Through the earth there runs a soundMusic of green nooks and hills,For Spring, soft-handed, frees the boundRivers and sweet rills;Trickling, singing, from the fountains,All day long they cheer the mountains.So the warm streams of the heartSometimes ’neath the ice grow chill,Till the Spring with kindly artWakes the sleeping rill,And like the brooks, old loves, new flowing,Stir all fair things to happier growing.
Through the earth there runs a soundMusic of green nooks and hills,For Spring, soft-handed, frees the boundRivers and sweet rills;Trickling, singing, from the fountains,All day long they cheer the mountains.So the warm streams of the heartSometimes ’neath the ice grow chill,Till the Spring with kindly artWakes the sleeping rill,And like the brooks, old loves, new flowing,Stir all fair things to happier growing.
Through the earth there runs a soundMusic of green nooks and hills,For Spring, soft-handed, frees the boundRivers and sweet rills;Trickling, singing, from the fountains,All day long they cheer the mountains.
So the warm streams of the heartSometimes ’neath the ice grow chill,Till the Spring with kindly artWakes the sleeping rill,And like the brooks, old loves, new flowing,Stir all fair things to happier growing.
Thespring sunshine began to dawn on the waiting world again. The gentle days prolonged themselves, lingering out in long, soft, poetic twilights. Lilias Maxwell had been nearly a year at Mossgray.
And Halbert Graeme began to feel himself in great want of some outlet for his young activity. He said little now about the momentous matter which had brought him to Mossgray, and though he did sometimes complain in his letters to the North that the fortune which it was so very necessary to make was as far in the distance as ever, and that there seemed no prospect of being able to reach even the beginning, Halbert was by no means discontented; this genial country life was natural to him: he only wanted something to do; and after a considerable agitation he attained to that. Mossgray graciously permitted himself to be made an experimental farmer, and with great glee Halbert plunged into the desired labour.
“Nae fears,” said the sagacious Saunders Delvie, Mossgray’s man, as Mrs Mense expressed her fears to him, that the strength of “the young Laird” might be taxed too greatly; “it’s naething but a maggot. I’ll just gie him till he wearies; when he’s dune out, he can aye rest when he likes, and that’s mair than ye can say for mony a hard-working man. Gie him the length o’ his tether;he’lltire sooner than anybody else.”
“Ay, but Mr Halbert’s an active lad,” said the housekeeper; “and so was his father before him; if the tane had but been as innocent as the tither; but ane canna mend what’s past.”
A frown came darkly over the face of Mossgray’s man.
“Ye say weel, neighbour; but an folk canna mend their ill deeds they maun tak the penalty. If it’s but in this world it’s weel for themsels, and if it’s in another pairt than this, it’s a’ the mair just and righteous.”
“Oh, Saunders Delvie,” exclaimed Janet Mense, “ye’re a hard man!”
“Maister Charlie Graeme did sair ill to this house,” said Mrs Mense emphatically, “and meant mair than he could do—but for a’ that, look at the Laird, Saunders, and learn by him. Is he no making this lad like a son o’ Mossgray? is he no doing a’ that the kindest father could do for him? but no to speak o’ the Laird, Saunders, there’s mysel. I likit Miss Lucy Murray weel, and there was never ane but likit Mr Adam; and baith o’ them did that lad’s faither do his warst to bring to misery. I am a lone woman, and have nae bairns o’ my ain; but the time my heart was warmest and fullest, thae young folk—though they were gentles, and no like me, were gaun and coming about the house, and I thought mair o’ them than ever I did o’ mysel. But for a’ the ill he did to them—Saunders, I mind that we need mercy oursels every day, and I can say, Charlie Graeme, I forgive ye.”
“Ay,” said Saunders Delvie sternly, “but he didna dishonour the honest name that your forbears and you had laboured in puirtith and hard toil to keep free of offence in the sight of God and man. He wasna that near to you, that his shame should be yours to bear, the very time that your ain misery for his sin was rugging at your heart; ye dinna ken—and I seek nocht but to bear my ain burden out of the sicht of man.”
His bushy gray eyebrows twitched—his face was moved; this man too had a history.
“Eh, but Saunders, man!” continued the good old housekeeper with some timidity, “it’s no like you—I’m meaning it’s no like what we should do to be so hard on the puir lad; mind how young he was; and for a’ that he did ance ill, mind that he’s your ain.”
“I mind,” said Saunders emphatically, while a sudden yearning seemed to contend on his harsh face with the sterncondemnation of justice; “woman, ye dinna ken! If he had been less to me—ay, if hewasless to me now, think ye I wad have done what I have done. It’s nae use speaking; do I no see the tears in the wife’s auld e’en morning and nicht? do I no ken wha she’s aye thinking o’ and yearning ower like a weak woman as she is? but I say he shall never cross again the door of the honest house he has brought shame upon—never!”
There was a stern fire in the old man’s eye, and he went hastily out to his work as if he felt ashamed of having been drawn into this revelation of his household grief. He was, naturally, a man with very strong and passionate feelings, and one of those harsh and powerful minds, which at any cost of misery to themselves will cling to their severe and abstract conceptions of justice. His only child, a youth of some promise in their humble sphere, had fallen a few years before into the brutalizing practices of rural vice. He had formed discreditable connections, involved himself in the worst company that Fendie could afford, and to crown all his offences, had finally, in a moment of temptation, stolen some trifling sum from his master. Saunders and his wife were in the sober meridian of life when they married, and this lad Peter was the son of their old age, the secret idol of the old man’s vehement heart. But no one knew the might of love which the somewhat stern father lavished upon the son; and when his criminal folly came to its climax, the mother, the neighbours, the injured master himself, stood aside with awe while Saunders repudiated and disowned the unhappy culprit.Theycalled him harsh and cruel; but the guilty youth himself, even while he trembled under his father’s sentence, discovered for the first time the strong love which in its agony banished him from its home and presence. A kindred strength awoke in the son’s undisciplined spirit. Seeing how bitterly the hopes set on his head had been disappointed, in bitter repentance he turned from the closed door, eager to leave the place of his early sins, and in some strange unknown country to conquer, by the help of God, himself and his fate. For two long years now he had been absent—where his father did not know, nor would inquire; and still in the bitterness of the strong love which burned within him, the old man repudiated the prodigal.
Mossgray and his ward were together in the garden: Saunders hastily avoided them, and went to work alone,where no one could see the stern swelling of his heart. It was the great fault of Saunders’ own class, that they were obtuse to notice and slow to punish those sins of youth, so fatal to all goodness, which the world is content to call follies. Saunders himself was harshly pure and just; he thought it was something of this moral blindness, so common among his humble neighbours, which made Mossgray receive so kindly the son of Charlie Graeme.
Lilias was leaning on her guardian’s arm; they were going to the water-side.
“Halbert will make us rich, Lilias,” said Mossgray; “I am glad the lad likes work; but I fancy we must come to some decision about him; let me hear what you advise.”
“You suffered me to speak of Halbert once before, Mossgray,” said Lilias, “while he was as much a stranger to you as to me.”
“Yes, I remember I did,” said the old man, smiling, “and you were very foolishly generous as youthful people are. Must I fall back on my memory for the arguments you used then, Lilias? have you nothing new to advance: are your opinions still the same?”
“I have nothing new to advance save the good qualities which now you know, Mossgray,” said Lilias, returning the smile. “Halbert himself—so frank and simple and manly; there could be no better representative of the old Graemes.”
The old man shook his head.
“You are a special pleader, Lilias; you want to rouse what family pride may be in me. Well, granting that Halbert is all you say—manly and frank and simple—and he is so: I acknowledge that my old friend Monikie, and the good healthful atmosphere of the North, have done credit to themselves in their pupil—what then? does it follow that Halbert must get my land; must be my heir—my heir—is he like my heir, Lilias?”
“You could not have an heir like yourself, Mossgray,” said Lilias. “I think you must be alone, and have no successor to rival you; for nature does not seem to do it. Nature only makes one in a race here and there who would take up orphans like Halbert and me, and set us in families, under the shelter of his kindness—therefore you will have no heir, Mossgray—none but humanity; and on some other spirit, in some other country, your mantle will fall when you yourself use it no longer; for you will have no heir.”
“Hush, Lilias,” said Mossgray; “shall I have to train you to more philosophical modes of thinking? I did not think you were so heterodox. We must bring Reid and Brown and Dugald Stewart down upon you. Halbert himself has some metaphysics, dogmatical as their parent, Monikie. We shall have a regular breaking of spears, Lilias; though I think your friend Helen and you, on behalf of the poets, might rout the philosophers if you looked well to your weapons. By the by, I like that friend of yours—you suit each other well; and how does it fare with Mr Oswald’s resolution? Has he learned to break it yet with a good grace?”
“I do not hear now, since Hope is not at home to keep me informed,” said Lilias; “but I think he must be melting; only his son is absent, and there is no visible progress. Mr Oswald is an obstinate man, and Helen is proud; I see that there is an evident consciousness both on her side and his; but, Mossgray, you have done William Oswald harm; you have given him a rival.”
“I, Lilias?” said the old man; “is it Halbert? I should regret that.”
“No, it is not Halbert,” said Lilias; “I think Halbert is not eligible at present to be any one’s rival at Fendie: it is Mr Insches, Mossgray. I think your kindness to Helen when they were all with us has encouraged Mr Insches to look over her low degree. It is your fault: if you had not noticed her, he would have given up what incipient admiration he had of poor Helen; but you gave him the countenance he needed.”
“You are severe, Lilias,” said Mossgray; “but I like the lad. He has a young man’s natural weakness on some points, but there is good stuff in him; and who is to be successful—our grave friend William, or his handsome rival? I should think there was some danger. I fancy I must come to the rescue myself, and explain to Mr Oswald, by my own experience, that resolutions were made to be broken. Does that suit Hope’s tactics and yours, Lilias, or are you working more artfully?”
“Hope is my captain; I must wait for further orders,” said Lilias, smiling; “but, Mossgray, this has nothing to do with Halbert.”
“Very true,” said the old man. “I see you can hold to your original premises, Lilias; well, then, what of Halbert?—let us return to our disputation.”
“I think, Mossgray,” said Lilias, gravely, “since you suffer me to think on the subject, that it would be far better for Halbert if you made your decision soon.”
“It is very sensible,” said Mossgray, looking at her with his gracious smile. “I acknowledge that if I did not suffer you to think on the subject—which I fear would be difficult to do—I should lose a good counsellor; but do you know, Lilias, Mrs Mense tells me that matters might be so arranged as to make your inheritance and Halbert’s one;—could that be accomplished, think you?”
It was very evident that Mossgray did not think it could, and the supposition was too harmless to call more than a passing shadow of colour over the pale cheek of his ward.
“No, indeed, Mossgray,” she said, simply; “did I not say that Halbert was not free to be any one’s rival? I mean,” continued Lilias, with a deeper blush as she observed the inference to be drawn from her words, “that Halbert is very faithful to the northern Menie, and that I am Halbert’s very grave and elderly adviser and friend, and must always remain so, did we live under the same roof all our lives.”
Mossgray desired to have his ward’s confidence; he did not smile at her inference nor at her blush; neither did he ask what they meant; the delicate old man felt it was meet that Lilias should be shy of such confidences, even to him.
“Well,” he said, “I will give up that; it would be very desirable no doubt, Lilias, and would solve our problem beautifully. If Halbert and you were good bairns I have no doubt you would adopt this solution for my particular convenience; but if, as you say, Halbert is already in bondage, and you are so wise and old as you tell me you are, there is no more to be said on the subject, and we must think of some other plan. Let me hear your proposal, Lilias.”
Lilias looked up in some surprise.
“Did you think I was Helen Buchanan, Mossgray? No, indeed, I do not make plans. I only do what I am bidden when they please me, and dissent when they do not; but I am no originator, Mossgray—you know I am not.”
Mossgray smiled again.
“Well, Lilias, we shall suppose that I myself form the plan, according to your counsel, and that we make Halbert heir of Mossgray; and now there comes a grave consideration: what am I to do with you, my good Lilias? Will yoube content with the little provision I can make for you, independent of these lands? Nay, if you are not like your friend Helen in making plans, I cannot have you resemble her in pride. I speak to you, you know, as if you had been Lilias Graeme; and your future—must I not provide for that?”
“No, Mossgray.” Her head was bent down, but the animated unusual light played about her face like sunshine—her voice was very low, and trembled as with some hidden music. She did not meet the kindly inquiring look which her guardian turned upon her; she only answered—“No, Mossgray.”
“The future is cared for then?” said the gentle old man, in his delicate tenderness. “I must not ask how, Lilias, but I may believe and infer, may I not?—and guess that there is some one labouring under warmer skies for my good child, and hope that he is wise and generous, and worthy of her. Tell him that I too will grow jealous for his honour and good report, though I am not told his name, and that together, you and I, who alone know him here, will bid God speed to his labour:—shall it not be so?”
Lilias could not lift her eyes just then, for the tears’ sake that were under their lids; but when she could, she looked up in simple confidence into the face of her guardian. She did not speak, and they went slowly on, for some time, in silence. Her mind was in a pleasant, grateful tumult; she thought of the time when he to whose labour Mossgray bade God speed should thank the old man for his generous care of the orphan; and over the fair future she looked forth through the sunny haze of hope—the indefinite golden mist which has in it a charm wanting to the clearer landscape—the magic of the unknown.
But as they continued their walk, shy half-sentences fell on the ear of Mossgray—conveying a confidence which he received gladly, though he did not ask it. How the unsettled family, in one of their short sojournings in a great, bustling, commercial town of England, had met this unknown—how he came from an Orcadian island far off in the vexed Northern seas, and in his youthful energy was bound for the golden East—how he did so tenderly regard and honour the mother over whom Lilias still wept tears, because he also had a mother in his solitary home by the sea, and, except this one nearestfriend, was alone in the world; but Lilias did not tell Mossgray how her heart throbbed in glad wonder at sight of the ancient portrait, and in sound of the pleasant name in the old house at Murrayshaugh. It was but a fanciful resemblance, and the name was not an unusual one. The pleasure she had in this, she kept as one little secret gladness to herself. It was but a girlish, affectionate fancy; for the son of the far Orcades could have no connection with the old southern family, whose last representatives were wandering on foreign soil, or laid in strange graves. She smiled at herself for setting so great store by the shadowy resemblance of the portrait; it was too small a thing to tell Mossgray.
END OF BOOK II.
The merry ploughboy cheers his team,Wi’ joy the tentie seedsman stalks.—Burns.
The merry ploughboy cheers his team,Wi’ joy the tentie seedsman stalks.—Burns.
The merry ploughboy cheers his team,Wi’ joy the tentie seedsman stalks.—Burns.
“Mossgray,” said Halbert Graeme, as they sat next morning at their cheerful breakfast-table, “I wish you would come out with me to-day, and see these fields at Shortrigg—they are in a very bad state: small, oddly-shaped fields, ‘three neukit,’ as Saunders calls them, with quite a superabundance of hedges. I should like to sweep those encumbrances away, and bring them into better working order. Will you come and see them, Mossgray?”
“Halbert, my man,” said Mossgray, smiling, “I am too old to learn—even your training will scarcely make a good farmer of me, I am afraid; and I give you full discretion, you know.”
“But, Mossgray,” persisted Halbert, “I am sure you have no concern for those thriftless hedges; and good agriculture—”
“Is a very necessary, noble, and honourable art,” said the Laird, “perfectly so, Halbert; and I am by no means a sentimental admirer of thriftless hedges; but I am old, you know, and not a good judge: you must take it into your own hands.”
Halbert was not quite satisfied.
“Still, Mossgray, if you are not engaged—”
The good Mossgray could not deny the youth his request.
“Well, Halbert, if it must be. Come then, let us set about this business of yours.”
Halbert was very full of his undertaking. He began to tell Mossgray what his crops were to be, and the measures he would take with obstinate land, which was not naturally obedient to the discipline of the plough. The country looked very cheerful as they passed on. Round about, skirting the horizon on every side were ranges of low hills, some rich with fir trees and softer young spring foliage to the very top; some dark with moss and heather unbloomed. Winding roads, white far-seen lines, lost themselves among the hills, andthrough the trees, which divided their path from the river, glimpses of the wan water, flowing on full and broad to the sea, glimmered through the soft, gay, fluttering leaves of spring. Turning back on the elevation which they had reached, the full Firth, quivering like molten silver, stretched between them and the clear creeks and villages of the English shore, over whose stillness muffled mountains watched in the background; and looming out against the pale sky in the West, his broad sides darkened here and there, as if with stationary shadows, rose the bluff Scottish hill, whose strong brow every night was crowned with the glory of the sunset. There was a hum of voices in the pleasant air, and ploughs were turning up the rich, dark, fragrant earth, and the “tentie seedsman” stalked about the fields. The sky and the leaves were soft and fresh, so fresh and soft as they only are in the early year, and the refreshed land seemed to open its moist breast with gladness to the kindly processes of spring.
“I think there is something grand, Halbert,” said the old man, pausing to look back, “in the art, which out of that bare earth can bring seed and bread. I should rather have myself endowed with this wealth of the soil, were I young like you, than choose the barren, metallic fortune you were aspiring after a short time since. This, you know, pleases me; to inherit the soil and the sky, the seed-time and harvest, the sunshine and the rain of heaven; it seems to place us in more immediate dependance on the Maker of all, the great Suzerain above, of whom we hold this feoff, for the honour of His kingly name and the service of His people. I like it, Halbert—it is a greater gift than barren wealth. It pleases me to feel myself, with Paul, a vassal—aKnecht, as your German has it—holding my lands under the fealty vow and oath of true service. I would we did but better remember that we stood here feudatories of high Heaven.”
The youth assented modestly; he thought it did not become him to do more.
Mossgray stood for a moment longer, looking with loving eyes over his fair country, as it lay below the sunbeams, stirred with the spring; and then he turned to take Halbert’s arm, and they went on again, resuming their former conversation about crops and ploughs and draining. The old man was not so ignorant of these matters as he called himself, and could give valuable counsel to the young experimentalist.
“But, Halbert,” said Mossgray, “Lilias tells me I aminjuring you in keeping you here so long, where you cannot pursue your own course as you desire to do; we should rather talk of it than of those rural matters. What say you, Halbert?”
Halbert was rather startled; he did not know what to say, for, to tell the truth, he had quite forgotten the “course” which his kinsman assumed he was so eager to begin, and at present was perfectly content, and had no wish for change.
“I will be glad to do what you think best, Sir,” he said, with a little hesitation.
“But the question is not what I think best, but what you wish,” said the old man. “Is it the case that you are impatient of losing time at Mossgray, Halbert?”
Halbert was very honest.
“Well, Sir, to speak truly, no—I have not been thinking of losing time; but no doubt it is very necessary that I should begin.”
“Begin what, Halbert?”
“To maintain myself, Sir; to cease to be a burden—”
“My good Halbert,” said Mossgray, interrupting him, “I should never have spoken of it, if that were all; but Lilias does not hesitate to tell me that I do wrong to keep you undecided so long; so you must let me know what your own views are, and how I can help you most agreeably to yourself. Be honest and tell me frankly; and when I have heard your own ideas, you must give me the privilege of my age, and let me decide.”
There was a pause.
“I suppose,” said Halbert, hesitating a little, “that it must be business?”
“Does your gift lie in that way?” said Mossgray, smiling.
Halbert was a little annoyed, and jealous of ridicule.
“I think I might be able to do as much as I undertook,” he answered, with a little warmth. “All sorts of men succeed in business. I do not think, with submission to your better judgment, Mossgray, that, except perseverance and industry, and a stout heart, there is any very special gift required.”
“Bravely answered, Halbert,” said Mossgray; “but these are invaluable qualities all, and as necessary for a conscientious country Laird, as for your great merchant of Glasgow or Liverpool. But let us speak more gravely; before you were so wise and sensible as to come here to me, it was my custom to consider myself the last Graeme of Mossgray.Now, Halbert, supposing that our ancestors had entailed these lands, in what position would you have been?”
Halbert blushed and was embarrassed; it was impossible that such a thought should not have sometimes entered the young man’s mind; but he really had not self-interested views; and now he remained silent with too much good taste to disclaim, while he yet felt awkwardly uncomfortable under the fear of such an imputation.
“The race would have been resuscitated in you,” said the old man; “you would have brought new life to the withering stock; for, Halbert, you are the only remaining heir of the Graemes of Mossgray.”
“I have the name, Sir,” said Halbert quickly, his embarrassment growing on him as he met his kinsman’s eye; “it is the share of the family inheritance which comes to me; and the provision which you made for the helpless portion of my life, Mossgray, is more than a cadet’s share. Now that I am able to make use of the faculties which your kindness and my good master’s have trained and made available, I hope to do no dishonour to the name.”
The Laird of Mossgray looked steadily into his young kinsman’s glowing, animated face; the natural diffidence which subdued its expression, and the charm of its simple, frank manliness were very pleasant in the old man’s eyes. He held out his hand and grasped that somewhat astonished, irresolute one of Halbert’s.
“I have no fear,” he said, kindly; “I believe you will be a good steward of your name; but remember, Halbert, that there devolves upon you an inheritance of old duties, old kindnesses, old generosities, along with the old lands; and that I will as surely leave you heir to all the good purposed and planned by your predecessors, bravely and faithfully to fulfil and increase it, as I leave you heir of Mossgray.”
Halbert looked up with a sudden start; the words did not carry their proper significance to him, for he had expected nothing like this.
“If I had thought you would weary of the lifetime which remains to me,” said Mossgray, “I might have kept this secret from you, lest you should be tempted to wish my few remaining days shortened; but I have all confidence in you, Halbert, and what I give you is your right.”
Halbert said something now; but it was said in so strange a tumult that the words would not bear recording. Nevertheless they answered their purpose, and Mossgray did not think the less either of them or of the speaker, because they were by no means elegantly put together, or rather were not put together at all.
And then the old man, more openly than he had done with Lilias, sought, and after some happy hesitation, received, the confidence of Halbert; and then some arrangements were made, very much to the satisfaction of the heir of Mossgray. The old man decided that Halbert’s “being settled” should be for some time delayed, but did by no means say anything to the detriment of Menie Monikie. To wait a little was all the condition he asked.
The fields at Shortrigg were unfortunate on this particular day. The young farmer had things in his head of more immediate interest than draining, and while he tried to keep his mind awake to the question of the superabundant hedges, incipient sentences of the triumphant letter, which should convey those wonderful tidings to the North, floated through his joyous head, to the entire bewilderment of himself and his companion. It would not do; the young Utopia routed the sober science of agriculture, and Mossgray, with secret smiles, invented some kind pretext for sending Halbert home. It pleased the old man that the youth should be so pleasantly disturbed, and his eagerness to communicate his joy to the only home he had ever known gave additional satisfaction to the gentle heart of Adam Graeme.
“I did not think,” said Mossgray to himself half-aloud, as he lingered at the corner of one of the condemned ‘three-neukit’ fields, watching the rapid progress of Halbert, as, bounding over all manner of obstacles, he carried his exulting heart home to Mossgray, “I did not think that my old pragmatical friend, Monikie, could have succeeded in producing such a lad as Halbert; and I fancy I must see this Menie of his, and renew my acquaintance with her father. And I too have children. Resolutions, resolutions! what mockery they are; that I might have debarred myself such companions as these for the sake of words rashly spoken!”
He turned round, shaking his head with a smile. Saunders Delvie was standing near, evidently listening. He had heard the conclusion of the soliloquy.
“Well, Saunders,” said Mossgray, “I believe you do not agree with me?”
“Na, Mossgray,” answered Saunders, harshly, “I haudby the auld law. Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath.”
“But I am speaking of resolutions, Saunders,” said the Laird, “uncertain mortal resolves, ignorantly made, which better knowledge shows us were foolish and wrong. You would not have me hold by anything so weak as that?”
“Ay, Mossgray,” said the stern old man, holding his ground decidedly; “but an ane was wise, ane would make nae vows in ignorance; and when a vow was made, would keep it, if it was to the very death.”
“But, Saunders, my man,” said the good master, kindly, “you know me well enough to know that I am not so wise as that; and I am too old to learn.”
“Mossgray,” said Saunders Delvie, “I’m just your serving-man, but I’m in years mysel’—and I can take nae rule but Scripture, though I would do as muckle to pleasure my maister as most folk; but the Word’s positive and clear. Vow unto the Lord and pay.”
“You are more skilled in argument than I am, Saunders,” said Mossgray, “but I think we can settle that point between us. The vow was a vow of offering—of special service, or special gifts, or of the sacrifices of that grand old symbolic Hebrew law. It did not by any means refer to such frail, inconsiderate resolutions, Saunders, as are common to this humanity of ours.”
“Ay, but if it was a vow before the Lord,” said Saunders, in his strong, harsh, emphatic voice; “if before the Lord, Mossgray, ye had spread out the ill that troubled ye, as the guid King Hezekiah did the proud words of the Assyrian langsyne, and put forth ane—I’m saying nae man in particular; it’s a case just like what micht happen wi’ onybody—put forth ane, I say, solemnly out of your heart and out of your house, as an ill-doer and a reprobate; would the man that daured to break that no be man-sworn, Mossgray, having vowed before the Lord?”
There was a certain huskiness and tremor in the harsh voice of the old man. They stood together strangely contrasted; the master in his benign and gentle humbleness, the servant in the stern and rugged strength of his pride.
“Saunders,” said Mossgray, “the utmost vision of our wisdom, you know, is very poor and dim; and will the Lord hold you, do you think, to an oath made in ignorance, and dimly, as are all things mortal, even though you place it inHis keeping? If what you vowed in His presence was an ill vow, Saunders, be thankful that this privilege of humanity is left to you, and that God gives you power to change—to change; it is a great gift this. That when the purer light comes upon us we may follow its course wherever it travels, and that all our vain purposes and foolish vows are not bound on us, but that gratefully in sight of heaven we may throw our old encumbrances away, and change. We are growing old, Saunders, we are travelling towards the setting sun; and by and by we will lose this power. Think of it before it leaves your hands—mind what a gracious thing it is, given of God—and make merciful use of it while you may.”
Mossgray turned round as he concluded, and bent his steps to his favourite Waterside. He had not unfrequently had such controversies with his stern old serving-man; and pitying the forlorn heart which, out of its very excess of harsh, strong love, could debar itself so relentlessly from the mild humanities of nature, he had taken pains to leaven the mind of Saunders with his own gracious philosophy. But it would not do; the rugged, intense spirit buckled its harsh vow upon itself like armour, while the wiser poet-man opened the heart which could not be old to all the gentle influences of the earth and of the heaven.
Close by the sunshine is the cloud;And yonder o’er the hills, the shadows passLike breath; across this field they flit, they hover—And now ’tis bright, and now ’tis dim, and nowThere’s not a cloud in heaven. Look up again;Lo! all the sky is veiled, the sun shut out—There’s nothing here but sadness.—Anonymous.
Close by the sunshine is the cloud;And yonder o’er the hills, the shadows passLike breath; across this field they flit, they hover—And now ’tis bright, and now ’tis dim, and nowThere’s not a cloud in heaven. Look up again;Lo! all the sky is veiled, the sun shut out—There’s nothing here but sadness.—Anonymous.
Close by the sunshine is the cloud;And yonder o’er the hills, the shadows passLike breath; across this field they flit, they hover—And now ’tis bright, and now ’tis dim, and nowThere’s not a cloud in heaven. Look up again;Lo! all the sky is veiled, the sun shut out—There’s nothing here but sadness.—Anonymous.
Mrs Buchananwas in high spirits. The friendship of Lilias, and the honour intended for her by the Reverend Robert Insches, had opened a new life to Helen. She was no more the neglected and solitary schoolmistress. The young lady of Mossgray was a frequent visitor at their humble house. Mrs Whyte of Kirkmay had called to make a definite beginning of their friendship—the plaintive Mrs Gray became a regular visitor. Mr Insches took every possible opportunity of stealing into William Oswald’s vacant corner in the quiet parlour. It pleased the good mother “to see her bairn respected like the lave.”
And the change was also very pleasant to Helen. She had been at Kirkmay, and much enjoyed the hospitalities of the Manse—she saw Lilias frequently; and even the handsome head of the Reverend Robert was an agreeable variety, breaking the blank of the dim wall, which for whole years of past evenings had been the only thing she had to look across to. She was still much alone; but the much was not always, and the monotony thus occasionally broken became monotony no longer. The firmament of their quiet life was brightened; it was a pleasant change.
But other changes were progressing; as the spring grew into summer some shadow fell upon Lilias Maxwell. No one knew what it was, nor how produced, but the old paleness returned to her cheek, and the old sinking to her heart. There was no external sign of sorrow or suffering. The change fell upon her like a cloud—such a cloud as does sometimes glide across the sun in the early glory of his shining. She was very calm, very quiet, very thoughtful, but in moments when she fancied no one saw her, her fingers sought eachother painfully, and were clasped together, as hands are clasped only in grief or in prayer. But the cause of this she told to no one; and even to her guardian’s affectionate inquiries, she only answered, “It is nothing, Mossgray; indeed it is nothing.”
Very early on a bright May day, Lilias went hastily up along the banks of the wan water, to the house of Murrayshaugh. She had been up that morning earlier than even the wakeful Janet Mense, as if she could not rest; and now she had stolen forth, avoiding any company. She walked more quickly than was usual to her, and over the face, which still wore its look of constitutional calmness, shades of unwonted colour were wavering to and fro; for the Lily of Mossgray was sick at heart—sick with the fever of anxiety—the hope and the fear.
She had become a frequent visitor of Isabell Brown; the old woman was fretfully kind to Lilias; and when the days were warm enough to permit her to receive those calls in Miss Lucy’s parlour, Isabell was very communicative, and told tales of the Murrays, their old grandeur and their present exile with much satisfaction to herself. Lilias meanwhile sat on one of the faded high-backed chairs, opposite the wall on which hung the portrait, and listened pleasantly. Isabell took the young lady of Mossgray’s admiration of the picture as a personal compliment to herself, and there began to spring up a genuine liking for her in the breast of the little sharp old woman; she almost thought Lilias worthy to take rank next to Miss Lucy.
On this particular day Isabell’s dissertation began as usual.
“Ye see, I canna tell what gars Murrayshaugh stay away in thae foreign pairts, and him has a guid house o’ his ain to bide in; but there’s nae accounting for folk’s tastes. For my ain pairt, I wadna gie Murrayshaugh just where ye’re sitting this minute, for a king’s palace; but he’s an awfu’ proud man, Murrayshaugh, and nae doubt he has a guid richt.”
Lilias made some indistinct response; it did not much matter what it was, for Isabell desired a good listener more than anything else.
“It’s maist folk’s pride to be thought rich,” continued the little old housekeeper, with some ostentation; “but Murrayshaugh’s a man far frae the common; it’s his notion to hae the house bare, like as he was puir. It’s naething but folk’s fancy—ane likes ae thing, and ane anither. I wadnawonder noo but ye’ve heard that the Murrays were gaun doun the brae? there’s aye some havers rattling at the heels o’ a gentleman’s ain fancy; as if it was needcessity, when it’s naething but his pleasure.”
Lilias involuntarily glanced round the faded bare room; its look of decayed gentility made a dreary comment on the assumption of the old adherent of the ruined family; but her eye rested again, where it rested so often, on the portrait, and she sighed and did not answer.
“You’re no weel the day,” said Isabell, sympathetically; “and yet it’s bonnie cheerie weather that should be guid for young folk. Eh Miss Maxwell! ane wad think ye kent that picture, ye tak sic weary looks at it; but ye wad never see onybody like that?”
“I think I have,” said Lilias, with a faint smile.
“Like the auld picture that was like Mr Hew? tell us where. It bid to be himsel; there’s only the twa o’ them in the world, and wha should hae the kindly face but their ainsels? I’m saying tell me where ye saw him—for charity tell me where!”
“It was not Mr Murray, Isabell,” said Lilias; “it was a friend—a person I knew in England.”
“And he was like that!” said Isabell. “Do ye think I dinna ken that nae fremd man could be like that? will you tell me what they ca’ed him? Ye’ll read in books whiles, o’ gentles for their ain pleasure taking anither name—it bid to be Mr Hew.”
“His name was Grant,” said Lilias, “he was not Mr Hew; he was a young man—quite young.”
“And what should he be else but young?” said the little old woman, pattering up and down with her short, unequal, agitated steps. “Div ye think he’s withered and auld like me? I tell ye he’s the gallantest lad ye ever set your e’e upon; ye may ca’ that like him, but it’s naething till him—the spark that was in his bonnie e’en, and his brent broo—as if I didna mind! If he was far blythe and lightsomer like than that, and yet had a face that could be wae when need was, for ither folk afore himsel; and if he had a presence o’ his ain that gar’t ye bow, and a smile that made ye fain; then I say it was Mr Hew ye saw, and nae ither living man!”
There was some wonderful power in the old woman’s words. The sad pale head of Lilias slowly followed her motions, as if by some magnetic attraction. She did notspeak; but as Isabell ceased, she closed her eyelids painfully, perhaps the better to see again the person thus truthfully described—perhaps to shut in the tears.
The housekeeper pattered up and down for a while in silence; at length she stopped short immediately before Lilias, and repeated with emphasis,—
“I’m telling ye it was Mr Hew.”
“It was not Mr Hew, Isabell,” said Lilias gently, as she rose to go away. “It was one whose home is very far from this; who came from the northern islands far away; and it is a mere fancy of mine that he is like the portrait. He was not Mr Hew.”
Isabell was not satisfied—she accompanied her visitor to the door with many mutterings; the “kindly face” could belong only to a Murray, “it bid to be Mr Hew.”
Lilias turned away across the unsafe bridge, and went hastily up a steep lane which led to the Fendie high-road; she was not going home, and excited and anxious as she was she could not bear the meditative calm of the Waterside.
It was a somewhat long walk, and Lilias was not like herself; her feverish hasty pace, and the painful flushes of colour which now and then crossed her brow, were unnatural. It was the first time she had been tried by this trial—the deadly anxiety with which we shiver and burn, when our sole hope is in peril, and there comes to us no tidings. She thought she could endure to hear of any certain calamity, but that blank of suspense was terrible to her—she could not bear it.
There had been mail after mail from the far East, but no letter for Lilias; and this was the day again. She had gone to Murrayshaugh to fill up the feverish blank of those slow moments; to look once more upon the face which never perhaps she should look upon with faith and trust again; and now she was hurrying to the decision of all those tremulous doubts and fears; if there was a letter to-day—and if there was none—
Her lips were parched—they would hardly meet to ask that question—“No.” Lilias looked into the postmaster’s face wistfully again; she would not hear the denial. “No, there were no letters for Miss Maxwell.”
And immediately there fell upon her a dead calm; a dull slow pain of quietness. She went out in her noiseless way, and glided down the street like a shadow; her heart wassick—she could have seated herself by the road-side, and wept out the slow tears that were gathering under her eyelids, unconscious of any passers-by; but those who did pass by saw only the grave, pale, pensive Lily of Mossgray. The fever was over—there remained no present hope to distract her now, and she was calm again.
And then she began to think, and laboured bravely to put away from her those doubts and fears—but Lilias had not the impulsive energy of hope; the elastic life, which can fight and wrestle with sorrow at its strongest, was not in her; but she could do what the more buoyant could not have done—she could wait—and knowing the time that she must wait, she became calm.
She had intended going home, but as the shock softened, she changed her purpose. She went to borrow hope from Helen Buchanan, in one of those sudden yearnings for gentle company, with which sad hearts are sometimes seized. In her hush and faintness she wanted to have some living thing come in between her and her secret pain—she wanted to forget herself.
It was a holiday with Helen, and she was in a holiday mood, withstanding, with her natural enthusiasm, the gloomy dogmas of Mrs Gray, who was making a gracious call upon Mrs Buchanan. Mrs Buchanan did not much like the melancholy lady; her sanguine gentle temper recoiled from the sombre atmosphere which suited Mrs Gray; but she was Mrs Whyte’s sister, and a “very respectable” acquaintance for Helen; so the good mother submitted pleasantly.
“Are you ill, Lilias?” said Helen.
“No, Helen, it is nothing,” answered Lilias, gently. It was her universal answer; the melancholy cloud was indeed very visible, but she would not speak of the cause.
“My dear,” said Mrs Gray—she was very affectionate, this good doleful woman—her very gloom increased her tenderness; “I am very much afraid you are not taking sufficient care of yourself. I am sure you got damp feet that day you were at the Manse, and Elizabeth would never think of asking you to change them. Elizabeth is really very careless about damp feet; she never heeds them herself—and I have known many a one get a consumption with them. You are looking very white, my dear; you must really take care.”
“I am quite well, Mrs Gray,” said Lilias; “perfectly well, I assure you.”
Mrs Gray shook her head.
“Really, my dear, people never know. We are well to-day, and ill to-morrow: it is a strange world.”
The proposition in this case being very abstract no one controverted it.
“When I see,” continued Mrs Gray, oratorically, “young people going out on the world with such false notions as most of them have, poor things, it grieves me, Mrs Buchanan. So little as there is to enjoy after all, even if they get all they expect.”
Mrs Buchanan, like Mr Oswald, had an old-fashioned prejudice that there was something orthodox in all this; a prejudice which made her diffident of answering.
“Poor things!” she echoed, with a slight falter; “but after all, Mrs Gray, we had light hearts in our own youth, and why should we discourage them? Sorrow aye comes soon enough.”
A sigh from Lilias sounded like an assent: and the Lily of Mossgray indeed bent her weary head and assented. She began to believe that sorrow—nothing but sorrow—was the common lot.
But Helen’s face was flushing—her small head growing erect. Mrs Gray turned round—she was no coward—to face her vowed antagonist.
“Miss Buchanan, my dear, I am speaking the truth. People say that the happiest part of life is youth; now just look at yourself. Toiling and labouring with these children; wearied with them every night, but just having to begin again every morning! with little time to yourself—to visit your friends, or read, or whatever you might choose. My dear, just look at it yourself. What have you to enjoy?”
Helen started.
“I have all the world—not this little humble house—not that school-room only; but the earth, and the sky, and the sea! Look at them—look at what God gives us—the sunshine and the clouds—the hills and the rivers—and you ask me what I have to enjoy? I have all the world! the weariness and the rest, the labour and the sleep, the night and the day, they are all given us, waiting our pleasures like the spirits of the old dreams. There is no one born into the earth who is not born rich, richer than kings, for we have all the world.”
Mrs Gray was not prepared to answer this; she turned away to look from the window at the flowers, and prudentlyshook her head, half at the wild doctrine, and half at the eager manner; but she tilted no more at that time with Helen.
“Will you walk up with me to Mossgray, Helen?” said Lilias, in the subdued melancholy voice which made the petition more urgent than a command; and Helen consented at once. As they descended the steps at the bridge, and waded through the long, thick grass, which spread between the backs of the Fendie houses and the river, the pensive calm of Lilias touched the variable spirit of her friend. They began to talk in that tone of half-playful sadness which often veils over griefs which the speakers would not tell. It is the mood of speculation; and they were neither of them too old for the girlish dreamy fancies, half-superstitious, which belong to our imaginative years.
“I wonder,” said Lilias, “whether our minds are formed, Helen, to suit our fate? I mean that our griefs are made for us, like our dwellings, with an individual fitness in them all. It seems so strange sometimes, as if on one person had fallen the fate which properly belonged to another; yet it must be that we are suited always—our minds with our trials.”
“It must be,” said the bolder Helen, “for what would be joy to one is nothing to another, Lilias. I think I could fancy what my troubles would be, and yours?”
“Tell me, Helen.”
“Calm, grave, quiet sorrows, which will not have the fever of doubt and hope in them, which you will know certainly, and be able to weep silent tears for. Lilias, I think these will be yours; and for me—I do not know—I think strong troubles that I can fight and battle with; unquiet, living griefs that will keep me strained and labouring. Lilias, is it not my foolish fancies that make you sad?”
“No. I do not see the sun just now, that is all,” said the pale calm Lilias, shutting the eyes which were again full. “Helen, Helen, let us not say any more.”