Notwithstanding Alec's diligence and the genial companionship of Mr Cupples�-whether the death of Kate, or his own illness, or the reaction of shame after his sojourn in the tents of wickedness, had opened dark visions of the world of reality lying in awfulunknownnessaround the life he seemed to know, I cannot tell,-�cold isolations would suddenly seize upon him, wherein he would ask himself�-that oracular cave in which one hears a thousand questions before one reply�-"What is the use of it all�-this study and labour?" And he interpreted the silence to mean: "Life is worthless. There is no glow in it�-only a glimmer and shine at best."�-Will my readers set this condition down as one of disease? If they do, I ask, "Why should a man be satisfied with anything such as was now within the grasp of Alec Forbes?" And if they reply that a higher ambition would have set him at peace if not at rest, I only say that they would be nearer health if they had his disease. Pain is not malady; it is the revelation of malady�-the meeting and recoil between the unknown death and the unknown life; that jar of the system whereby the fact becomes known to the man that he is ill. There was disease in Alec, but the disease did not lie in his dissatisfaction. It lay in that poverty of life with which those are satisfied who call such discontent disease. Such disease is the first flicker of the aurora of a rising health.
This state of feeling, however, was only occasional; and a reviving interest in anything belonging to his studies, or a merry talk with Mr Cupples, would dispel it for a time, just as a breath of fine air will give the sense of perfect health to one dying of consumption.
But what made these questionings develope into the thorns of a more definite self-condemnation�-the advanced guard sometimes of the roses of peace-�was simply this:
He had written to his mother for money to lay out upon superior instruments, and new chemical apparatus; and his mother had replied sadly that she was unable to send it. She hinted that his education had cost more than she had expected. She told him that she was in debt to Robert Bruce, and had of late been compelled to delay the payment of its interest. She informed him also that, even under James Dow's conscientious management, there seemed little ground for hoping that the farm would ever make a return correspondent to the large outlay his father had made upon it.
This letter stung Alec to the heart. That his mother should be in the power of such a man as Bruce, was bad enough; but that she should have been exposed for his sake to the indignity of requesting his forbearance, seemed unendurable. To despise the man was no satisfaction, the right and the wrong being where they were.�-And what proportion of the expenses of last session had gone to his college-accounts?
He wrote a humble letter to his mother�-and worked still harder. For although he could not make a shilling at present, the future had hope in it.
Meantime Mr Cupples, in order that he might bear such outward signs of inward grace as would appeal to the perceptions of the Senatus, got a new hat, and changed his shabby tail-coat for a black frock. His shirt ceased to be a hypothesis to account for his collar, and became a real hypostasis, evident and clean. These signs of improvement led to inquiries on the part of the Senatus, and the result was that, before three months of the session were over, he was formally installed as librarian. His first impulse on receiving the good news was to rush down to Luckie Cumstie's and have a double-tumbler. But conscience was too strong for Satan, and sent him home to his pipe�-which, it must be confessed, he smoked twice as much as before his reformation.
From the moment of his appointment, he seemed to regard the library as his own private property, or, rather, as his own family. He was grandfather to the books: at least a grandfather shows that combination of parent and servant which comes nearest to the relation he henceforth manifested towards them. Most of them he gave out graciously; some of them grudgingly; a few of them with much reluctance; but all of them with injunctions to care, and special warnings against forcing the backs, crumpling or folding the leaves, and making thumb-marks.
"Noo," he would say to some country bejan, "tak' the buik i' yer han's no as gin 'twar a neip (turnip), but as gin 'twar the sowl o' a new-born bairn. Min' ye it has to sair (serve) mony a generation efter your banes lie bare i' the moul', an' ye maun hae respec' to them that come efter ye, and no ill-guide their fare. I beg ye winna guddle't (mangle it)."
The bejans used to laugh at him in consequence. But long before they were magistrands, the best of them had a profound respect for the librarian. Not a few of them repaired to him with all their difficulties; and such a general favourite was he, that any story of his humour or oddity was sure to be received with a roar of loving laughter. Indeed I doubt whether, within the course of a curriculum, Mr Cupples had not become the real centre of intellectual and moral life in that college.
One evening, as he and Alec were sitting together speculating on the speediest mode of turning Alec's acquirements to money-account, their landlady entered.
"Here's my cousin," she said, "Captain McTavish o' theSea-horse, Mr Forbes, wha says that afore lang he'll be wantin' a young doctor to gang and haud the scurvy aff o' his men at the whaul-fishin'. Sae of coorse I thoucht o' my ain first, and ran up the stair to you. It'll be fifty poun' i' yer pooch, and a plenty o' rouch ploys that the like o' you young fallows likes, though I canna say I wad like sic things mysel'. Only I'm an auld wife, ye see, and that maks the differ."
"Nae that auld, Mistress Leslie," said Cupples, "gin ye wadna lee."
"Tell Captain McTavish that I'll gang," said Alec, who had hesitated no longer than the time Mr Cupples took to say the word of kind flattery to their landlady.
"He'll want testimonials, ye ken."
"Wadnayegie me ane, Mrs Leslie?"
"'Deed wad I, gin 'twar o' ony accoont. Ye see, Mr Alec, the day's no yesterday; and this session's no the last."
"Haud yer tongue, and dinna rub a sair place," cried Mr Cupples.
"I beg yer pardon," returned Mrs Leslie, submissively.
Alec followed her down the stair.
He soon returned, his eyes flashing with delight. Adventure! And fifty pounds to take to his mother!
"All right, Mr Cupples. The Captain has promised to take me if my testimonials are satisfactory. I think they will give me good ones now. If it weren't for you, I should have been lying in the gutter instead of walking the quarter-deck."
"Weel, weel, bantam. There's twa sides to maist obligations.�-I'm leebrarian."
The reader may remember that in his boyhood Alec was fond of the sea, had rigged a flagstaff, and had built theBonnie Annie. He was nearly beside himself with delight, which continued unjarred until he heard from his mother. She had too much good sense to make any opposition, but she could not prevent her anticipations of loss and loneliness from appearing. His mother's trouble quelled the exuberance of Alec's spirits without altering his resolve. He would return to her in the fall of the year, bringing with him what would ease her mind of half its load.
There was no check at the examinations this session.
Mrs Forbes was greatly perplexed about Annie. She could not bear the thought of turning her out; and besides she did not see where she was to go, for she could not be in the house with young Bruce. On the other hand, she had still the same dangerous sense of worldly duty as to the prevention of a so-called unsuitable match, the chance of which was more threatening than ever. For Annie had grown very lovely, and having taken captive the affections of the mother, must put the heart of the son in dire jeopardy. But Alec arrived two days before he was expected, and delivered his mother from her perplexity by declaring that if Annie were sent away he too would leave the house. He had seen through the maternal precautions the last time he was at home, and talking with Cupples about it, who secretly wished for no better luck than that Alec should fall in love with Annie, had his feelings strengthened as to the unkindness, if not injustice, of throwing her periodically into such a dungeon as the society of the Bruces. So Annie remained where she was, much, I must confess, to her inward content.
The youth and the maiden met every day�-the youth unembarrassed, and the maiden reserved and shy, even to the satisfaction of the mother. But if Alec could have seen the loving thoughts which, like threads of heavenly gold (for all the gold of heaven is invisible), wrought themselves into the garments she made for him, I do not thinkhecould have helped falling in love with her, although most men, I fear, would only have fallen the more in love with themselves, and cared the less for her. But he did not see them, or hear the divine measures to which her needle flew, as she laboured to arm him against the cold of those regions
Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds,Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things.
Alec's college-life had interposed a gulf between him and his previous history. But his approaching departure into places unknown and a life untried, operated upon his spiritual condition like the approach of death; and he must strengthen again all the old bonds which had been stretched thin by time and absence; he must make righteous atonement for the wrong of neglect; in short, he must set his inward house in order, ere he went forth to the abodes of ice. Death is not a breaker but a renewer of ties. And if in view of death we gird up the loins of our minds, and unite our hearts into a whole of love, and tenderness, and atonement, and forgiveness, then Death himself cannot be that thing of forlornness and loss.
He took a day to go and see Curly, and spent a pleasant afternoon with him, recalling the old times, and the old stories, and the old companions; for the youth with the downy chin has a past as ancient as that of the man with the gray beard. And Curly told him the story of his encounter with young Bruce on the bank of the Wan Water. And over and over again Annie's name came up, but Curly never hinted at her secret.
The next evening he went to see Thomas Crann. Thomas received him with a cordiality amounting even to gruff tenderness.
"I'm richt glaid to see ye," he said; "and I tak' it verra kin' o' ye, wi' a' yer gran' learnin', to come and see an ignorant man like me. But Alec, my man, there's some things 'at I ken better nor ye ken them yet. Him that made the whauls is better worth seekin' nor the whauls themsel's. God's works may swallow the man that follows them, but God himsel' 's the hidin'-place frae the wind, and the covert frae the tempest. Set na up nae fause God�-that's the thing 'at ye lo'e best, ye ken�-for like Dawgon, it'll fa', and maybe brain ye i' the fa'. Come doon upo' yer knees wi' me, and I'll pray for ye. But ye maun pray for yersel', or my prayers winna be o' muckle avail: ye ken that."
Yielding to the spiritual power of Thomas, whose gray-blue eyes were flashing with fervour, Alec kneeled down as he was desired, and Thomas said:
"O thou who madest the whales to play i' the great watters, and gavest unto men sic a need o' licht that they maun hunt the leviathan to haud their lamps burnin' at nicht whan thou hast sent thy sun awa' to ither lands, be thou roon' aboot this youth, wha surely is nae muckle waur than him 'at the Saviour lo'ed; and when thou seest his ship gang sailin' into the far north whaur thou keepest thy stores o' frost and snaw ready to remin' men o' thy goodness by takin' the heat frae them for a sizzon�-when thou seest his ship gaein far north, pit doon thy finger, O Lord, and straik a track afore't, throu' amo' the hills o' ice, that it may gang throu' in saf-ety, even as thy chosen people gaed throu' the Reid Sea, and the river o' Jordan. For, Lord, we want him hame again in thy good time. For he is the only son of his mother, and she is a widow. But aboon a', O Lord, elec' him to thy grace and lat him ken the glory o' God, even the licht o' thy coontenance. For me, I'm a' thine, to live or dee, and I care not which. For I hae gotten the gueed o' this warl'; and gin I binna ready for the neist, it's because o' my sins, and no o' my savours. For I wad glaidle depairt and be with the Lord. But this young man has never seen thy face; and, O Lord, I'm jist feared that my coontenance micht fa' even in thy kingdom, gin I kent that Alec Forbes was doon i' the ill place. Spare him, O Lord, and gie him time for repentance gin he has a chance; but gin he has nane, tak' him at ance, that his doom may be the lichter."
Alec rose with a very serious face, and went home to his mother in a mood more concordant with her feelings than the light-heartedness with which he generally tried to laugh away her apprehensions.
He even called on Robert Bruce, at his mother's request. It went terribly against the grain with him though. He expected to find him rude as of old, but he was, on the contrary, as pleasant as a man could be whose only notion of politeness lay inlicking.
His civility came from two sources�-the one hope, the other fear. Alec was going away and might never return. That was the hope. For although Bruce had spread the report of Annie's engagement to Curly, he believed that Alec was the real obstacle to his plans. At the same time he was afraid of him, believing in his cowardly mind that Alec would not stop short of personal reprisals if he should offend him; and now he was a great six-foot fellow, of whose prowess at college confused and exaggerated stories were floating about the town.�-Bruce was a man who could hatch and cherish plans, keeping one in reserve behind the other, and beholding their result from afar.
"Ay! ay! Mr Forbes�-sae ye're gaun awa' amo' the train-ile, are ye? Hae ye ony share i' the tak' no?"
"I don't think the doctor has any share," answered Alec.
"But I warran' ye'll put to yer han', and help at the catchin'."
"Very likely."
"Weel, gin ye come in for a barrel or twa, ye may coont upo' me to tak it aff yer han', at the ordinar' price�-to thewholesalemerchan's, ye ken�-wi' maybe a sma' discoont for orderin' 't afore the whaul was ta'en."
The day drew near. He had bidden all his friends farewell. He must go just as the spring was coming in with the old well-beloved green borne before her on the white banner of the snowdrop, and following in miles of jubilation: he must not wait for her triumph, but speed away before her towards the dreary north, which only a few of her hard-riding pursuivants would ever reach. For green hills he must have opal-hued bergs�-for green fields the outspread slaty waters, rolling in the delight of their few weeks of glorious freedom, and mocking the unwieldy ice-giants that rush in wind-driven troops across their plains, or welter captive in the weary swell, and melt away beneath the low summer sun.
His mother would have gone to see him on board, but he prevailed upon her to say good-bye to him at home. She kept her tears till after he was gone. Annie bade him farewell with a pale face, and a smile that was all sweetness and no gladness. She did not weep even afterwards. A gentle cold hand pressed her heart down, so that neither blood reached her face nor water her eyes. She went about everything just as before, because it had to be done; but it seemed foolish to do anything. The spring might as well stay away for any good that it promised either of them.
As Mr Cupples was taking his farewell on board,
"Ye'll gang and see my mother?" said Alec.
"Ay, ay, bantam; I'll do that.�-Noo tak care o' yersel; and dinna tak leeberties wi' behemoth. Put a ring in's nose gin ye like, only haud oot ower frae's tail. He's no mowse (not to be meddled with)."
So away went Alec northwards, over the blue-gray waters, surgeon of the strong barqueSea-horse.
Two days after Alec's departure, Mr Bruce called at Howglen to seeAnnie.
"Hoo are ye, Mistress Forbes? Hoo are ye, Miss Anderson? I was jist comin' ower the watter for a walk, and I thocht I micht as weel fess the bit siller wi' me that I'm awin ye."
Annie stared. She did not know what he meant. He explained.
"It's weel on till a towmon (twelvemonth) that ye hae had neither bite nor sup aneath my heumble riggin-tree (rooftree), and as that was the upmak for the interest, I maun pay ye the tane seein' ye winna accep' o' the tither. I hae jist brocht ye ten poun' to pit i' yer ain pooch i' the meantime."
Annie could hardly believe her ears. Could she be the rightful owner of such untold wealth? Without giving her time to say anything, however, Bruce went on, still holding in his hand the dirty bunch of one-pound notes.
"But I'm thinkin' the best way o' disposin' o' 't wad be to lat me put it to the lave o' the prencipal. Sae I'll jist tak it to the bank as I gang back. I canna gie ye onything for 't, 'cause that wad be brakin' the law against compoon interest, but I can mak' it up some ither gait, ye ken."
But Annie had been too much pleased at the prospect of possession to let the money go so easily.
"I hae plenty o' ways o' spen'in' 't," she said, "withoot wastry. SaeI'll jist tak' it mysel', and thank ye, Mr Bruce."
She rose and took the notes from Bruce's unwilling hand. He was on the point of replacing them in his trowsers-pocket and refusing to give them up, when her promptitude rescued them. Discomfiture was manifest in his reluctant eyes, and the little tug of retraction with which he loosed his hold upon the notes. He went home mortified, and poverty-stricken, but yet having gained a step towards a further end.
Annie begged Mrs Forbes to take the money.
"I have no use for it, ma'am. An old gown of yours makes as good a frock for me as I can ever want to have."
But Mrs Forbes would not even take charge of the money-�partly from the pride of beneficence, partly from the fear of involving it in her own straits. So that Annie, having provided herself with a few necessaries, felt free to spend the rest as she would. How she longed for Tibbie Dyster! But not having her, she went to Thomas Crann, and offered the money to him.
"'Deed no, lassie! I winna lay a finger upo' 't. Lay't by till ye want it yersel'."
"Dinna ye ken somebody that wants't mair nor me, Thomas?"
Now Thomas had just been reading a few words spoken, according to Matthew, the tax-gatherer, by the King of Men, declaring the perfection of God to consist in his giving good things to all alike, whether they love him or not. And when Annie asked the question, he remembered the passage and Peter Peterson together. But he could not trust her to follow her own instincts, and therefore went with her to see the poor fellow, who was in a consumption, and would never drink any more. When he saw his worn face, and the bones with hands at the ends of them, his heart smote him that he had ever been harsh to him; and although he had gone with the intention of rousing him to a sense of his danger beyond the grave, he found that for very pity he could not open the prophetic mouth. From self-accusation he took shelter behind Annie, saying to himself: "Babes can best declare what's best revealed to them;" and left Peter to her ministrations.
A little money went far to make his last days comfortable; and ere she had been visiting him for more than a month, he loved her so that he was able to believe that God might love him, though he knew perfectly (wherein perhaps his drunkenness had taught him more than the prayers of many a pharisee) that he could not deserve it.
This was the beginning of a new relation between Annie and the poor of Glamerton. And the soul of the maiden grew and blossomed into divine tenderness, for it was still more blessed to give than to receive. But she was only allowed to taste of this blessedness, for she had soon to learn that even giving itself must be given away cheerfully.
After three months Bruce called again with the quarter's interest. Before the next period arrived he had an interview with James Dow, to whom he represented that, as he was now paying the interest down in cash, he ought not to be exposed to the inconvenience of being called upon at any moment to restore the principal, but should have the money secured to him for ten years. After consultation, James Dow consented to a three years' loan, beyond which he would not yield. Papers to this effect were signed, and one quarter's interest more was placed in Annie's willing hand.
In the middle of summer Mr Cupples made his appearance, and was warmly welcomed. He had at length completed the catalogue of the library, had got the books arranged to his mind, and was brimful of enjoyment. He ran about the fields like a child; gathered bunches of white clover; made a great kite, and bought an unmeasureable length of string, with which he flew it the first day the wind was worthy of the honour; got out Alec's boat, and upset himself in the Glamour; was run away with by one of the plough-horses in the attempt to ride him to the water; was laughed at and loved by everybody about Howglen. At length, that is, in about ten days, he began to settle down into sobriety of demeanour. The first thing that sobered him was a hint of yellow upon a field of oats. He began at once to go and see the people of Glamerton, and called upon Thomas Crann first.
He found him in one of his gloomy moods, which however were much less frequent than they had been.
"Hoo are ye, auld frien'?" said Cupples.
"Auld as ye say, sir, and nae muckle farrer on nor whan I begud. I whiles think I hae profited less than onybody I ken. But eh, sir, I wad be sorry, gin I was you, to dee afore I had gotten a glimp o' the face o' God."
"Hoo ken ye that I haena gotten a glimp o' that same?"
"Ye wad luik mair solemn like," answered Thomas.
"Maybe I wad," responded Cupples, seriously.
"Man, strive to get it. Gie Him no rist, day nor nicht, till ye get it.Knock, knock, knock, till it be opened till ye."
"Weel, Thomas, ye dinna seem sae happy yersel', efter a'. Dinna ye think ye may be like ane that's tryin' to see the face o' whilk ye speyk throu a crack i' the door, in place o' haein patience till it's opened?"
But the suggestion was quite lost upon Thomas, who, after a gloomy pause, went on.
"Sin's sic an awfu' thing," he began; when the door opened, and in walked James Dow.
His entrance did not interrupt Thomas, however.
"Sin's sic an awfu' thing! And I hae sinned sae aften and sae lang, that maybe He'll be forced efter a' to sen' me to the bottomless pit."
"Hoot, hoot, Thamas! dinna speyk sic awfu' things," said Dow. "They're dreadfu' to hearken till. I s' warran' He's as kin'-hertit as yersel."
James had no reputation for piety, though much for truthfulness and honesty. Nor had he any idea how much lay in the words he had hastily uttered. A light-gleam grew and faded on Thomas's face.
"I said, he micht beforcedto sen' me efter a'."
"What, Thomas!" cried Cupples. "Hecudnasave ye! Wi' the Son and the Speerit to help him? And a willin' hert in you forbye? Fegs! ye hae a greater opinion o' Sawtan nor I gied ye the discredit o'."
"Na, na; it's nae Sawtan. It's mysel'. I wadna lay mair wyte (blame) upo' Sawtan's shouthers nor's his ain. He has eneuch already, puir fallow!"
"Ye'll be o' auld Robbie Burns's opinion, that he 'aiblins micht still hae a stake.'"
"Na, na; he has nane. Burns was nae prophet."
"But jist suppose, Thomas�-gin the de'il war to repent."
"Man!" exclaimed the stonemason, rising to his full height with slow labour after the day's toil, "it wad be cruel to garhimrepent. It wad be ower sair upon him. Better kill him. The bitterness o' sic repentance wad be ower terrible. It wad be mair nor he cud bide. It wad brak his hert a'thegither.�-Na, na, he has nae chance."
The last sentence was spoken quickly and with attempted carelessness as he resumed his seat.
"Hoo ken ye that?" asked Cupples.
"There's no sic word i' the Scriptur'."
"Do ye think He maun tellusa' thing?"
"We hae nae richt to think onything that He doesna tell's."
"I'm nae sae sure o' that, Thomas. Maybe, whiles, he doesna tell's a thing jist to gar's think aboot it, and be ready for the time whan he will tell's."
Thomas was silent for a few moments. Then with a smile-�rather a grim one�-he said,
"Here's a curious thing, no.�-There's neyther o' you convertit, and yet yer words strenthen my hert as gin they cam frae the airt (region) aboon."
But his countenance changed, and he added hastily,
"It's a mark o' indwellin' sin. To the law and to the testimony�-Gang awa' and lat me to my prayers."
They obeyed; for either they felt that nothing but his prayers would do, or they were awed, and dared not remain.
Mr Cupples could wait. Thomas could not.
The Forlorn Hope of men must storm the walls of Heaven.
Amongst those who sit down at the gate till one shall come and open it, are to be found both the wise and the careless children.
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 theSea-horsedid 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, theSea-horselay 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 thefatuusover 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?Ihae 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, MissAnderson."
"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."
"Fowkmaunhae 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.
It was a dreary wintry summer to all at Howglen. Why should the ripe corn wave deep-dyed in the gold of the sunbeams, when Alec lay frozen in the fields of ice, or sweeping about under them like a broken sea-weed in the waters so cold, so mournful? Yet the work of the world must go on. The corn must be reaped. Things must be bought and sold. Even the mourners must eat and drink. The stains which the day had gathered must be washed from the brow of the morning; and the dust to which Alec had gone down must be swept from the chair in which he had been wont to sit. So things did go on�-of themselves as it were, for no one cared much about them, although it was the finest harvest that year that Howglen had ever borne. It had begun at length to appear that the old labour had not been cast into a dead grave, but into a living soil, like that of which Sir Philip Sidney says in his sixty-fifth psalm:
"Each clodd relenteth at thy dressing,"
as if it were a human soul that had bethought itself and began to bring forth fruit.�-This might be the beginning of good things. But what did it matter?
Annie grew paler, but relaxed not a single effort to fill her place. She told her poor friends that she had no money now, and could not help them; but most were nearly as glad to see her as before; while one of them who had never liked receiving alms from a girl in such a lowly position, as well as some who had always taken them thankfully, loved her better when she had nothing to give.
She renewed her acquaintance with Peter Whaup, the blacksmith, through his wife, who was ill, and received her visits gladly.
"For," she said, "she's a fine douce lass, and speyks to ye as gin ye war ither fowk, and no as gin she kent a'thing, and cam to tell ye the muckle half o' 't."
I wonder how much her friends understood of what she read to them? She did not confine herself to the Bible, which indeed she was a little shy of reading except they wanted it, but read anything that pleased herself, never doubting that "ither fowk" could enjoy what she enjoyed. She even tried theParadise Lostupon Mrs Whaup, as she had tried it long ago upon Tibbie Dyster; and Mrs Whaup never seemed tired of listening to it. I daresay she understood about as much of it as poets do of the celestial harmonies ever toning around them.
And Peter Whaup was once known, when more than half drunk, to stop his swearing in mid-volley, simply because he had caught a glimpse of Annie at the other end of the street.
So the maiden grew in favour. Her beauty, both inward and outward, was that of the twilight, of a morning cloudy with high clouds, or of a silvery sea: it was a spiritual beauty for the most part. And her sorrow gave a quiet grace to her demeanour, peacefully ripening it into what is loveliest in ladyhood. She always looked like one waiting�-sometimes like one listening, as she waited, to "melodies unheard."
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 crywo!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',Ican 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 alintie.
"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, MrAlec? 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. "Thatisa 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.