MARY GORDON’S LAST WORD.
The next day was the 30th of December, a day of bitter frost, so that
the Dee froze over, and the way which had been broken for the boats to
ferry the Presbytery across from the dangerous bounds of Balmaghie was
again filled with floating ice.
The Kirk of Crossmichael sits, like that of Balmaghie, on a little green
hill above Dee Water. One House of Prayer fronts the other, and the
white kirkyard stones greet each other across the river, telling the one
story of earth to earth. And every Sabbath day across the sluggish
stream two songs of praise go up to heaven in united aspiration towards
one Eternal father.
But this 30th of December there was for Quintin MacClellan small
community of lofty fellowship across the water in Crossmichael. It was
to me of all days the day bitterest and blackest. I have indeed good
cause to remember it.
Right well was I advised that, so far as the ministers of the Presbytery
were concerned, there was no hope of any outcome favourable to me. They
had only been scared from their prey for a moment by the stern
threatening of the folk of the parish. The People’s Paper in particular
had frightened them like a sentence of death. But now they were free to
make an end.
My brother Hob was keen to head a band pledged to keep them out of
Crossmichael Kirk also. But I forbade him to cross the water.
“Keep your own kirk and your own parish bounds if ye like, but meddle
not with those of your neighbours!” I told him. “Besides ye would only
drive them to another place, where yet more bitterly they would finish
their appointed work!”
But though the former stress of trial was over, this day of quiet was
far harder to bear than the day before. For, then, with the excitation
of battle, the plaudits of the people, the quick necessities of verbal
defence against many adversaries, my spirits were kept up. But now there
was none in the manse beside myself, and I took to wandering up and
down the little sequestered kirk-loaning, thinking how that by this time
the Presbytery was met to speed my doom, and that the pleasant place
which knew me now would soon know me no more for ever.
As I lingered at the road-end, thinking how much I would have given for
a heartening word, and vaguely resolving to betake me over to the house
of Drumglass, where at the least I was sure of companionship and
consolation, I chanced to cast my eyes to the southward, and there along
the light grey riverside track I beheld a lady riding.
As she came nearer, I saw that it was none other than Mistress Mary
Gordon. I thought I had never seen her look winsomer--a rounded lissom
form, a perfect seat, a dainty and well-ordered carriage.
I stood still where I was and waited for her to pass me. I had my hat in
my hand, and in my heart I counted on nothing but that she should ride
by me as though she saw me not.
But on the contrary, she reined her horse and sat waiting for me to
speak to her.
So I went to her bridle-rein and looked up at the face, and lo! it was
kindlier than ever I had seen it before, with a sort of loving pity on
it which I found it very hard to bear.
“Will you let me walk by your side a little way?” I asked of her. For as
we had parted without a farewell, so on this bitterest day we met again
without greeting.
“My Lady Mary,” I said at last, “I have gone through much since I went
out from your house at Earlstoun. I have yet much to win through. We
parted in anger but let us meet in peace. I am a man outcast and
friendless, save for these foolish few in this parish who to their cost
have made my quarrel theirs.”
At this she looked right kindly down upon me and paused a little before
she answered.
“Quintin,” she said, “there is no anger in my heart anywhere. There is
only a great wae. I have come from the place of Balmaghie where my
cousin Kate of Lochinvar waits her good father’s passing.”
“And ride you home to the Earlstoun alone?” I asked.
“Aye,” she said, a little wistfully. And the saying cheered me. For this
river way was not the girl’s straight road homeward, and it came to me
that mayhap Mary Gordon had wished to meet and comfort me in my sorrow.
“My father is abroad, we know not well where,” she said, “or doubtless
he would gladly support you in the way that you have chosen. Perhaps
your way is not my way, but it must be a good way of its kind, the way
of a man’s conscience.”
She reached down a hand to me, which I took and pressed gratefully
enough.
It was then that we came in sight of the white house of Drumglass
sitting above the water-meadows. At the first glimpse of it the Lady
Mary drew away her hand from mine.
“Is it true,” she said, looking at the blue ridges of Cairnsmore in the
distance, “that which I have been told, that you are to wed a daughter
of that house?”
I inclined my head without speech. I knew that the bitterest part of my
punishment was now come upon me.
“And did you come straight from the Earlstoun to offer her also your
position, your well-roofed manse, your income good as that of any
laird?”
We had stopped in a sheltered place by the river where the hazel bushes
are many and the gorse grows long and rank, mingling with the bloom and
the fringing bog-myrtle.
“My Lady Mary,” said I, after a pause, “I offered her not anything. I
had nothing to offer. But in time of need she let me see the warmth of
her heart and--I had none other comfort!”
“Then upon this day of days why are you not by her side, that her love
may ease the smart of your bitter outcasting?”
“In yonder kirk mine enemies work my doom,” said I, pointing over the
water, “and ere another sun rise I shall be no more minister of
Balmaghie, but a homeless man, without either a rooftree or a reeking
ingle. I have nothing to offer any woman. Why should I claim this day
any woman’s love?”
“Ah,” she said, giving me the strangest look, “it is her hour. For if
she loves you, she would fly to-day to share your dry crust, your
sapless bite. See,” she cried, stretching out her hand with a large
action, “if Mary Gordon loved a man, she would follow him in her sark to
the world’s end. If so be his eyes had looked the deathless love into
hers, his tongue told of love, love, only of love. Ah, that alone is
worth calling love which feeds full on the scorns of life and grows
lusty on black misfortune!”
“Lady Mary----” I began.
But she interrupted me, dashing her hand furtively to her face.
She pointed up towards the house of Drumglass.
“Yonder lies your way, Quintin MacClellan! Go to the woman you love--who
loves you.”
She lifted the reins from the horse’s neck and would have started
forward, but again I had gotten her hand. Yet I only bent and kissed it
without word, reverently and sadly as one kisses the brow of the dead.
She moved away without anger and with her eyes downcast. But on the
summit of a little hill she half turned about in her saddle and spoke a
strange word.
“Quintin,” she said, “wherefore could ye not have waited? Wherefore
kenned ye no better than to take a woman at her first word?”
And with that she set the spurs to her beast and went up the road toward
the ford at the gallop, till almost I feared to watch her.
For a long time I stood sadly enough looking after her. And I grant that
my heart was like lead within me. My spirit had no power in it. I cried
out to God to let me die. For it was scarce a fair thing that she should
have spoken that word now when it was too late.