I have said that Mrs Forbes brought Annie home with her. For several
months she lay in her own little room at Howglen. Mrs Forbes was
dreadfully anxious about her, often fearing much that her son's heroism
had only prolonged the process--that she was dying notwithstanding from
the effects of that awful night. At length on a morning in February,
the first wave of the feebly returning flow of the life-tide visited
her heart, and she opened her eyes, seekingly. Through her little
window, at which in summer she knew that the honeysuckle leaned in as
if peeping and hearkening, she saw the country wrapt in a winding-sheet
of snow, through which patches of bright green had begun to dawn, just
as her life had begun to show its returning bloom above the wan waves
of death.--Sickness is just a fight between life and death.--A thrill
of gladness, too pleasant to be borne without tears, made her close her
eyes. They throbbed and ached beneath their lids, and the hot tears ran
down her cheeks. It was not gladness for this reason or for that, but
the essential gladness of being that made her weep: there lay the
world, white and green; and here lay she, faint and alive. And nothing
was wanting to the gladness and kindness of Mrs Forbes but the
indescribable aroma of motherhood, which she was not divine-woman
enough to generate, save towards the offspring of her own body; and
that Annie did not miss much, because all knowledge she had of such
"heavenly health" was associated with the memory of her father.
As the spring advanced, her strength increased, till she became able to
move about the house again. Nothing was said of her return to the
Bruces, who were not more desirous of having her than Mrs Forbes was of
parting with her. But if there had ever been any danger of Alec's
falling in love with Annie, there was much more now. For as her health
returned, it became evident that a change had passed upon her. She had
always been a womanly child; now she was a childlike woman. Her eyes
had grown deeper, and the outlines of her form more graceful; and a
flush as of sunrise dawned oftener over the white roses of her cheeks.
She had ripened under the snow of her sickness. She had not grown much,
and was rather under than over the ordinary height; but her shape
produced the impression of tallness, and suggested no probability of
further growth. When first Thomas Crann saw her after her illness, he
held her at arm's length, and gazed at her.
"Eh, lassie!" he said, "ye're grown a wumman! Ye'll hae the bigger hert
to love the Lord wi'. I thocht he wad hae ta'en ye awa' a bairn, afore
ever we had seen what ye wad turn oot; and sair wad I hae missed ye,
bairn! And a' the sairer that I hae lost auld Tibbie. A man canna do
weel withoot some woman or ither to tell him the trowth. I wiss sair
that I hadna been sae cankert wi' her, whiles."
"I never heard her say that ye was ever cankert, Thomas."
"No, I daursay no. She wadna say't. She wadna say't. She was a
kin'-herted auld body."
"But she didna like to be ca'd auld," interposed Annie, with a smile
half in sad reminiscence of her friend's peculiarities, half in gentle
humour, seeking to turn the conversation, and so divert Thomas from
further self-accusation.
"Aweel, she's nae that auld noo!" he answered with a responsive smile.
"Eh, lassie! it maun be a fine thing to hae the wisdom o' age alang wi'
the licht hert and the strang banes o' yowth. I'm growin' some auld
mysel. I was ance prood o' that airm"--and it was a brawny right arm he
stretched out--"and there was no man within ten mile o' Glamerton 'at
cud lift what I cud lift whan I was five-and-twenty. I daursay that
luiks gey auld to you, no?--But ony lad i' the mason-trade micht ding
me at liftin' noo; for I'm stiff i' the back, and my airm's jist
reid-het whiles wi' the rheumateeze; and gin I lift onything by
ordinar', it gars me host like a cat wi' the backbane o' a herrin' in
her thrapple.--Ye'll be gaun back to Robert Bruce or lang, I'm
thinkin'."
"I dinna ken. The mistress has said naething aboot it yet. And I'm in
nae hurry, I can tell ye, Thomas."
"Weel, I daursay no. Ye maun tak a heap o' care, lass, that the plenty
and content ye're livin' in doesna spring up and choke the word."
"Ay, Thomas," answered Annie with a smile; "it's a fine thing to hae
reamy milk to yer parritch, in place o' sky-blue to meal and water."
What could ail the lassie? She had never spoken lightly about anything
before. Was she too, like his old friend Alec, forgetting the splendour
of her high calling?
Such was the thought that passed through Thomas's mind; but the truth
was that, under the genial influences of home tenderness and early
womanhood, a little spring of gentle humour had begun to flow softly
through the quiet fields of her childlike nature.
The mason gazed at her doubtfully, and was troubled. Annie saw his
discomposure, and taking his great hand in her two little ones, looked
full into his cold grey eyes, and said, still smiling,
"Eh, Thomas! wadna ye hae a body mak' a grainy fun whiles whan it comes
o' itsel' like?"
But Thomas, anxious about the state of mind that produced the change,
did not show himself satisfied.
"We dinna hear 'at the Saviour himsel' ever sae muckle as smiled," said
he.
"Weel, that wad hae been little wonner, wi' what he had upo' 'm. But
I'm nae sure that he didna, for a' that. Fowk disna aye tell whan a
body lauchs. I'm thinkin' gin ane o' the bairnies that he took upo' 's
knee,--an' he was ill-pleased wi' them 'at wad hae sheued them
awa',--gin ane o' them had hauden up his wee timmer horsie, wi' a
broken leg, and had prayed him to work a miracle an' men' the leg, he
wadna hae wrocht a miracle maybe, I daursay, but he wad hae smilet, or
maybe lauchen a wee, and he wad hae men't the leg some gait or ither to
please the bairnie. And gin 't had been me, I wad raither hae had the
men'in' o' 's ain twa han's, wi' a knife to help them maybe, nor twenty
miracles upo' 't."
Thomas gazed at her for a moment in silence. Then with a slow shake of
the head, and a full-blown smile on his rugged face, he said:
"Ye're a curious cratur', Annie. I dinna richtly ken what to mak' o' ye
whiles. Ye're like a suckin' bairn and a gran'mither baith in ane. But
I'm thinkin', atween the twa, ye're maistly i' the right. And ye hae
set me richt afore noo.--Sae ye're nae gaun hame to the Bruces again?"
"I didna say that," answered Annie; "I only said I had h'ard naething
aboot it yet."
"What for dinna ye jine the kirk, noo?" said Thomas abruptly, after
having tried in vain to find a gradual introduction to the question.
"Dinna ye think it's a deowty to keep in min' what the great Shepherd
did for his ain chosen flock?"
"Nae doot o' that, Thomas. But I never thocht o' sic a thing. I dinna
even ken 'at I am ane o' the elec'."
"Ye dinna ken yet?"
"No," answered Annie, sorrowfully.
"I wonner at that," returned Thomas.
"And, forby," resumed Annie, "gin I war, I'm no guid eneuch yet. An'
besides that--"
But here she stopped and remained silent.
"What was ye gaun to say?" asked Thomas, encouragingly.
But Annie did not reply. She looked perplexed. With the intuition of
sympathy springing from like thoughts, Thomas guessed what was moving
in her mind.
"I ken what ye're thinkin', lassie," he said. "Ye canna help thinkin'
that there's some in oor mids wha may as weel be nameless, for that
they are no credit to us, neyther wad be to ony body o' whuch they war
jined members. Isna that yer trouble, bairn?"
"'Deed is't, in pairt, Thomas. But it's mair the state o' my ain
feelin's wi' regaird to ane in particular, nor the fac' that he's a
member o' the kirk. Gin I cud be sure that Mr Bruce wad aye be at the
ither en' o' the seat, I micht think o' 't. It's no that I wadna lat
him tak it. I daurna meddle wi' that. But gin I had to tak' it frae his
han', I jist cudna regaird it as the sacred thing that it bude to be
considered."
Thomas remained silent, with downcast thoughtful look.
It may be necessary to state, in explanation of Annie's feelings, that
the Scotch, at the celebration of the Eucharist, sit in long rows, and
pass the bread, each breaking off a portion for himself, and the wine,
from the one to the other.
The compressed lips and motionless countenance of Thomas showed that he
was thinking more than he was prepared to clothe in words. After
standing thus for a few moments, he lifted his head, and returning no
answer to Annie's exposition of her feelings, bade her _good-bye_, and
walked away.
The drift of Thomas's reflections I shall now help my reader to see.
Their appetite for prophecy having assuaged with the assuaging flood,
the people of Glamerton had no capacity for excitement left. The
consequence was that the congregations, especially the evening
congregations, began at once to diminish. Having once ceased to feel
anxiety about some vague impending vengeance, comparatively few chose
to be rated any longer about their sins; while some seeing how in the
_spate_ the righteous were taken and the wicked left, felt themselves
aggrieved, and staid at home on the Sunday nights. Nor was the
deterioration confined to the congregations. Not only had the novelty
of Mr Turnbull's style worn off, but he felt himself that he could not
preach with the same fervour as before; the fact being that he had
exhausted the electric region of the spiritual brain, and without
repose it could never fulminate again. A second and worse consequence
was that, in his dissatisfaction with himself, he attempted to _get up_
his former excitement by preaching as if he were still under its
influences. Upon this his conscience sternly accused him of hypocrisy
and pretence, which reacted in paralysis; and the whole business became
wretched. Even his greatest admirers were compelled to acknowledge that
Mr Turnbull had lost much of his unction, and that except the Spirit
were poured down upon them from on high, their prospects were very
disheartening. For even the best men in _the Church_, as, following
apostolic example without regard to circumstance, they called each
separate community of the initiate, were worldly enough to judge of the
degree of heavenly favour shown them, not by the love they bore to the
truth and to each other, not by the purity of their collective acts and
the prevalence of a high standard of morality in the individual--poor
as even these divine favours would have been as a measure of the divine
favour--but, in a great degree, by the success which attended the
preaching of their pastor, in adding to their esoteric communion, and,
still worse, by the numbers which repaired to their court of the
Gentiles--their exoteric congregation. Nor, it must be confessed, was
even Thomas Crann, in many things so wise and good, and in all things
so aspiring, an exception. Pondering over the signs of disfavour and
decay, he arrived at the conclusion that there must be an Achan in the
camp. And indeed if there were an Achan, he had known well enough, for
a long time, who would turn out to represent that typical person. Of
course, it could be no other than the money-loving, the
mammon-worshipping Robert Bruce. When, therefore, he found that such a
pearl of price as Annie Anderson was excluded from their "little heaven
below," by the presence of this possible anti-typical Achan, he could
not help feeling his original conviction abundantly strengthened. But
he did not see what could be done.
Meantime, on the loving, long-remembering Annie dawned a great
pleasure. James Dow came to see her, and had a long interview with Mrs
Forbes, the result of which she learned after his departure. One of the
farm-servants who had been at Howglen for some years was going to leave
at the next term, and Mrs Forbes had asked Dow whether he knew of one
to take his place. Whereupon he had offered himself, and they had
arranged everything for his taking the position of grieve or foreman,
which post he had occupied with James Anderson, and was at present
occupying some ten or twelve miles up the hill-country. Few things
could have pleased Mrs Forbes more; for James Dow was recognized
throughout the country as the very pattern of what a foreman ought to
be; his character for saving his employers all possible expense, having
more than its just proportion in generating this reputation; for this
is a capacity which, in a poor country where it is next to impossible
to be enterprising, will naturally receive at least its full share of
commendation. Of late, Mrs Forbes had found it more difficult to meet
her current expenses; for Alec's requirements at college were heavier
this year than they had been before; so that, much to her annoyance,
she had been compelled to delay the last half-yearly payment of Bruce's
interest. Nor could she easily bear to recall the expression upon his
keen ferret-like face when she informed him that it would be more
convenient to pay the money a month hence. That month had passed, and
another, before she had been able to do so. For although the
home-expenses upon a farm in Scotland are very small, yet in the midst
of plenty, money is often scarce enough. Now, however, she hoped that,
with James Dow's management, things would go better, and she would be
able to hold her mental head a little higher in her own presence. So
she was happy, knowing nothing of the cloud that was gathering over the
far-off university, soon to sweep northward, and envelope Howglen in
its dusky folds.