, lying in wait
like a tigress, should at her first motion pounce upon her. The
terrible, persistent silence!--would nothing break it! And there was
in herself a response to it--something that was in league with it,
and kept telling her that things were not all right with her; that
she ought not to be afraid, yet had good reason for being afraid;
that she knew of no essential safety. There must be some refuge,
some impregnable hiding-place, for the thing was a necessity, and
she ought to know of it! There must be a human condition of never
being afraid, of knowing nothing to be afraid of! She wondered
whether, if she were quite good, went to church twice every Sunday,
and read her bible every morning, she would come not to be afraid
of-she did not know what. It would be grand to have no fear of
person or thing! She was sometimes afraid of her own father, even
when she knew no reason! How that mountain with the horn kept
staring at her!
It was all nonsense! She was silly! She would get up and go home: it
must be time!
But things were not as they should be! Something was required of
her! Was it God wanting her to do something? She had never thought
whether he required anything of her! She must be a better girl! Then
she would have God with her, and not be afraid!
And all the time it was God near her that was making her unhappy.
For, as the Son of Man came not to send peace on the earth but a
sword, so the first visit of God to the human soul is generally in a
cloud of fear and doubt, rising from the soul itself at his
approach. The sun is the cloud-dispeller, yet often he must look
through a fog if he would visit the earth at all. The child, not
being a son, does not know his father. He may know he is what is
called a father; what the word means he does not know. How then
should he understand when the father comes to deliver him from his
paltry self, and give him life indeed!
She tried to pray. She said, "Oh G--od! forgive me, and make me good.
I want to be good!" Then she rose.
She went some little way without thinking where she was going, and
then found she did not even know from what direction she had come. A
sharp new fear, quite different from the former, now shot through
her heart: she was lost! She had told no one she was going anywhere!
No one would have a notion where to look for her! She had been
beginning to feel hungry, but fear drove hunger away. All she knew
was that she must not stay there. Here was nowhere; walking on she
might come somewhere--that is, among human beings! So out she set
on her weary travel from no-where to somewhere, giving Nature
little thanks. She did not suspect that her grandmother had been
doing anything for her by the space around her, or that now, by the
tracklessness, the lostness, she was doing yet more. On and on she
walked, climbing the one hillside and descending the other, going
she knew not whither, hardly hoping she drew one step nearer home.
All at once her strength went from her. She sat down and cried. But
with her tears came the thought how the chief and his brother talked
of God. She remembered she had heard in church that men ought to cry
to God in their troubles. Broken verses of a certain psalm came to
her, saying God delivered those who cried to him even from things
they had brought on themselves, and she had been doing nothing
wrong! She tried to trust in him, but could not: he was as far from
her as the blue heavens! True, it bent over all, but its one great
eye was much too large to see the trouble she was in! What did it
matter to the blue sky if she fell down and withered up to bones and
dust! She well might-for here no foot of man might pass till she was
a thing terrible to look at! If there was nobody where seemed to be
nothing, how fearfully empty was the universe! Ah, if she had God
for her friend! What if he was her friend, and she had not known it
because she never spoke to him, never asked him to do anything for
her? It was horrible to think it could be a mere chance whether she
got home, or died there! She would pray to God! She would ask him to
take her home!
A wintery blast came from the north. The black cloud had risen, and
was now spreading over the zenith. Again the wind came with an angry
burst and snarl. Snow carne swept upon it in hard sharp little
pellets. She started up, and forgot to pray.
Some sound in the wind or some hidden motion of memory all at once
let loose upon her another fear, which straight was agony. A rumour
had reached the New House the night before, that a leopard had
broken from a caravan, and got away to the hills. It was but a
rumour; some did not believe it, and the owners contradicted it, but
a party had set out with guns and dogs. It was true! it was true!
There was the terrible creature crouching behind that stone! He was
in every clump of heather she passed, swinging his tail, and ready
to spring upon her! He must be hungry by this time, and there was
nothing there for him to eat but her! By and by, however, she was
too cold to be afraid, too cold to think, and presently, half-frozen
and faint for lack of food, was scarce able to go a step farther.
She saw a great rock, sank down in the shelter of it, and in a
minute was asleep. She slept for some time, and woke a little
refreshed. The wonder is that she woke at all. It was dark, and her
first consciousness was ghastly fear. The wind had ceased, and the
storm was over. Little snow had fallen. The stars were all out
overhead, and the great night was round her, enclosing, watching
her. She tried to rise, and could just move her limbs. Had she
fallen asleep again, she would not have lived through the night. But
it is idle to talk of what would have been; nothing could have been
but what was. Mercy wondered afterwards that she did not lose her
reason. She must, she thought, have been trusting somehow in God.
It was terribly dreary. Sure never one sorer needed God's help! And
what better reason could there be for helping her than that she so
sorely needed it! Perhaps God had let her walk into this trouble
that she might learn she could not do without him! She--would try to
be good! How terrible was the world, with such wide spaces and
nobody in them!
And all the time, though she did not know it, she was sobbing and
weeping.
The black silence was torn asunder by the report of a gun. She
started up with a strange mingling of hope and terror, gave a loud
cry, and sank senseless. The leopard would be upon her!
Her cry was her deliverance.
CHAPTER XVII.
IN THE TOMB.
The brothers had that same morning paid their visit to the tomb, and
there spent the day after their usual fashion, intending to go home
the same night, and as the old moon was very late in rising, to take
the earlier and rougher part of the way in the twilight. Just as
they were setting out, however, what they rightly judged a passing
storm came on, and they delayed their departure. By the time the
storm was over, it was dark, and there was no use in hurrying;
they might as well stop a while, and have the moon the latter part
of the way. When at length they were again on the point of starting,
they thought they heard something like sounds of distress, but the
darkness making search difficult and unsatisfactory, the chief
thought of firing his gun, when Mercy's cry guided them to where she
lay. Alister's heart, at sight of her, and at the thought of what
she must have gone through, nearly stood still. They carried her in,
laid her on the bed, and did what they could to restore her, till
she began to come to herself. Then they left her, that she might not
see them without preparation, and sat down by the fire in the outer
room, leaving the door open between the two.
"I see how it is!" said Alister. "You remember, Ian, what you said
to her about giving Nature an opportunity of exerting her influence?
Mercy has been following your advice, and has lost her way among the
hills!"
"That was so long ago!" returned Ian thoughtfully.
"Yes-when the weather was not fit for it. It is not fit now, but she
has ventured!"
"I believe you are right! I thought there was some reality in
her!-But she must not hear us talking about her!"
When Mercy came to herself, she thought at first that she lay where
she had fallen, but presently perceived that she was covered, and
had something hot at her feet: was she in her own bed? was it all a
terrible dream, that she might know what it was to be lost, and
think of God? .She put out her arm: her hand went against cold
stone. The dread thought rushed in-that she was buried-was lying in
her grave-to lie there till the trumpet should sound, and the dead
be raised. She was not horrified; her first feeling was gladness
that she had prayed before she died. She had been taught at church
that an hour might come when it would be of no use to pray-the hour
of an unbelieving death: it was of no use to pray now, but her
prayer before she died might be of some avail! She wondered that she
was not more frightened, for in sooth it was a dreary prospect
before her: long and countless years must pass ere again she heard
the sound of voices, again saw the light of the sun! She was half
awake and half dreaming; the faintness of her swoon yet upon her,
the repose following her great weariness, and the lightness of her
brain from want of food, made her indifferent-almost happy. She
could lie so a long time, she thought.
At length she began to hear sounds, and they were of human voices.
She had companions then in the grave! she was not doomed to a
solitary waiting for judgment! She must be in some family-vault,
among strangers. She hoped they were nice people: it was very
desirable to be buried with nice people!
Then she saw a reddish light. It was a fire--far off! Was she in the
bad place? Were those shapes two demons, waiting till she had got
over her dying? She listened:--"That will divide her between us,"
said one. "Yes," answered the other; "there will be no occasion to
cut it!" What dreadful thing could they mean? But surely she had
heard their voices before! She tried to speak, but could not.
"We must come again soon!" said one. "At this rate it will take a
life-time to carve the tomb."
"If we were but at the roof of it!" said the other. "I long to
tackle the great serpent of eternity, and lay him twining and
coiling and undulating all over it! I dream about those tombs before
ever they were broken into-royally furnished in the dark, waiting
for the souls to come back to their old, brown, dried up bodies!"
Here one of them rose and came toward her, growing bigger and
blacker as he came, until he stood by the bedside. He laid his hand
on her wrist, and felt her pulse. It was Ian! She could not see his
face for there was no light on it, but she knew his shape, his
movements! She was saved!
He saw her wide eyes, two great spiritual nights, gazing up at him.
"All, you are better, Miss Mercy!" lie said cheerily. "Now you shall
have some tea!"
Something inside her was weeping for joy, but her outer self was
quite still. She tried again to speak, and uttered a few
inarticulate sounds. Then came Alister on tip-toe, and they stood both
by the bedside, looking down on her.
"I shall be all right presently!"' she managed at length to say. "I
am so glad I'm not dead! I thought I was dead!"
"You would soon have been if we had not found you!" replied Alister.
"Was it you that fired the gun?"
"Yes."
"I was so frightened!"
"It saved your life, thank God! for then you cried out."
"Fright was your door out of fear!" said Ian.
"I thought it was the leopard!"
"I did bring my gun because of the leopard," said Alister.
"It was true about him then?"
"He is out."
"And now it is quite dark!"
"It doesn't signify; we'll take a lantern; I've got my gun, and Ian
has his dirk!"
"Where are you going then?" asked Mercy, still confused.
"Home, of course."
"Oh, yes, of course! I will get up in a minute."
"There is plenty of time," said Ian. "You must eat something before
you get up. We, have nothing but oat-cakes, I am sorry to say!"
"I think you promised me some tea!" said Mercy. "I don't feel
hungry."
"You shall have the tea. When did you eat last?"
"Not since breakfast."
"It is a marvel you are able to speak! You must try to eat some
oat-cake."
"I wish I hadn't taken that last slice of deer-ham!" said Alister,
ruefully.
"I will eat if I can," said Mercy.
They brought her a cup of tea and some pieces of oat-cake; then,
having lighted her a candle, they left her, and closed the door.
She sipped her tea, managed to eat a little of the dry but wholesome
food, and found herself capable of getting up. It was the strangest
bedroom! she thought. Everything was cut out of the live rock. The
dressing-table might have been a sarcophagus! She kneeled by the
bedside, and tried to thank God. Then she opened the door. The chief
rose at the sound of it.
"I'm sorry," he said, "that we have no woman to wait on you."
"I want nothing, thank you!" answered Mercy, feeling very weak and
ready to cry, but restraining her tears. "What a curious house this
is!"
"It is a sort of doll's house my brother and I have been at work
upon for nearly fifteen years. We meant, when summer was come, to
ask you all to spend a day with us up here."
"When first we went to work on it," said Ian, "we used to tell each
other tales in which it bore a large share, and Alister's were
generally about a lost princess taking refuge in it!"
"And now it is come true!" said Alister.
"What an escape I have had!"
"I do not like to hear you say that!" returned Ian. "You have been
taken care of all the time. If you had died in the cold, it would
not have been because God had forgotten you; you would not have been
lost."
"I wanted to know," said Mercy, "whether Nature would speak to me.
It was of no use! She never came near me!"
"I think she must have come without your knowing her," answered Ian.
"But we shall have a talk about that afterwards, when you are quite
rested; we must prepare for home now."
Mercy's heart sank within her--she felt so weak and sleepy! How was
she to go back over all that rough mountain-way! But she dared not
ask to be left-with the leopard about! He might come down the wide
chimney!
She soon found that the brothers had never thought of her walking.
They wrapt her in Ian's plaid. Then they took the chiefs, which was
very strong, and having folded it twice lengthwise, drew each an end
of it over his shoulders, letting it hang in a loop between them: in
this loop they made her seat herself, and putting each as arm behind
her, tried how they could all get on.
After a few shiftings and accommodations, they found the plan
likely to answer. So they locked the door, and left the fire glowing
on the solitary hearth.
To Mercy it was the strangest journey--an experience never to be
forgotten. The tea had warmed her, and the air revived her. It was
not very cold, for only now and then blew a little puff of wind. The
stars were brilliant overhead, and the wide void of the air between
her and the earth below seemed full of wonder and mystery. Now and
then she fancied some distant sound the cry of the leopard: he might
be coming nearer and nearer as they went! but it rather added to the
eerie witchery of the night, making it like a terrible story read in
the deserted nursery, with the distant noise outside of her brothers
and sisters at play. The motion of her progress by and by became
pleasant to her. Sometimes her feet would brush the tops of the
heather; but when they came to rocky ground, they always shortened
the loop of the plaid. To Mercy's inner ear came the sound of words
she had heard at church: "He shall give his angels charge over thee,
and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou
dash thy foot against a stone." Were not these two men God's own
angels!
They scarcely spoke, except when they stopped to take breath, but
went on and on with a steady, rhythmic, silent trudge. Up and down
the rough hill, and upon the hardly less rough hill-road, they had
enough ado to heed their steps. Now and then they would let her walk
a little way, but not far. She was neither so strong nor so heavy as
a fat deer, they said.
They were yet high among the hills, when the pale, withered, waste
shred of the old moon rose above the upheaved boat-like back of one
of the battlements of the horizon-rampart. With disconsolate face,
now lost, now found again, always reappearing where Mercy had not
been looking for her, she accompanied them the rest of their
journey, and the witch-like creature brought out the whole character
of the night. Booked in her wonderful swing, Mercy was not always
quite sure that she was not dreaming the strangest, pleasantest
dream. Were they not fittest for a dream, this star and moon beset
night-this wind that now and then blew so eerie and wild, yet did
not wake her-this gulf around, above, and beneath her, through which
she was borne as if she had indeed died, and angels were carrying
her through wastes of air to some unknown region afar? Except when
she brushed the heather, she forgot that the earth was near her. The
arms around her were the arms of men and not angels, but how far
above this lower world dwelt the souls that moved those strong
limbs! What a small creature she was beside them! how unworthy of
the labour of their deliverance! Her awe of the one kept growing;
the other she could trust with heart as well as brain; she could
never be afraid of him! To the chief she turned to shadow her from
Ian.
When they came to the foot of the path leading up to Mistress
Conal's cottage, there, although it was dark night, sat the old
woman on a stone.
"It's a sorrow you are carrying home with you, chief!" she said in
Gaelic. "As well have saved a drowning man!"
She did not rise or move, but spoke like one talking by the
fireside.
"The drowning man has to be saved, mother!" answered the chief, also
in Gaelic; "and the sorrow in your way has to be taken with you. It
won't let you pass!"
"True, my son!" said the woman; "but it makes the heart sore that
sees it!"
"Thank you for the warning then, but welcome the sorrow!" he
returned. "Good night."
"Good night, chiefs sons both!" she replied. "You're your father's
anyway! Did he not one night bring home a frozen fox in his arms, to
warm him by his fire! But when he had warmed him--he turned him
out!"
It was quite clear when last they looked at the sky, but the moment
they left her, it began to rain heavily.
So fast did it rain, that the men, fearing for Mercy, turned off the
road, and went down a steep descent, to make straight across their
own fields for the cottage; and just as they reached the bottom of
the descent, although they had come all the rough way hitherto
without slipping or stumbling--once, the chief fell. He rose in
consternation; but finding that Mercy, upheld by Ian, had simply
dropped on her feet, and taken no hurt, relieved himself by
unsparing abuse of his clumsiness. Mercy laughed merrily, resumed her
place in the plaid, and closed her eyes. She never saw where they
were going, for she opened them again only when they stopped a
little as they turned into the fir-clump before the door.
"Where are we?" she asked; but for answer they carried her straight
into the house.
"We have brought you to our mother instead of yours," said Alister.
"To get wet would have been the last straw on the back of such a
day. We will let them know at once that you are safe."
Lady Macruadh, as the highlanders generally called her, made haste
to receive the poor girl with that sympathetic pity which, of all
good plants, flourishes most in the Celtic heart. Mercy's mother had
come to her in consternation at her absence, and the only comfort
she could give her was the suggestion that she had fallen in with
her sons. She gave her a warm bath,-put her to bed, and then made
her eat, so preparing her for a healthful sleep. And she did
sleep, but dreamed of darkness and snow and leopards.
As men were out searching in all directions, Alister, while Ian
went to the New House, lighted a beacon on the top of the old castle
to bring them back. By the time Ian had persuaded Mrs. Palmer to
leave Mercy in his mother's care for the night, it was blazing
beautifully.
In the morning it was found that Mercy had a bad cold, and could not
be moved. But the cottage, small as it was, had more than one
guest-chamber, and Mrs. Macruadh was delighted to have her to
nurse.
END OF VOL. II.
VOL. III.
CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAPTER
I. AT A HIGH SCHOOL
II. A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY
III. HOW ALISTER TOOK IT
IV. LOVE
V. PASSION AND PATIENCE
VI. LOVE GLOOMING
VII. A GENEROUS DOWRY
VIII. MISTRESS CONAL
IX. THE MARCHES
X. MIDNIGHT
XI. SOMETHING STRANGE
XII. THE POWER OF DARKNESS
XIII. THE NEW STANCE
XIV. THE PEAT-MOSS
XV. A DARING VISIT
XVI. THE FLITTING
XVII. THE NEW VILLAGE
XVIII. A FRIENDLY OFFER
XIX. ANOTHER EXPULSION
XX. ALISTER'S PRINCESS
XXI. THE FAREWELL
WHAT'S MINE'S MINE
CHAPTER I
AT A HIGH SCHOOL.
When Mercy was able to go down to the drawing-room, she found the
evenings pass as never evenings passed before; and during the day,
although her mother and Christina came often to see her, she had
time and quiet for thinking. And think she must; for she found
herself in a region of human life so different from any she had
hitherto entered, that in no other circumstances would she have been
able to recognize even its existence. Everything said or done in it
seemed to acknowledge something understood. Life went on with a
continuous lean toward something rarely mentioned, plainly
uppermost; it embodied a tacit reference of everything to some code
so thoroughly recognized that occasion for alluding to it was
unfrequent. Its inhabitants appeared to know things which her people
did not even suspect. The air of the brothers especially was that of
men at their ease yet ready to rise--of men whose loins were girded,
alert for an expected call.
Under their influence a new idea of life, and the world, and the
relations of men and things, began to grow in the mind of Mercy.
There was a dignity, almost grandeur, about the simple life of the
cottage, and the relation of its inmates to all they came near. No
one of them seemed to live for self, but each to be thinking and
caring for the others and for the clan. She awoke to see that
manners are of the soul; that such as she had hitherto heard admired
were not to be compared with the simple, almost peasant-like dignity
and courtesy of the chief; that the natural grace, accustomed ease,
and cultivated refinement of Ian's carriage, came out in attention
and service to the lowly even more than in converse with his equals;
while his words, his gestures, his looks, every expression born of
contact, witnessed a directness and delicacy of recognition she
could never have imagined. The moment he began to speak to another,
he seemed to pass out of himself, and sit in the ears of the other
to watch his own words, lest his thoughts should take such sound or
shape as might render them unwelcome or weak. If they were not to be
pleasant words, they should yet be no more unpleasant than was
needful; they should not hurt save in the nature of that which they
bore; the truth should receive no injury by admixture of his
personality. He heard with his own soul, and was careful over the
other soul as one of like kind. So delicately would he initiate what
might be communion with another, that to a nature too dull or
selfish to understand him, he gave offence by the very graciousness
of his approach.
It was through her growing love to Alister that Mercy became able to
understand Ian, and perceived at length that her dread, almost
dislike of him at first, was owing solely to her mingled incapacity
and unworthiness. Before she left the cottage, it was spring time in
her soul; it had begun to put forth the buds of eternal life. Such
buds are not unfrequently nipped; but even if they are, if a dull,
false, commonplace frost close in, and numb the half wakened spirit
back into its wintry sleep, that sleep will ever after be haunted
with some fainting airs of the paradise those buds prophesied. In
Mercy's case they were to grow into spiritual eyes--to open and see,
through all the fogs and tumults of this phantom world, the light
and reality of the true, the spiritual world everywhere around
her--as the opened eyes of the servant of the prophet saw the
mountains of Samaria full of horses of fire and chariots of fire
around him. Every throb of true love, however mingled with the
foolish and the false, is a bourgeoning of the buds of the life
eternal--ah, how far from leaves! how much farther from flowers.
Ian was high above her, so high that she shrank from him; there
seemed a whole heaven of height between them. It would fill her with
a kind of despair to see him at times sit lost in thought: he was
where she could never follow him! He was in a world which, to her
childish thought, seemed not the world of humanity; and she would
turn, with a sense of both seeking and finding, to the chief. She
imagined he felt as she did, saw between his brother and him a gulf
he could not cross. She did not perceive this difference, that
Alister knew the gulf had to be crossed. At such a time, too, she
had seen his mother regarding him with a similar expression of loss,
but with a mingling of anxiety that was hers only. It was sweet to
Mercy to see in the eyes of Alister, and in his whole bearing toward
his younger brother, that he was a learner like herself, that they
were scholars together in Ian's school.
A hunger after something beyond her, a something she could not have
described, awoke in her. She needed a salvation of some kind, toward
which she must grow! She needed a change which she could not
understand until it came--a change the greatest in the universe, but
which, man being created with the absolute necessity for it, can be
no violent transformation, can be only a grand process in the divine
idea of development.
She began to feel a mystery in the world, and in all the looks of
it--a mystery because a meaning. She saw a jubilance in every
sunrise, a sober sadness in every sunset; heard a whispering of
strange secrets in the wind of the twilight; perceived a
consciousness of unknown bliss in the song of the lark;--and was
aware of a something beyond it all, now and then filling her with
wonder, and compelling her to ask, "What does it, what can it mean?"
Not once did she suspect that Nature had indeed begun to deal with
her; not once suspect, although from childhood accustomed to hear
the name of Love taken in vain, that love had anything to do with
these inexplicable experiences.
Let no one, however, imagine he explains such experiences by
suggesting that she was in love! That were but to mention another
mystery as having introduced the former. For who in heaven or on
earth has fathomed the marvel betwixt the man and the woman? Least
of all the man or the woman who has not learned to regard it with
reverence. There is more in this love to uplift us, more to condemn
the lie in us, than in any other inborn drift of our being, except
the heavenly tide Godward. From it flow all the other redeeming
relations of life. It is the hold God has of us with his right hand,
while death is the hold he has of us with his left. Love and death
are the two marvels, yea the two terrors--but the one goal of our
history.
It was love, in part, that now awoke in Mercy a hunger and thirst
after heavenly things. This is a direction of its power little
heeded by its historians; its earthly side occupies almost all their
care. Because lovers are not worthy of even its earthly aspect, it
palls upon them, and they grow weary, not of love, but of their lack
of it. The want of the heavenly in it has caused it to perish: it
had no salt. From those that have not is taken away that which they
have. Love without religion is the plucked rose. Religion without
love--there is no such thing. Religion is the bush that bears all
the roses; for religion is the natural condition of man in relation
to the eternal facts, that is the truths, of his own being. To live
is to love; there is no life but love. What shape the love puts on,
depends on the persons between whom is the relation. The poorest
love with religion, is better, because truer, therefore more
lasting, more genuine, more endowed with the possibility of
persistence--that is, of infinite development, than the most
passionate devotion between man and woman without it.
Thus together in their relation to Ian, it was natural that Mercy
and the chief should draw yet more to each other. Mercy regarded
Alister as a big brother in the same class with herself, but able to
help her. Quickly they grew intimate. In the simplicity of his large
nature, the chief talked with Mercy as openly as a boy, laying a
heart bare to her such that, if the world had many like it, the
kingdom of heaven would be more than at hand. He talked as to an old
friend in perfect understanding with him, from whom he had nothing
to gain or to fear. There was never a compliment on the part of the
man, and never a coquetry on the part of the girl--a dull idea to
such as without compliment or coquetry could hold no intercourse,
having no other available means. Mercy had never like her sister
cultivated the woman's part in the low game; and her truth required
but the slightest stimulus to make her incapable of it. With such a
man as Alister she could use only a simplicity like his; not thus to
meet him would have been to decline the honouring friendship. Dark
and plain, though with an interesting face and fine eyes, she had
received no such compliments as had been showered upon her sister;
it was an unspoiled girl, with a heart alive though not yet quite
awake, that was brought under such good influences. What better
influences for her, for any woman, than those of unselfish men? what
influences so good for any man as those of unselfish women? Every
man that hears and learns of a worthy neighbour, comes to the
Father; every man that hath heard and learned of the Father comes to
the Lord; every man that comes to the Lord, he leads back to the
Father. To hear Ian speak one word about Jesus Christ, was for a
true man to be thenceforth truer. To him the Lord was not a
theological personage, but a man present in the world, who had to be
understood and obeyed by the will and heart and soul, by the
imagination and conscience of every other man. If what Ian said was
true, this life was a serious affair, and to be lived in downright
earnest! If God would have his creatures mind him, she must look to
it! She pondered what she heard. But she went always to Alister to
have Ian explained; and to hear him talk of Ian, revealed Alister to
her.
When Mercy left the cottage, she felt as if she were leaving home to
pay a visit. The rich house was dull and uninteresting. She found
that she had immediately to put in practice one of the lessons she
had learned--that the service of God is the service of those among
whom he has sent us. She tried therefore to be cheerful, and even to
forestall her mother's wishes. But life was harder than hitherto--so
much more was required of her.
The chief was falling thoroughly in love with Mercy, but it was some
time before he knew it. With a heart full of tenderness toward
everything human, he knew little of love special, and was gradually
sliding into it without being aware of it. How little are we our
own! Existence is decreed us; love and suffering are appointed us.
We may resist, we may modify; but we cannot help loving, and we
cannot help dying. We need God to keep us from hating. Great in
goodness, yea absolutely good, God must be, to have a right to make
us--to compel our existence, and decree its laws! Without his choice
the chief was falling in love. The woman was sent him; his heart
opened and took her in. Relation with her family was not desirable,
but there she was! Ian saw, but said nothing. His mother saw it too.
"Nothing good will come of it!" she said, with a strong feeling of
unfitness in the thing.
"Everything will come of it, mother, that God would have come of
it," answered Ian. "She is an honest, good girl, and whatever comes
of it must be good, whether pleasant or not."
The mother was silent. She believed in God, but not so thoroughly as
to abjure the exercise of a subsidiary providence of her own. The
more people trust in God, the less will they trust their own
judgments, or interfere with the ordering of events. The man or
woman who opposes the heart's desire of another, except in aid of
righteousness, is a servant of Satan. Nor will it avail anything to
call that righteousness which is of Self or of Mammon.
"There is no action in fretting," Ian would say, "and not much in
the pondering of consequences. True action is the doing of duty,
come of it heartache, defeat, or success."
"You are a fatalist, Ian!" said his mother one day.
"Mother, I am; the will of God is my fate!" answered Ian. "He shall
do with me what he pleases; and I will help him!"
She took him in her arms and kissed him. She hoped God would not be
strict with him, for might not the very grandeur of his character be
rooted in rebellion? Might not some figs grow on some thistles?
At length came the paternal summons for the Palmers to go to London.
For a month the families had been meeting all but every day. The
chief had begun to look deep into the eyes of the girl, as if
searching there for some secret joy; and the girl, though she
drooped her long lashes, did not turn her head away. And now
separation, like death, gave her courage, and when they parted,
Mercy not only sustained Alister's look, but gave him such a look in
return that he felt no need, no impulse to say anything. Their souls
were satisfied, for they knew they belonged to each other.