Mr Cupples returned to his work, for the catalogue had to be printed.
The weeks and months passed on, and the time drew nigh when it would be
no folly to watch the mail-coach in its pride of scarlet and gold, as
possibly bearing the welcome letter announcing Alec's return. At
length, one morning, Mrs Forbes said:
"We may look for him every day now, Annie."
She did not know with what a tender echo her words went roaming about
in Annie's bosom, awaking a thousand thought-birds in the twilight land
of memory, which had tucked their heads under their wings to sleep, and
thereby to live.
But the days went on and the hope was deferred. The rush of the
_Sea-horse_ did not trouble the sands of the shallow bar, or sweep,
with fiercely ramping figure-head, past the long pier-spike, stretching
like the hand of welcome from the hospitable shore. While they fancied
her full-breasted sails, swelled as with sighs for home, bowing lordly
over the submissive waters, the _Sea-horse_ lay a frozen mass, changed
by the might of the winds and the snow and the frost into the grotesque
ice-gaunt phantom of a ship, through which, the winter long, the winds
would go whistling and raving, crowding upon it the snow and the
crystal icicles, all in the wild waste of the desert north, with no ear
to hear the sadness, and no eye to behold the deathly beauty.
At length the hope deferred began to make the heart sick. Dim anxiety
passed into vague fear, and then deepened into dull conviction, over
which ever and anon flickered a pale ghostly hope, like the _fatuus_
over the swamp that has swallowed the unwary wanderer. Each would find
the other wistfully watching to read any thought that might have
escaped the vigilance of its keeper, and come up from the dungeon of
the heart to air itself on the terraces of the face; and each would
drop the glance hurriedly, as if caught in a fault. But the moment came
when their meeting eyes were fixed and they burst into tears, each
accepting the other's confession of hopeless grief as the seal and
doom.
I will not follow them through the slow shadows of gathering fate. I
will not record the fancies that tormented them, or describe the blank
that fell upon the duties of the day. I will not tell how, as the
winter drew on, they heard his voice calling in the storm for help, or
how through the snow-drifts they saw him plodding wearily home. His
mother forgot her debt, and ceased to care what became of herself.
Annie's anxiety settled into an earnest prayer that she might not rebel
against the will of God.
But the anxiety of Thomas Crann was not limited to the earthly fate of
the lad. It extended to his fate in the other world--too probably, in
his eyes, that endless, yearless, undivided fate, wherein the breath
still breathed into the soul of man by his Maker is no longer the
breath of life, but the breath of infinite death--
Sole Positive of Night,
Antipathist of Light,
giving to the ideal darkness a real and individual hypostasis in
helpless humanity, keeping men alive that the light in them may
continue to be darkness.
Terrible were his agonies in wrestling with God for the life of the
lad, and terrible his fear lest his own faith should fail him if his
prayers should not be heard. Alec Forbes was to Thomas Crann as it were
the representative of all his unsaved brothers and sisters of the human
race, for whose sakes he, like the apostle Paul, would have gladly
undergone what he dreaded for them. He went to see his mother; said
"Hoo are ye, mem?" sat down; never opened his lips, except to utter a
few commonplaces; rose and left her--a little comforted. Nor can
anything but human sympathy alleviate the pain while it obscures not
the presence of human grief. Do not remind me that the divine is
better. I know it. But why?--Because the divine is the highest--the
creative human. The sympathy of the Lord himself is the more human that
it is divine.
And in Annie's face, as she ministered to her friend, shone,
notwithstanding her full share in the sorrow, a light that came not
from sun or stars--as it were a suppressed, waiting light. And Mrs
Forbes felt the holy influences that proceeded both from her and from
Thomas Crann.
How much easier it is to bear a trouble that comes upon a trouble than
one that intrudes a death's head into the midst of a merry-making! Mrs
Forbes scarcely felt it a trouble when she received a note from Robert
Bruce informing her that, as he was on the point of removing to another
place which offered great advantages for the employment of the little
money he possessed, he would be obliged to her to pay as soon as
possible the hundred pounds she owed him, along with certain arrears of
interest specified. She wrote that it was impossible for her at
present, and forgot the whole affair. But within three days she
received a formal application for the debt from a new solicitor. To
this she paid no attention, just wondering what would come next. After
about three months a second application was made, according to legal
form; and in the month of May a third arrived, with the hint from the
lawyer that his client was now prepared to proceed to extremities;
whereupon she felt for the first time that she must do something.
She sent for James Dow.
"Are you going to the market to-day, James?" she asked.
"'Deed am I, mem."
"Well, be sure and go into one of the tents, and have a good dinner."
"'Deed, mem, I'll do naething o' the sort. It's a sin and a shame to
waste gude siller upo' broth an' beef. I'll jist pit a piece
(of oatcake) in my pooch, and that'll fess me hame as well's a' their
kail. I can bide onything but wastrie."
"It's very foolish of you, James."
"It's yer pleesur to say sae, mem."
"Well, tell me what to do about that."
And she handed him the letter.
James took it and read it slowly. Then he stared at his mistress. Then
he read it again. At length, with a bewildered look, he said,
"Gin ye awe the siller, ye maun pay't, mem."
"But I can't."
"The Lord preserve's! What's to be dune? _I_ hae bit thirty poun'
hained (saved) up i' my kist. That wadna gang far."
"No, no, James," returned his mistress. "I am not going to take your
money to pay Mr Bruce."
"He's an awfu' cratur that, mem. He wad tak the win'in' sheet aff o'
the deid."
"Well, I must see what can be done. I'll go and consult Mr Gibb."
James took his leave, dejected on his mistress's account, and on his
own. As he went out, he met Annie.
"Eh, Annie!" he said; "this is awfu'."
"What's the matter, Dooie?"
"That schochlin' (waddling, mean) cratur, Bruce, is mintin'
(threatening) at roupin' the mistress for a wheen siller she's aucht
him."
"He daurna!" exclaimed Annie.
"He'll daur onything but tyne (lose) siller. Eh! lassie, gin we hadna
len' 't him yours!"
"I'll gang till him direcly. But dinna tell the mistress. She wadna
like it."
"Na, na. I s' haud my tongue, I s' warran'.--Ye're the best cratur ever
was born. She'll maybe perswaud the ill-faured tyke (dog)."
Murmuring the last two sentences to himself, he walked away. When Annie
entered Bruce's shop, the big spider was unoccupied, and ready to
devour her. He put on therefore his most gracious reception.
"Hoo are ye, Miss Anderson? I'm glaid to see ye. Come benn the hoose."
"No, I thank ye. I want to speak to yersel', Mr Bruce. What's a' this
aboot Mrs Forbes and you?"
"Grit fowk maunna ride ower the tap o' puir fowk like me, Miss
Anderson."
"She's a widow, Mr Bruce"--Annie could not add "and childless"--"and
lays nae claim to be great fowk. It's no a Christian way o' treatin'
her."
"Fowk _maun_ hae their ain. It's mine, and I maun hae't. There's
naething agen that i' the ten tables. There's nae gospel for no giein'
fowk their ain. I'm nae a missionar noo. I dinna haud wi' sic things. I
canna beggar my faimily to haud up her muckle hoose. She maun pay me,
or I'll tak' it."
"Gin ye do, Mr Bruce, ye s' no hae my siller ae minute efter the time's
up; and I'm sorry ye hae't till than."
"That's neither here nor there. Ye wad be wantin' 't or that time ony
hoo."
Now Bruce had given up the notion of leaving Glamerton, for he had
found that the patronage of the missionars in grocery was not essential
to a certain measure of success; and he had no intention of proceeding
to an auction of Mrs Forbes's goods, for he saw that would put him in a
worse position with the public than any amount of quiet practice in
lying and stealing. But there was every likelihood of Annie's being
married some day; and then her money would be recalled, and he would be
left without the capital necessary for carrying on his business upon
the same enlarged scale--seeing he now supplied many of the little
country shops. It would be a grand move then, if, by a far-sighted
generalship, a careful copying of the example of his great ancestor, he
could get a permanent hold of some of Annie's property.--Hence had come
the descent upon Mrs Forbes, and here came its success.
"Ye s' hae as muckle o' mine to yer nainsel' as'll clear Mrs Forbes,"
said Annie.
"Weel. Verra weel.--But ye see that's mine for twa year and a half ony
gait. That wad only amunt to losin' her interest for twa year an' a
half--a'thegither. That winna do."
"What will do, than, Mr Bruce?"
"I dinna ken. I want my ain."
"But ye maunna torment her, Mr Bruce. Ye ken that."
"Weel! I'm open to onything rizzonable. There's the enterest for twa
an' a half--ca' 't three years--at what I could mak' o' 't--say aucht
per cent--four and twenty poun'. Syne there's her arrears o'
interest--and syne there's the loss o' the ower-turn--and syne there's
the loss o' the siller that ye winna hae to len' me.--Gin ye gie me a
quittance for a hunner an' fifty poun', I'll gie her a receipt.--It'll
be a sair loss to me!"
"Onything ye like," said Annie.
And Bruce brought out papers already written by his lawyer, one of
which he signed and the other she.
"Ye'll min'," he added, as she was leaving the shop, "that I hae to pay
ye no interest noo excep' upo' fifty poun'?"
He had paid her nothing for the last half year at least.
He would not have dared to fleece the girl thus, had she had any
legally constituted guardians; or had those who would gladly have
interfered, had power to protect her. But he took care so to word the
quittance, that in the event of any thing going wrong, he might yet
claim his hundred pounds from Mrs Forbes.
Annie read over the receipt, and saw that she had involved herself in a
difficulty. How would Mrs Forbes take it? She begged Bruce not to tell
her, and he was ready enough to consent. He did more. He wrote to Mrs
Forbes to the effect that, upon reflection, he had resolved to drop
further proceedings for the present; and when she carried him a
half-year's interest, he took it in silence, justifying himself on the
ground that the whole transaction was of doubtful success, and he must
therefore secure what he could secure.
As may well be supposed, Annie had very little money to give away now;
and this subjected her to a quite new sense of suffering.