recovered from severe illness, weak in body and desponding in mind, he
had no power to accommodate himself to the circumstances toward which
all the preparation and discipline of his life had been tending. Over a
time of sickness and suffering he looked back to days of congenial
occupation and companionship, with a regret so painful that the future
seemed to grow aimless and hopeless in its presence. As men struggle in
dreams with unseen enemies, so he struggled with the sense of unfitness
for the work he had so joyfully chosen, and for which he had so
earnestly prepared, with the fear that he had mistaken his calling, and
that he might dishonour, by the imperfect fulfillment of his duty, the
Master that he loved.
He despised himself for the weakness which made it a positive pain for
him to come in contact with strangers with whom he had no power to make
friends. He began to regard the hopes that had sustained him during the
time of preparation, the pleasure he had taken in such remnants of other
people's work in the way of preaching as had fallen to him as a student;
and the encouragement which had been given to him as to his gifts and
talents, as so many temptations of Satan. It was this sense of
unfitness for his work that made him fall back at first on the sermons
of his student days, and which made the pulpit services, praised by his
hearers, seem to him like a mockery. It was a miserable time to him.
He distrusted himself utterly, and at all points; which would not have
been so bad a thing if he had not also distrusted his Master.
But such a state of things could not continue long. It must become
either worse or better, and better it was to be. As Mr Maxwell's
health improved, he became less despondent, and more capable of enjoying
society. Clifton Holt was at home again, but no one, not even Miss
Elizabeth, could have anticipated that he would be almost the first one
in Gershom to put the minister for the moment at his ease.
Clifton had gone back to his college examinations at the appointed time;
and had so far retrieved his character for steadiness and scholarship,
that he was permitted to start fair another year, the last in his
college course. He was now at home for the regular vacation, and was
proving the sincerity and strength of his good resolutions to his
sister's satisfaction, by remaining in Gershom, and contenting himself
with the moderate enjoyments of such pleasures as village society, and
the neighbouring woods and streams afforded.
Miss Elizabeth had seconded Jacob's rather awkward attempts to bring her
brother and the young minister together, taking a vague comfort in the
idea that the intercourse must do Clifton good. But as a general thing
Clifton kept aloof a little more decidedly than she thought either kind
or polite, so that it was a surprise to her, as well as a pleasure, when
one night they came in together; and they had not been long in the
house, before she saw that whether the minister was to do her brother
good or not, her brother had already done good to the minister. They
were dripping wet from a summer shower, that had overtaken them; but Mr
Maxwell looked a good deal more like other people, Miss Elizabeth
thought, than ever she had seen him look before.
"Mr Maxwell was in despair at the thought of venturing with muddy boots
into Mrs Jacob's `spick and span' house, so I brought him here," said
Clifton. "We have been down at the Black Pool, and I have been taking a
lesson in fly-fishing. We have earned our tea, and we are ready for
it."
"And you shall have it. But I thought we were to--well, never mind. Go
up-stairs and make yourselves comfortable, and tea will be ready when
you come down."
"No one knows how to do things quite so well as Lizzie," said Clifton to
himself, when they came down to find the tea-table laid, not in the
great chilly dining-room, but in the smaller sitting-room, on the hearth
of which a bright wood-fire was burning. The old squire had been
examining their fish, and listened with almost boyish interest to his
son's description of their sport. In the effort he made to entertain
the old gentleman Mr Maxwell looked still more like other people, and
Clifton's coat, which he wore, helped to the same effect.
"I stumbled over him lying on his face in Finlay's grove," said Clifton
to his sister. "He would have run away, if I had not been too much for
him. We borrowed Joe Finlay's rod, and he went fishing with me. It is
a great deal better for him than being stunned by women's talk at Mrs
Jacob's."
"Yes, the sewing-circle!" said Elizabeth, "What will Mrs Jacob say?
Did he forget it? Of course he was expected home."
"He said nothing about it, nor did I. Jacob asked me to go over in the
evening. Why are you not there?"
"I have been there all the afternoon. I came home to make father's tea.
I told Mrs Jacob I would go back. I am afraid Mr Maxwell's coming
here to-night will offend her."
"Of course, but what if it does?"
"And do you like him? Does he improve on acquaintance?"
"He turns out to be flesh and blood, not a skin stuffed with logic, and
the odds and ends of other people's theological opinions. He is a
dyspeptic being, homesick and desponding, but he is a man. And look
here, Lizzie; if you really want to do a good work, you must take him in
hand, and not let Mrs Jacob, and the deacons, and all the rest of them
sit on him."
"How am I to help it, if such be their pleasure?"
"I have helped it to-night. Don't say a word about the sewing-circle,
lest his conscience should take alarm. I hope I shall see Mrs Jacob's
face when she hears that he has spent the evening here."
"I don't care for Mrs Jacob, but I am afraid the people may be
disappointed." For in Gershom the ladies met week by week in each
other's houses to sew for the benefit of some good cause, and their
husbands and brothers came to tea in the evening, and there was to be a
more than usually large gathering on this occasion, Elizabeth knew.
"However, I am not responsible," thought she.
So she said nothing, and her father in a little while said rather
querulously, that he hoped she was not going out again.
"Not if you want me, father. It will not matter much, I suppose."
"You will not be missed," said her brother.
Mr Maxwell did not seem to think it was a matter with which he had
anything to do. He made no movement to go away when tea was over, and
Elizabeth put away all thought of the disappointment of the people
assembled, and of her sister-in-law's displeasure, and enjoyed the
evening. Mr Maxwell seemed to enjoy it too, though he did not say
much. Clifton kept himself within bounds, and was amusing without being
severe or disagreeable in his descriptions of some of the village
customs and characters, and though he said some things to the minister
that made his sister a little anxious and uncomfortable for the moment,
she could see that their interest in each other increased as the evening
wore on.
It came out in the course of the conversation that Mr Maxwell had made
the acquaintance of Ben Holt in his rambles, but he had never been at
the Hill-farm, and had very vague ideas as to the Hill Holts or their
circumstances, or as to their relationship to the Holts of the village.
Clifton professed to be very much surprised.
"Has not Mrs Jacob introduced you to Cousin Betsey? Has she not told
you how many excellent qualities Cousin Betsey has? Only just a little
set in her ways," said Clifton, imitating so exactly Mrs Jacob's voice
and manner, that no one could help laughing.
"Cousin Betsey is rather set in her ways, and not always agreeable in
her manners to Mrs Jacob," said Elizabeth. "But you are not to make
Mr Maxwell suppose that there is any disagreement between them."
"By no means. They are the best of friends when they keep apart, and
they don't meet often. Mrs Jacob has company when the sewing-circle is
to meet at the Hill, and when it meets at Mrs Jacob's, Betsey has a
great soap-making to keep her at home, or a sick headache, or something.
To tell the truth, Cousin Betsey does not care a great deal about any
of her village relations, except the squire. But she is a good soul,
and a pillar in the church, though she says less about it than some
people. I'll drive you over to the farm some day. Cousin Betsey will
put you through your catechism, I can tell you, if she happens to be in
a good humour."
Mr Maxwell laughed. "I have had some experience of that sort of thing
already," said he. "But I fear it has not been a satisfactory affair to
any one concerned."
"Cousin Betsey will manage better," said Clifton.
They went to the Hill at the time appointed, and the visit, and some
others that they made, were so far successful that the minister took
real pleasure in them, and that was more than could be said of any visit
he had made before. Miss Betsey did not put him through his catechism
in Clifton's presence; that ceremony was reserved for a future occasion.
She was rather stiff and formal in her reception of them, but she
thawed out and consented to be pleased and interested before the after
noon was over. She smiled and assented with sufficient graciousness
when Clifton not only bespoke Ben's company, on an expedition with gun
and rod, which he and Mr Maxwell were going to make further down the
river, but he invited himself and the minister to tea on their way home.
"For you know, Cousin Betsey, that Ben and I won't be very likely to get
into mischief in the minister's company, and you can't object to our
going this time."
"If anybody doesn't object to the minister's going in your company.
That is the thing to be considered, I should say," said Cousin Betsey,
smiling grimly.
"Oh, cousin! do you mean that going fishing with me will compromise the
minister? No wonder that you are afraid to trust me with Ben. But I
say that a day in the woods with Ben and me will do Mr Maxwell more
good than two or three tea-meetings or sewing-circles. Only you have a
good supper ready for us, and I will bring him home hungry as a hunter."
"Which hasn't happened very often to him of late, if one may judge from
his looks," said Miss Betsey.
"No, he ought to be living here at the Hill. It would suit him better
than Jacob's. And when are you coming to see us? Lizzie wanted to come
with us to-day, but she was afraid you wouldn't be glad to see her. You
never come to our house, and she mustn't do all the visiting. And,
besides, you don't ask her."
"It aint likely that she'll be so hard up for something to amuse her,
that she'll want to fall back on a visit to the Hill. But if she should
be, she can come along over, and try how it would seem to visit with
mother and Cynthy and me. She'll always find some of us here."
"All right. I'll tell her you asked her, and she'll be sure to come."
The success of this visit encouraged Clifton to try more in the
minister's company. For a reason that it was not difficult to
understand, Jacob in his rounds had not taken him to visit at Mr
Fleming's, nor had any one else, and Clifton, remembering his own visit
there, took the introduction of Mr Maxwell at Ythan Brae into his own
hands, and Elizabeth went with him. They sailed up the river, and went
through the woods as he and Ben had done. It was a lovely autumn day,
but there were few tokens of decay in the woods and fields through which
they took their way, and they lingered in the sweet air with a pleasure
that made them unconscious of the flight of time, and the afternoon was
far spent before they sat down to rest on the rocky knoll where Clifton
in Ben's company had renewed his acquaintance with the Fleming children.
The remembrance of the time and the scene came back so vividly, that he
could not help telling his companions about it. Elizabeth's face
clouded as he repeated Katie's words about "those avaricious Holts"
which had brought him to a sense of the indiscretion he was committing
in listening.
"The Flemings are hard upon Jacob. Mr Maxwell might have been more
fortunate in his escort," said she.
"Nonsense, Lizzie! Mrs Fleming is far too sensible to confound us with
Jacob; and, Lizzie, you used to be a pet of hers."
"Yes," said Elizabeth, "long ago."
And as they lingered, she went on to tell them about the Flemings, and
their opinions and manner of life, and about the troubles which had
fallen on them. She grew earnest as she went on, telling about poor
Hugh whom everybody had loved so well, whom she herself remembered as
the handsomest, gentlest, and best of all those who had frequented their
house, when her brothel Jacob was young and she was a child; and in her
earnestness she said some things that surprised her brother as he
listened.
"My father and Mr Fleming were always friendly, and sometimes I went
with my father to their house. I did not often see Mr Fleming, but I
remember his coming into the room one day, when I was sitting on a low
stool, holding the first baby of his son's family in my lap. She was a
lovely little creature, little Katie, just beginning to coo, and murmur,
and smile at me with her bonny blue eyes, and I suppose the child, and
my pride and delight in her, must have been a pretty sight to see, for
the grandfather sat down beside us, and smiled as he looked and
listened, and made some happy, foolish talk with us both. My father was
very much surprised, he told me afterward; and in a little while, when I
went into another room, I found Mrs Fleming crying, with her apron over
her face. But they were happy tears, for she smiled when she saw us,
and clasped and kissed baby and me, with many sweet Scottish words of
endearment to us both. It was the first time she had seen her husband
smile since their troubles, she said. The dark cloud was lifting, and
wee Katie's smile would bring sunshine again. I was a favourite with
her a long time after that, but we have fallen out of acquaintance of
late."
"Which is a great mistake on your part," said her brother.
"Yes; I hope she will be glad to see us. She will be glad to see you,
Mr Maxwell."
"She will be glad to see us all," said Clifton.
CHAPTER SIX.
A VISIT TO YTHAN BRAE.
It was a great deal later in the afternoon than it ought to have been
for the first visit of the minister, and the chances were he would have
been told so in any other house in the parish. But Mrs Fleming
welcomed him warmly, and all the more warmly, she intimated, that he
came in such good company. The lateness of the hour made this
difference in the order of events: they had their tea first, and their
visit afterward; a very good arrangement, for their tramp through the
fields and woods had made them hungry, and Mrs Fleming's oat-cakes and
honey were delicious. There were plenty of other good things on the
table, but the honey and oat-cakes were the characteristic part of the
meal, never omitted in Mrs Fleming's preparations for visitors. She
had not forgotten the old Scottish fashion of pressing the good things
upon her guests, but there was not much of this needed now, and she
looked on with much enjoyment.
"Will you go ben the house, or bide still where you are?" asked she,
when tea was over and they still lingered. "Ben the house"--in the
parlour there were tall candles burning, and other arrangements made,
but no one seemed inclined to move. The large kitchen in which they
were sitting was, at this time of the year, the pleasantest place in the
house. Later the cooking-stove, which in summer stood in the outer
kitchen would be brought in, and the great fire-place would be shut up,
but to-night there was a fire of logs on the wide hearth. It flickered
and sparkled, and lighted up the dark face of old Mr Fleming, and the
fair face of Miss Elizabeth, as they sat on opposite sides of the
hearth, and made shadows in the corners where the shy little Flemings
had gathered. It lighted, too, the beautiful old face of the
grandmother as she sat in her white cap and kerchief, with folded hands,
making, to the minister's pleased eye, a fair picture of the homely
scene.
And so they sat still. Katie and her mother moved about quietly for a
while, removing the tea-things and doing what was to be done about the
house. When all this was over, and they sat down with the rest,
Clifton, and even Elizabeth, awaited with a certain curiosity and
interest the discussion of some important matter of opinion or doctrine
between the old people and the minister, as was the way during the
minister's visits to most of the old Scotch houses of the place. But
Mrs Fleming had changed, and the times had changed, since the days when
old Mr Hollister and his friend went about to discuss the question of a
union with the good folks of North Gore, and the household had changed
also. The children sitting there so quiet, yet so observant, came in
for a share of the minister's notice, and when their grandmother
proposed that they should arrange themselves before him in the order of
their ages to be catechised by him, he entered into the spirit of the
occasion as nobody in Gershom had seen him enter into anything yet. He
knew all about it. He had been catechised in his youth in the orthodox
manner of his country, and he acquitted himself well. From "What is the
chief end of man?" until one after another of the children stopped, and
even Katie hesitated, he went with shut book. It was very creditable to
him in Mrs Fleming's opinion, quite as satisfactory as a formal
discussion would have been in assuring her of the nature and extent of
his doctrinal knowledge, and the soundness of his views generally.
"He'll win through," said she to herself; "he has been dazed with books
till he has fallen out of acquaintance with his fellow-creatures, and
he'll need to ken mair about them before he can do much good in his
work. But he'll learn, there is no fear."
The minister had other questions to ask at "the bairns" that had never
been written in any catechism, and he had new things to tell them, and
old things to tell them in a new way, and, as she looked and listened,
Mrs Fleming nodded to her husband and said to herself again, "He'll win
through."
"Bairns," said she impressively, "you see the good of learning your
Bible and your catechism when you are young; take an example from the
minister."
And with this the bairns were dismissed from their position; for the
rest of the evening till bedtime it was expected that they were "to be
seen and not heard," as was the way with bairns when their grandmother
was young. The two eldest, Katie and Davie, were put forward a little,
in a quiet way, and encouraged to display their book-learning to their
visitors. But Katie was shy and uncomfortable, and did not do herself
as much credit as usual. Her grandfather put her forward as a little
girl, and the visitors treated her as a grown woman, and she did not
like it, and at last took refuge with her knitting at her grandfather's
side, and left the field to Davie.
As for Davie, he was shy too, but in some things he was bold to a degree
that filled Katie with astonishment. He held his own opinion about
various things against the minister, who, to be sure, "was only just
trying him." And he and young Mr Holt wrangled together over their
opinions and questions good-humouredly enough, but still very much in
earnest. Young Mr Holt was the better of the two as to the subjects
under discussion, but he was not so well up as he thought he was, or as
he ought to have been, considering his advantages, and Davie knew enough
to detect his errors, though not enough to correct them. The minister,
appealed to by both, would not interfere, but listened smiling. Mr
Fleming sat silent, as his manner was, sometimes smiling, but oftener
looking grave.
"Softly, Davie. Take heed to your words, my laddie," said his
grandmother now and then, and Elizabeth listened well pleased to see her
brother, about whom she was sometimes anxious and afraid, taking evident
pleasure in it all.
By and by the Book was brought, and Mr Fleming, as head and priest of
the household, solemnly asked God's blessing on the Word they were to
read, before he gave it to the minister to conduct the evening worship.
It chanced that the chapter read was the one from which Mr Maxwell's
Sunday text had been taken; and in the pause that followed the
unwilling, but unresisting departure of the little ones to bed, Clifton
said so. Then he added that he wished Mrs Fleming had been there to
hear the sermon, as he would have liked to hear her opinion as to some
of the sentiments given in it by the minister. It was said with the
hope of drawing the old lady into one of the discussions of which they
had heard, Elizabeth knew, but it did not succeed.
"I heard the sermon, and had no fault to find with it; had you?" said
Mrs Fleming.
"Fault! No. One would hardly like to find fault with it before the
minister," said Clifton, laughing. "I am not very well up in theology
myself, but it struck me that the sermon was not just in the style of
old Mr Hollister's."
"I doubt you werena in the way of taking much heed of Mr Hollister's
sermons, and you can ask Mr Maxwell the meaning of his words if you are
not satisfied. What was lacking in the sermon the years will supply to
those that are to follow it. It was written at the bidding of the
doctors o' divinity at the college, was it not?"
"Yes," said Mr Maxwell with some hesitation, "it was written for them."
"Oh! they would surely be pleased with it. It was sound and sensible
and conclusive; that is, you said in it what you set out to say, and
that doesna ay happen in sermons. You'll put more heart in your
ministrations when you have been a while among us, I hope."
There was a few minutes' silence.
"There is a grave charge implied in your words, Mrs Fleming, and I fear
a true one," said the minister.
"I meant none," said Mrs Fleming earnestly. "As for your sermon, what
could you expect? It was all the work of your head, your heart had
little part in it. It was the doctors of divinity, and the lads, your
fellow-students--ilka ane o' them waiting to get a hit at you--that you
had in your mind when you were writing it, and no' the like of us poor
folk, who are needing to be guided and warned and fed. But it is a
grand thing to have a clear head, and to be able to put things in the
right way, and, according to the established rules: yon was a fine
discourse; though you seemed to take little pleasure in it yourself,
sir, I thought, as you went on."
Mr Maxwell smiled rather ruefully. "I took little pleasure in it
indeed."
"I saw that. But you have no call to be discouraged. We have the
treasure in earthen vessels, as Paul says himself. But a clear head and
a ready tongue are wonderful gifts for the Master's use, when they go
with a heart that He has made His dwelling. Have patience with
yourself. If you are the willing servant of your Master, His word is
given for your success in His work. It is Him you are to look to, and
not to yourself."
"Ay! there is comfort in that."
"It must be a great change for you coming to a place like this from the
companionship of wise men, living and dead, and you are but young and
likely to feel it. But you'll come to yourself when the strangeness
wears off. Your work lies at your hand, and plenty of it. You'll have
thraward folk to counter you, and folk kind and foolish to praise you
and your words and works, whatever they may be. A few will give you
wholesome counsel, and a smaller few wholesome silence, and you must
take them as they come, and carry them one and all to His feet, and
there's no fear of you."
The minister said nothing. Clifton looked curiously at his grave face
over his sister's shoulder.
"Wholesome silence! It's not much of that he is likely to get in
Gershom," said he.
"But," said Mrs Fleming earnestly, "you are not to put on a grave face
like that, or I shall think your visit hasna done you good, and that
would grieve me. You have no call to look doubtfully before you. You
have the very grandest of work laid ready to your hand, and you have the
will to do it, and I daresay you are no just that ill prepared for it.
At least you are prepared to learn in God's school that He has put you
in. And you have His promise that you cannot fail. It is wonderful to
think of."
"Who is sufficient for these things?" said the minister gravely.
"Him that God sends He makes sufficient," said Mrs Fleming, cheerfully.
"Put your trust in Him, and take good care of yourself, and above all,
I would have you to beware of Mrs Jacob Holt's Yankee pies and cakes
and hot bread, for they would be just the ruination of you, health and
temper, and all. But you needna say I told you."