One night, in the end of October, James Dow was walking by the side of
his cart along a lonely road, through a peat-moss, on his way to the
nearest sea-port for a load of coals. The moon was high and full. He
was approaching a solitary milestone in the midst of the moss. It was
the loneliest place. Low swells of peat-ground, the burial places of
old forests, rolled away on every side, with, here and there, patches
of the white-bearded canna-down, or cotton-grass, glimmering doubtfully
as the Wind woke and turned himself on the wide space, where he found
nothing to puff at but those same little old fairies sunning their
hoary beards in the strange moon. As Dow drew near to the milestone he
saw an odd-looking figure seated upon it. He was about to ask him if he
would like a lift, when the figure rose, and cried joyfully,
"Jamie Doo!"
James Dow staggered back, and was nearly thrown down by the
slow-rolling wheel; for the voice was Alec Forbes's. He gasped for
breath, and felt as if he were recovering from a sudden stroke of
paralysis, during which everything about him had passed away and a new
order come in. All that he was capable of was to cry _wo!_ to his
horse.
There stood Alec, in rags, with a face thin but brown--healthy, bold,
and firm. He looked ten years older standing there in the moonlight.
"The Lord preserve's!" cried Dow, and could say no more.
"He has preserved me, ye see, Jeamie. Hoo's my mother?"
"She's brawly, brawly, Mr Alec. The Lord preserve's! She's been
terrible aboot ye. Ye maunna gang in upo' her. It wad kill her."
"I hae a grainy sense left, Jeamie. But I'm awfu' tired. Ye maun jist
turn yer cairt and tak' me hame. I'll be worth a lade o' coal to my
mither ony gait. An' syne ye can brak it till her."
Without another word, Dow turned his horse, helped Alec into the cart,
covered him with his coat and some straw, and strode away beside, not
knowing whether he was walking in a dream, or in a real starry night.
Alec fell fast asleep, and never waked till the cart stood still, about
midnight, at his mother's door. He started up.
"Lie still, Mr Alec," said Dow, in a whisper. "The mistress 'll be in
her bed. And gin ye gang in upo' her that gait, ye'll drive her daft."
Alec lay down again, and Dow went to Mary's window, on the other side,
to try to wake her. But just as he returned, Alec heard his mother's
window open.
"Who's there?" she called.
"Naebody but me, Jeamie Doo," answered James. "I was half-gaits to
Portlokie, whan I had a mishap upo' the road. Bettie pat her fit upon a
sharp stane, and fell doon, and bruik baith her legs."
"How did she come home then?"
"She bude to come hame, mem."
"Broke her legs!"
"Hoot, mem--her k-nees. I dinna mean the banes, ye ken, mem; only the
skin. But she wasna fit to gang on. And sae I brocht her back."
"What's that i' the cairt? Is't onything deid?"
"Na, mem, de'il a bit o' 't! It's livin' eneuch. It's a stranger lad
that I gae a lift till upo' the road. He's fell tired."
But Dow's voice trembled, or--or something or other revealed all to the
mother's heart. She gave a great cry. Alec sprung from the cart, rushed
into the house, and was in his mother's arms.
Annie was asleep in the next room, but she half awoke with a sense of
his presence. She had heard his voice through the folds of sleep. And
she thought she was lying on the rug before the dining-room fire, with
Alec and his mother at the tea-table, as on that night when he brought
her in from the snow-hut. Finding out confusedly that the supposition
did not correspond with some other vague consciousness, she supposed
next that she "had died in sleep and was a blessed ghost," just going
to find Alec in heaven. That was abandoned in its turn, and all at once
she knew that she was in her own bed, and that Alec and his mother were
talking in the next room.
She rose, but could hardly dress herself for trembling. When she was
dressed she sat down on the edge of the bed to bethink herself.
The joy was almost torture, but it had a certain qualifying bitter in
it. Ever since she had believed him dead, Alec had been so near to her!
She had loved him as much as ever she would. But Life had come in
suddenly, and divided those whom Death had joined. Now he was a great
way off; and she dared not speak to him whom she had cherished in her
heart. Modesty took the telescope from the hands of Love, and turning
it, put the larger end to Annie's eye. Ever since her confession to
Curly, she had been making fresh discoveries in her own heart; and now
the tide of her love swelled so strong that she felt it must break out
in an agony of joy, and betray her if once she looked in the face of
Alec alive from the dead. Nor was this all. What she had done about his
mother's debt, must come out soon; and although Alec could not think
that she meant to lay him under obligation, he might yet feel under
obligation, and that she could not bear. These things and many more so
worked in the sensitive maiden that as soon as she heard Alec and his
mother go to the dining-room she put on her bonnet and cloak, stole
like a thief through the house to the back door, and let herself out
into the night.
She avoided the path, and went through the hedge into a field of
stubble at the back of the house across which she made her way to the
turnpike road and the new bridge over the Glamour. Often she turned to
look back to the window of the room where he that had been dead was
alive and talking with his widowed mother; and only when the
intervening trees hid it from her sight did she begin to think what she
should do. She could think of nothing but to go to her aunt once more,
and ask her to take her in for a few days. So she walked on through the
sleeping town.
Not a soul was awake, and the stillness was awful. It was a place of
tombs. And those tombs were haunted by dreams. Away towards the west,
the moon lay on the steep-sloping edge of a rugged cloud, appearing to
have rolled half-way down from its lofty peak, and about to be launched
off its baseless bulk into
"the empty, vast, and wandering air."
In the middle of the large square of the little gray town she stood and
looked around her. All one side lay in shade; the greater part of the
other three lay in moonlight. The old growth of centuries, gables and
fronts--stepping out into the light, retreating into the
shadow--outside stairs and dark gateways, stood up in the night warding
a townful of sleepers. Not one would be awake now. Ah yes! there was
light in the wool-carder's window. His wife was dying. That light over
the dying, wiped the death-look from the face of the sleeping town,
Annie roused herself and passed on, fearing to be seen. It was the only
thing to be afraid of. But the stillness was awful. One silence only
could be more awful: the same silence at noon-day.
So she passed into the western road and through the trees to the bridge
over the Wan Water. They stood so still in the moonlight! And the smell
from the withering fields laid bare of the harvest and breathing out
their damp odours, came to her mixed with the chill air from the dark
hills around, already spiced with keen atoms of frost, soon to appear
in spangly spikes. Beneath the bridge the river flowed maunderingly,
blundering out unintelligible news of its parent bog and all the dreary
places it had come through on its way to the strath of Glamerton, which
nobody listened to but one glad-hearted, puzzle-brained girl, who stood
looking down into it from the bridge when she ought to have been in bed
and asleep. She was not far from Clippenstrae, but she could not go
there so early, for her aunt would be frightened first and angry next.
So she wandered up the stream to the old church-forsaken churchyard,
and sat on one of the tombstones. It became very cold as the morning
drew on. The moon went down; the stars grew dim; the river ran with a
livelier murmur; and through all the fine gradations of dawn--cloudy
wind and grey sky--the gates of orange and red burst open, and the sun
came forth rejoicing. The long night was over. It had not been a very
weary one; for Annie had thoughts of her own, and like the earth in the
warm summer nights, could shine and flash up through the dark, seeking
the face of God in the altar-flame of prayer. Yet she was glad when the
sun came. With the first bubble of the spring of light bursting out on
the hill-top, she rose and walked through the long shadows of the
graves down to the river and through the long shadows of the stubble
down the side of the river, which shone in the morning light like a
flowing crystal of delicate brown--and so to Clippenstrae, where she
found her aunt still in her night-cap. She was standing at the door,
however, shading her eyes with her hand, looking abroad as if for some
one that might be crossing hitherward from the east. She did not see
Annie approaching from the north.
"What are ye luikin' for, auntie?"
"Naething. Nae for you, ony gait, lassie."
"Weel, ye see, I'm come ohn luikit for. But ye was luikin' for
somebody, auntie."
"Na. I was only jist luikin'."
Even Annie did not then know that it was the soul's hunger, the vague
sense of a need which nothing but the God of human faces, the God of
the morning and of the starful night, the God of love and
self-forgetfulness, can satisfy, that sent her money-loving,
poverty-stricken, pining, grumbling old aunt out staring towards the
east. It is this formless idea of something at hand that keeps men and
women striving to tear from the bosom of the world the secret of their
own hopes. How little they know what they look for in reality is their
God! This is that for which their heart and their flesh cry out.
Lead, lead me on, my Hopes. I know that ye are true and not vain.
Vanish from my eyes day after day, but arise in new forms. I will
follow your holy deception;--follow till ye have brought me to the feet
of my Father in Heaven, where I shall find you all with folded wings
spangling the sapphire dusk whereon stands His throne, which is our
home.
"What do ye want sae ear's this, Annie Anderson?"
Margaret's first thought was always--"What can the body be wantin'?"
"I want ye to tak' me in for a while," answered Annie.
"For an hoor or twa? Ow ay."
"Na. For a week or twa maybe."
"'Deed no. I'll do naething o' the kin', Lat them 'at made ye prood,
keep ye prood."
"I'm nae prood, auntie. What gars ye say that?"
"Sae prood 'at ye wadna tak' a gude offer whan it was i' yer pooer. And
syne they turn ye oot whan it shuits themsels. Gentle fowks is sair
misca'd (misnamed). I'm no gaein' to tak' ye in. There's Dawvid Gordon
wants a lass. Ye can jist gang till a place like ither fowk."
"I'll gang and luik efter 't direckly. Hoo far is't, Auntie?"
"Gaein' and giein' awa' yer siller to beggars as gin 't war stew
(dust), jist to be a gran' lady! Ye're nane sae gran', _I_ can tell ye.
An' syne comin' to puir fowk like me to tak' ye in for a week or twa!
Weel I wat!"
Auntie had been listening to evil tongues--so much easier to listen to
than just tongues. With difficulty Annie kept back her tears. She made
no defence; tried to eat the porridge which her aunt set before her;
and departed. Before three hours were over, she had the charge of the
dairy and cooking at Willowcraig for the next six months of coming
winter and spring. Protected from suspicion, her spirits rose all the
cheerier for their temporary depression, and she went singing about the
house like a _lintie_.
"As she did not appear at breakfast, and was absent from the
dinner-table as well, Mrs Forbes set out with Alec to inquire after
her, and not knowing where else to go first, betook herself to Robert
Bruce. He showed more surprise than pleasure at seeing Alec, smiling
with his own acridness as he said,
"I doobt ye haena brocht hame that barrel o' ile ye promised me, Mr
Alec? It wad hae cleared aff a guid sheave o' yer mither's debts."
Alec answered cheerily, although his face flushed,
"All in good time, I hope, Mr Bruce. I'm obliged to you for your
forbearance, though."
He was too solemn-glad to be angry.
"It canna laist for ever, ye ken," rejoined Bruce, happy to be able to
bite, although his poison-bag was gone.
Alec made no reply.
"Have you seen Annie Anderson to-day, Mr Bruce?" asked his mother.
"'Deed no, mem. She doesna aften trouble huz wi' her company. We're no
gran' eneuch for her."
"Hasn't she been here to-day?" repeated Mrs Forbes, with discomposure
in her look and tone.
"Hae ye tint her, mem?" rejoined Bruce. "That _is_ a peety. She'll be
awa' wi' that vaigabone, Willie Macwha. He was i' the toon last nicht.
I saw him gang by wi' Baubie Peterson."
They made him no reply, understanding well enough that though the one
premise might be true, the conclusion must be as false as it was
illogical and spiteful. They did not go to George Macwha's, but set out
for Clippenstrae. When they reached the cottage, they found Meg's nose
in full vigour.
"Na. She's no here. What for sud she be here? She has no claim upo' me,
although it pleases you to turn her oot--efter bringin' her up to
notions that hae jist ruined her wi' pride."
"Indeed I didn't turn her out, Miss Anderson."
"Weel, ye sud never hae taen her in."
There was something in her manner which made them certain she knew
where Annie was; but as she avoided every attempt to draw her into the
admission, they departed foiled, although relieved. She knew well
enough that Annie's refuge could not long remain concealed, but she
found it pleasant to annoy Mrs Forbes.
And not many days passed before Mrs Forbes did learn where Annie was.
But she was so taken up with her son, that weeks even passed before
that part of her nature which needed a daughter's love began to assert
itself again, and turn longingly towards her all but adopted child.
Alec went away once more to the great town. He had certain remnants of
study to gather up at the university, and a certain experience to go
through in the preparation of drugs, without which he could not obtain
his surgeon's diploma. The good harvest would by and by put a little
money in his mother's hands, and the sooner he was ready to practise
the better.
The very day after he went, Mrs Forbes drove to Willowcraig to see
Annie. She found her short-coated and short-wrappered, like any other
girl at a farmhouse. Annie was rather embarrassed at the sight of her
friend. Mrs Forbes could easily see, however, that there was no breach
in her affection towards her. Yet it must be confessed that having
regard to the final return of her son, she was quite as well pleased to
know that she was bound to remain where she was for some time to come.
She found the winter very dreary without her, though.
CHARTER XCII.
Finding herself in good quarters, Annie re-engaged herself at the end
of the half-year. She had spent the winter in house work, combined with
the feeding of pigs and poultry, and partial ministrations to the wants
of the cows, of which she had milked the few continuing to give milk
upon turnips and straw, and made the best of their scanty supply for
the use of the household. There was no hardship in her present life.
She had plenty of wholesome food to eat, and she lay warm at night. The
old farmer, who was rather overbearing with his men, was kind to her
because he liked her; and the guidwife was a sonsy (well conditioned)
dame, who, when she scolded, never meant anything by it.
She cherished her love for Alec, but was quite peaceful as to the
future. How she might have felt had she heard that he was going to be
married, I cannot take upon me to say.
When her work was done, she would go out for a lonely walk, without
asking leave or giving offence, indulging in the same lawlessness as
before, and seeming incapable of being restrained by other bonds than
those of duty.
And now the month of April was nearly over, and the primroses were
_glintin'_ on the braes.
One evening she went out bare-headed to look how a certain den, wont to
be haunted by wild-flowers and singing-birds, was getting on towards
its complement of summer pleasures. As she was climbing over a fence, a
horseman came round the corner of the road. She saw at a glance that it
was Alec, and got down again.
Change had passed upon both since they parted. He was a full-grown man
with a settled look. She was a lovely woman, even more delicate and
graceful than her childhood had promised.
As she got down from the fence, he got down from his horse. Without a
word on either side, their hands joined, and still they stood silent
for a minute, Annie with her eyes on the ground, Alec gazing in her
face, which was pale with more than its usual paleness.
"I saw Curly yesterday," said Alec at length, with what seemed to Annie
a meaning look.
Her face flushed as red as fire.--Could Curly have betrayed her?
She managed to stammer out,
"Oh! Did you?
And then silence fell again.
"Eh! Alec," she said at length, taking up the conversation, in her
turn, "we thought we would never see ye again."
"I thought so too," answered Alec, "when the great berg came down on us
through the snow-storm, and flung the barque upon the floe with her
side crushed in.--How I used to dream about the old school-days, Annie,
and finding you in my hut!--And I did find you in the snow, Annie."
But a figure came round the other corner--for the road made a double
sweep at this point--and cried--
"Annie, come hame direcly. Ye're wantit."
"I'm coming to see you again soon, Annie," said Alec. "But I must go
away for a mouth or two first."
Annie replied with a smile and an outstretched hand--nothing more. She
could wait well enough.
How lovely the flowers in the dyke-sides looked as she followed Mrs
Gordon home! But the thought that perhaps Curly had told him something
was like the serpent under them. Yet somehow she had got so beautiful
before she reached the house, that her aunt, who had come to see her,
called out,
"Losh! lassie! What hae ye been aboot? Ye hae a colour by ordinar'."
"That's easy accoontet for," said her mistress roguishly. "She was
stan'in' killoguin wi' a bonnie young lad an' a horse. I winna hae sic
doin's aboot my hoose, I can tell ye, lass."
Margaret Anderson flew into a passion, and abused her with many words,
which Annie, so far from resenting, scarcely even heard. At length she
ceased, and departed almost without an adieu. But what did it
matter?--What did any earthly thing matter, if only Curly had not told
him?
Now, all that Curly had told Alec was that Annie was not engaged to
him.
So the days and nights passed, and Spring, the girl, changed into
Summer, the woman; and still Alec did not come.
One evening, when a wind that blew from the west, and seemed to smell
of the roses of the sunset, was filling her rosy heart with joy--Annie
sat in a rough little seat, scarcely an arbour, at the bottom of a
garden of the true country order, where all the dear old-fashioned
glories of sweet-peas, cabbage-roses, larkspur, gardener's garters,
honesty, poppies, and peonies, grew in homely companionship with
gooseberry and currant bushes, with potatoes and pease. The scent of
the sunset came in reality from a _cheval de frise_ of wallflower on
the coping of the low stone wall behind where she was sitting with her
Milton. She read aloud in a low voice that sonnet beginning "_Lady that
in the prime of earliest youth_." As she finished it, a voice, as low,
said, almost in her ear,
"That's you, Annie."
Alec was looking over the garden wall behind her.
"Eh, Alec," she cried, starting to her feet, at once shocked and
delighted, "dinna say that. It's dreidfu' to hear ye say sic a thing. I
wish I was a wee like her."
"Weel, Annie, I think ye're jist like her. But come oot wi' me. I hae a
story to tell ye. Gie me yer han', and pit yer fit upo' the seat."
She was over the wall in a moment, and they were soon seated under the
trees of the copse near which Annie had met him before. The brown
twilight was coming on, and a warm sleepy hush pervaded earth and air,
broken only by the stream below them, cantering away over its stones to
join the Wan Water. Neither of them was inclined to quarrel with the
treeless country about them: they were lapped in foliage; nor with the
desolate moorland hills around them: they only drove them closer
together.
Time unmeasured by either passed without speech.
"They tell't me," said Alec at length, "that you and Curly had made it
up."
"Alec!" exclaimed Annie, and looked up in his face as if he had accused
her of infidelity, but, instantly dropping her eyes, said no more.
"I wad hae fun' ye oot afore a day was ower, gin it hadna been for
that."
Annie's heart beat violently, but she said nothing, and, after a
silence, Alec went on.
"Did my mother ever tell ye about how the barque was lost?"
"No, Alec."
"It was a terrible snow-storm with wind. We couldn't see more than a
few yards a-head. We were under bare poles, but we couldn't keep from
drifting. All in a moment a huge ghastly thing came out of the gloamin'
to windward, bore down on us like a spectre, and dashed us on a
floating field of ice. The barque was thrown right upon it with one
side stove in; but nobody was killed. It was an awful night, Annie; but
I'm not going to tell you about it now. We made a rough sledge, and
loaded it with provisions, and set out westward, and were carried
westward at the same time on the floe, till we came near land. Then we
launched our boat and got to the shore of Greenland. There we set out
travelling southwards. Many of our men died, do what I could to keep
them alive. But I'll tell you all about it another time, if you'll let
me. What I want to tell you noo's this.--Ilka nicht, as sure as I lay
doon i' the snaw to sleep, I dreamed I was at hame. A' the auld stories
cam' back. I woke ance, thinkin' I was carryin' you throu' the water i'
the lobby o' the schuil, and that ye was greitin' upo' my face. And
whan I woke, my face was weet. I doobt I had been greitin mysel'. A'
the auld faces cam' roon' me ilka nicht, Thomas Crann and Jeames Dow
and my mother--whiles ane and whiles anither--but ye was aye there.
"Ae mornin', whan I woke up, I was my lane. I dinna ken richtly hoo it
had happened. I think the men war nigh-han' dazed wi' the terrible
cauld and the weariness o' the traivel, and I had sleepit ower lang,
and they had forgotten a' aboot me. And what think ye was the first
thocht i' my heid, whan I cam' to mysel', i' the terrible white
desolation o' cauld and ice and snaw? I wantit to run straucht to you,
and lay my heid upo' yer shouther. For I had been dreamin' a' nicht
that I was lyin' i' my bed at hame, terrible ill, and ye war gaein
aboot the room like an angel, wi' the glimmer o' white wings aboot ye,
which I reckon was the snaw comin' throu' my dream. And ye wad never
come near me; and I cudna speak to cry to ye to come; till at last,
whan my hert was like to brak 'cause ye wadna luik at me, ye turned wi'
tears i' yer een, and cam' to the bedside and leaned ower me, and--"
Here Alec's voice failed him.
"Sae ye see it was nae wonner that I wantit you, whan I fand mysel' a'
my lane i' the dreidfu' place, the very beauty o' which was deidly.
"Weel, that wasna a'. I got mair that day than I thocht ever to get.
Annie, I think what Thomas Crann used to say maun be true. Annie, I
think a body may some day get a kin' o' a sicht o' the face o' God.--I
was sae dooncast, whan I saw mysel' left ahin', that I sat doon upon a
rock and glowered at naething. It was awfu'. An' it grew waur and waur,
till the only comfort I had was that I cudna live lang. And wi' that
the thocht o' God cam' into my heid, and it seemed as gin I had a
richt, as it war, to call upon him--I was sae miserable.
"And there cam' ower me a quaietness, and like a warm breath o' spring
air. I dinna ken what it was--but it set me upo' my feet, and I startit
to follow the lave. Snaw had fa'en, sae that I could hardly see the
track. And I never cam' up wi' them, and I haena heard o' them sin'
syne.
"The silence at first had been fearfu'; but noo, somehoo or ither, I
canna richtly explain 't, the silence seemed to be God himsel' a' aboot
me.
"And I'll never forget him again, Annie.
"I cam' upo' tracks, but no o' oor ain men. They war the fowk o' the
country. And they brocht me whaur there was a schooner lyin' ready to
gang to Archangel. And here I am."
Was there ever a gladder heart than Annie's? She was weeping as if her
life would flow away in tears. She had known that Alec would come back
to God some day.
He ceased speaking, but she could not cease weeping. If she had tried
to stop the tears, she would have been torn with sobs. They sat silent
for a long time. At length Alec spoke again:
"Annie, I don't deserve it--but _will_ you be my wife some day?"
And all the answer Annie made was to lay her head on his bosom and weep
on.