“Concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,Preyed on her damask cheek.”—Twelfth Night.
“Concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,Preyed on her damask cheek.”—Twelfth Night.
“Concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,Preyed on her damask cheek.”—Twelfth Night.
Thegood Mossgray was pained for the dimness which hung about his adopted child. It was not positive sorrow—it was only a shadowy quietness as of a cloud, and very still and patient was Lilias. She was trying to live in the present only, because the future, when she tried to look upon it, made her heart sick; but it is not in the nature of humanity to do this, and her effort to confine herself to those individual hours, as one by one in their quietness they glided past her, made her only languidly indifferent to them all. For Lilias was alone: the hope in peril was her sole hope; kindly ties of kindred there were none for her, and except the old man, her guardian, to whom she looked with tenderness and reverence as to a father, but who yet was not her father, nor had part in all the associations of the past as members of one family have, she had none in the world but this one—and he!—
Where was he? was it peril or illness, or, painfullest of all, was it change, which produced this agony of silence? She tried to interdict herself from the constant speculation to which she could give no answer, but the yearning wonder and anxiety were too strong for the sorrowful heart; yet she said nothing. She could not blame him; she could not have another fancy that on his truth there lay the faintest suspicion; and with that haze of mild, subdued patience about her, she waited, and when she did think of the future time at all, thought of what lay beyond that fated, solemn day, on which tidings might and surelymustcome, as of some dreamy, unknown chaos, strange and chill, another life.
“I dinna ken what’s come to Miss Lillie,” said Mrs Mense, with a sigh.
“She’s ower muckle made o’, that’s it,” responded the sourer Janet.
“Woman, woman!” said the housekeeper, bitterly, “have ye nae memory o’ being ance young yoursel’, and maybehaving troubles in your ain heart that wadna bear telling? but I needna speak to you.”
“Na, I reckon no,” said Janet. “Me! I wad just like to hear onybody say that I ever had a trouble a’ my born days that mightna hae been visible to the haill world if it likit.”
“And that just shows how little ye ken about it,” said Mrs Mense; “if ye ever had a heart ava, it maun hae grown to bane twenty year ago. Are ye gaun to iron thae bits o’ laces for the young lady or are ye no’?—for if ye’re no’, I’ll do’t mysel’—”
“The young lady—set her up!” said the housekeeperde facto. “Muckle right she has to the auld Lady Mossgray’s guid lace. He’ll be gieing her the land next; there’s nae fuils like auld fuils.”
“Janet Mense,” said the old woman, “ye hae eaten the Laird’s bread mony a year, and I hae suffered ye in the house, for a’ your ill tongue, and for a’ sae little worth as ye are; but if ye daur to say anither word against Mr Adam, I’ll take ye by the shouthers and put ye forth from this door. I’ll do it with my ain hands; sae ye ken.”
Janet judged it prudent to sound a retreat. She began to spread the lace upon the table, preparatory to the process of ironing.
“The wife’s in a creel,” said Robbie Carlyle the fisherman, entering with his basket of flounders, thinly covered with a few grilse. “Wha’s she gaun to pit to the door? If it’s Effie, I’ll hae nae mair dealings wi’ ye, Mrs Mense; for Effie’s Jamie Caryl’s daughter, and Jamie’s my second cousin; sae we’ll be to ’gree again.”
“And wha’ll tire sunest o’ that, Robbie, my man?” said the housekeeper.
“Faith, I dinna ken,” said the bold fisherman, “there’s waur folk nor me, guid wife; and if I missed your custom, ye wad miss my ca’, ye ken; for I’m guid company—especially when I bring the cuddie.”
“I would like to ken, Robbie Caryl,” said Janet, “what the like o’ you has to do wi’ a cuddie.”
“The like o’ me! Ye’re a sensible woman, Jen, but ye dinna ken a’thing; it’s no to be expected. I ken few that does, by mysel’, and Mossgray, and the minister; the like o’ me! as if I wasna as ’sponsible a man as there is in the parish, and as weel entitled to hae ease to my shouthers!There’s thristles and dockens enow aboon tidemark to mainteen a dizzen cuddies, and he taks nae cleeding, puir beast; he’s cheaper than a wean.”
“Eh, Robbie!” said Mrs Mense, reproachfully, “to even the bits of innocent bairns to a brute beast!”
“He’s a very decent beast,” said Robbie. “I hae kent mony a waur Christian. The bairns! I hae half a dizzen curly pows o’ them, ilk ane a greater sorrow than the tither, and I can tell ye it’s Blackie out there that has the maist cause to compleen o’ being evened to them. He’s a decent, sober, ’sponsible beast, like my ain sel’, and the little anes are evendown spirits, never out o’ mischief, if it binna when they’re tumbled in a dub; and then ane has the fash o’ fishing them out again.”
“It maun be awfu’ dangerous for bairns, that weary marsh,” said Mrs Mense, sympathetically.
“Hout, we never fash our heads about it,” said the fisherman; “they’re a’ born to plouter amang saut water: it comes natural; when they do get a fa’, the oldest anes can scramble out again, and there’s nane o’ them ower young to skirl. The wife whiles makes a fyke about it, but nane o’ them ’ll drown. You might maist say they were born in the sea; onyway, the tide was up on the very doorstane the nicht Sandy was born. It was an uncommon high tide; and the weans hae a story that he came in on the tap o’ a muckle wave. Little Mary wad maist swear she saw the bit wee beld pow o’ him in amang the foam; and the foam’s nane o’ the clearest, I can tell ye, when the Firth’s in a roar.”
“Wasna Monday nicht uncommon coarse doun-bye?” said Janet. “Did ye hear if there was ony skaith dune, Robbie?”
“Hout, woman, do ye ca’yoncoarse?” answered the salt-water man. “Skaith! no, if it werena that auld careless body Willie Tamson that brought in his heavy brute o’ a boat ower the nets, and had nigh coupit her, forbye driving I kenna how mony stakes out of the shore, and garring us lose a day’s kep. The fish are aye maist plentiful when the water’s troubled; puir beasts! they haena muckle variety in their life—I’m thinking they’ll like a storm for the sake o’ change; onyway, they’re aye strong when the Firth’s champing like an ill-willy horse.”
“And are ye doing ought weel, Robbie?” said Mrs Mense.
“No to compleen o’,” answered Robbie, “it aye hauds usgaun. I’m thinking we’ll be no that ill this year; the red fish looks weel. See to that grilse; ye’ll be needing it for the Laird’s dinner the day. Did ye ever see a bonnier beast in the water or out o’t?”
After considerable bargaining, the grilse was laid aside together with store of flounders.
“For there’s nae saying,” said Robbie, “when I may be round again, and it’s better to hae a wheen ower mony than ower few—that’s philosophy—ye can ask the Laird. I’m thinking to send Peter mair; he’s a muckle callant grown, and I see nae occasion I have, to keep a doug, and bark mysel; if it wasna that it wad be an awfu’ loss to the haill countryside—I dinna ken what ye wad a’ do, wanting me.”
“Ye’ve aye a guid word o’ yoursel, Robbie Caryl,” said Janet.
“There’s ne’er a ane kens me as weel, Jen, my woman,” retorted the undaunted Robbie; “if it binna the wife; and the wife’s gift is mair for finding out folk’s faults than their guid qualities; but when I gie ower coming ye’ll find it out; see if ye dinna be gieing weary looks ilka market-day for Robbie Caryl and the cuddie.”
“We’ll wait till that time comes, Robbie,” said Mrs Mense; “but, man, hae ye nae mair news than that?”
“Hearken till her noo,” said Robbie, reflectively; “hearken till the gate o’ thae women—ne’er a thing but news in the heads o’ them. Jen, I’m awa’—hae ye ony message to your joe? I’m the canniest man gaun—I ne’er was blackfit at a courtin’ yet but it throve; and speaking about marryin’—that’s what ye ca’news, I’m thinking?—the wives in the toun are thrang on the top o’ ane e’en now.”
“Wha is’t Robbie?” asked Janet and her aunt together.
“Oh, I hae gotten till the right thing noo, have I? It’s ane that’ll ne’er be in this world—it’s the minister.”
“The minister!” said Mrs Mense, “and what ill will hae ye at the winsome lad, Robbie Caryl, that ye should say he wad never be married?”
“I said nae sic thing; ye tak folk up, neebor, afore they fa’. He may hae half a hunder wives for onything I care, but I’ll just tell him ae guid word o’ counsel—he needna fash his thoom about this ane.”
“And wha is she that’s sae grand?” said the old housekeeper, “set her up! does she think the minister’s no guid enough for onybody?”
The Reverend Robert was an immense favourite with Mrs Mense. She felt it as an injury to the Church that he should not be able to choose where it pleased him.
“I’m no speaking about grandness—she’s nae muckle lady; she’s just the mistress o’ the schule our wee Mary’s at, learning to sew and to behave hersel; but, Mrs Mense, you’re auld—ye dinna mind o’ the fancies o’ young folk. It’s you and me, Jen, that can understand how ane whiles likes ae body better than anither—and ye’ll gie me the message to your joe?”
Jen made a furious lunge at the bold Robbie with the poker she had in her hand. Her irons were not heating so well as they should have done. Janet was in a bad humour.
“Dear me, Robbie, did ye say it was the schulemistress?” said Mrs Mense with some concern; “nae doubt she’s a great friend o’ our Miss Lillie’s—but the misguided lad! He might have seen how Mr Wright, at Fairholm, made a wreck o’ himsel, wi’ marryin’ Willie Tasker’s daughter; but it’s nae use speaking—for nothing will learn thae young folk.”
“Never you heed, gudewife,” said Robbie, “there’s nae ill dune. I’ll wad ye a’ the red fish that comes into the net atween this and Sabbath that she’ll no tak’ him.”
“She’ll no tak’ him—the minister?—she’s no blate!”
“Whisht, whisht,” said the fisherman, “we needna be misca’ing folk that never did us ony ill. She’s as blate as she has ony occasion to be; but there’s anither lad in the gate, ye ken—that’s it, Jen; ye’ll mind by yoursel.”
“I wish ye wad haud the clavering tongue o’ ye,” said the indignant Janet; “Iken?—I ken nane o’ your ill ways—ye needna be putting the name o’ them on me; and wha’s the ither lad?”
“Do ye think I dinna ken that ye wad never trust me wi’ that bit message, if I was telling about anither young lady’s sweetheart? Hout, woman, ye’re no gaun to get round me wi’ the like o’ that. I’m a man to be trusted here where I stand; if I wasna, Jen, I wad ne’er hae had the face to ask a woman o’ your experience to send your bit message wi’ me; but ye may ken it’s safe in my hands—never mortal shall hear tell o’t but the ane.”
The exasperated Janet threatened Robbie with her hot iron; with a broad laugh the fisherman evaded it, but he did not retreat.
“And Miss Buchanan telled ye, Robbie?” said Mrs Mense, “weel she’s no ower nice o’ her counsellors.”
“She’s nane sae wise as to tell me,” said the incorrigible Robbie, “but I have an e’e in my ain head—no to say twa, and them black anes. Ye see ae black e’e’s as guid as three blue anes ony day; for no to speak o’ the licht that ilka body can see through, I hae a gift, like the cats, to see in the dark. Na, na, Miss Buchanan has nae thocht I’m in her counsels—but for a’ that, I ken; and ye may think when I heard the wives in the toun a’ keckling about the minister—I leuch. Some o’ them had new found it out, that he was aye wandering about the townend; but he needna fash his thoom—and I’ve a guid mind to tell him mysel.”
“He’ll no be muckle heeding,” said Mrs Mense with dignity; “the like o’ him, a fine-looking lad that micht get as guid a leddy as ony in the country-side; and she’s no even that you could ca’ particular bonnie. Oh! thae young callants, how they will aye rin after their ain fancies!”
The prudential demurrings of the Reverend Robert Insches as to the eligibility of the humble schoolmistress of Fendie were perfectly justified. The parish decided that she was not eligible—that the minister would clearly throw himself away—that the dignity of the Church would be compromised; but the Reverend Robert was now out of his depths, and had lost the footing of prudence. He was not aware that his wanderings about “the townend” began to be discussed by Robbie Carlyle and his customers. The minister was very much more interested at present in consideration of what was said and done in the little, quiet, dusky parlour, than in any other apartment in Fendie, or in broad Scotland. He had lost his balance; he could no longer manage himself according to his old rules, even though the dearly beloved “position” should be put in jeopardy. The chances of his pursuit made him a little anxious sometimes, but there was no withdrawal; he must either win or fail.
I am sick and capable of fears;Oppressed with wrongs and therefore full of fears;A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;A woman, naturally born to fears.—King John.
I am sick and capable of fears;Oppressed with wrongs and therefore full of fears;A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;A woman, naturally born to fears.—King John.
I am sick and capable of fears;Oppressed with wrongs and therefore full of fears;A widow, husbandless, subject to fears;A woman, naturally born to fears.—King John.
Mrs Buchananhad a good deal of anxiety about the position and prospects of her daughter. People began to speak of those constant visits of the minister, and now, when it seemed likely that some decision must speedily be come to, Mrs Buchanan began to think remorsefully of the long-tried familiar friend, whose place in their little household Mr Insches seemed so resolute to take. Yet she liked Mr Insches; she liked him for the simple, natural character which the influence of Helen seemed to draw forth more naturally and simply every day; she liked him, even for the faults which he could not hide; and most of all she liked him because he had fallen from his hobby—had lost his depth—and because it was no longer in his power to pretend that he could elevate that lofty head of his, and take his assiduities away. Besides it would be so very suitable; the modest dignity of his place, equal to the richest yet within the reach of the very poor—its necessary literature and necessary benevolence, which the good mother fancied would suit so well the delicate, impulsive, variable spirit of her only child: all these things increased her desire to see the suit of Mr Insches successful,—and yet—we are inconsistent always, we human folk—the gentle Mrs Buchanan looked wistfully at the address of the Edinburgh newspaper which he sent her constantly, and wondered how William would feel if he saw the new occupant of his long-accustomed corner. She did not like, in her kind inconsistency, to come to any distinct explanation with her daughter; often she spoke of Mr Insches, and Helen sometimes blushed as she listened; but the blush now was painful and uneasy. Mrs Buchanan became very anxious—desiring, and yet not desiring that this should come to some definite end.
Helen too felt her position very painful; night after night the Reverend Robert was there, with his good looks, his good mind, and the little sparks of temper which diversified andanimated them. Week after week passed away, and she saw or heard nowhere but in the newspaper the name of William Oswald. She began to have a disagreeable consciousness that it was possible she might come to like this Reverend Robert, and she began to be a little piqued and angry at his rival for suffering her to remain so long ignorant of all his proceedings and feelings. Helen did not remember then the very decided negative she had put upon his proposal to write; she did not remember anything at that moment, in exculpation of the resolute labourer toiling to the utmost of his stout faculties in the distant city. She only felt impatient, inconsistent, irritable; very much disposed to quarrel with the two candidates for her favour, and still more offended with herself.
In this mood she set out one dull May afternoon immediately after her little crowd had dispersed, to see a small invalid whose place had been vacant among them for more than a week. It was Robbie Carlyle’s little daughter, Mary, who had been ill with some childish epidemic, and was now recovering. Helen had been struggling with the most painful mood of her nervous temperament this day—its irritability; she found herself a hundred times on the very point of unnecessary fault-finding—in spite of all her precautions, impatient hasty words had escaped from her lips; and now she was turning her sword against herself, and was in a bitter, painful, unhappy humour, which it was best to carry away out of the society of any whom it might wound, into the still country road, along which she went with the unequal pace, now slow, now hasty, which was usual to her.
The gentle summer air, the dreamy silence just touched and made human with its floating far-away sounds of life, the dim sky above with its soft dark clouds and veiled sun—in these was a charm to which the unquiet spirit never failed to answer. A touch of the kindly humanity which makes the whole world kin, might have lifted her up in a moment into the midst of the sunny clouds of her own bright especial heaven; but when Nature was the physician, the effect was different; the unhappy mood stole away into the deep sadness peculiar to her, and she lingered now and then to look over the fair, dim country with those slanting lines of pale sunshine stealing over it, from the head of yon shrouded mountain in the west, her heart sinking into the depths the while. The cap of which Skiddaw wots when itis put on, was shading the dark brow of the Scottish hill, and the air was subdued and soft, and the wind sighed about the hedges as though its wings were drenched with rain. Few articulate thoughts were in the downcast mind of Helen; only the thread of linked and varied fancies, which sometimes quivered below the sunbeams like a golden chord, was now sad and drooping like the wind. The unconscious tears gathered in her eyes—the shadow fell heavily over her heart. Slowly along the quiet road she wandered enveloped in the mist of her changed mood. The annoyances and the little angers had vanished away, but she was very sad.
Just then she came in sight of the Firth; between her and its pale glittering waves lay the green breadth of the Marsh, with its fine sea-side grass, and pools of deep still water. Nowhere, far or near, was there grass so smooth and velvet-like, as the close thin-bladed grass of this dangerous play-ground, interdicted to the obedient children of Fendie. But the children of Fendie, like all others, had a craving for interdicted pleasures, and when they got together in bands and could have the countenance of other rebels, the Marsh was a favourite trysting-place; and the bold example of Robbie Caryl’s amphibious boys overcame scruples of timidity. It was excellent sport to leap over the gleaming pools of salt water; the strong really enjoyed it, and the weak, precociously compelled by fear of ridicule to do as others did, made pretence of enjoying it too.
Pale, slanting, watery sunbeams were gleaming in the salt pools and on the shrunken Firth, as it began to gather volume, and retrace its rapid steps to the shore. It has strange moods this southern Firth; you see bare, dreary sand-banks at night, dotted with the stake-nets of the fishers, in the very midst of its broad course, where ships will sail bravely when to-morrow’s tide is in. The far-away English hills were blotted out with the mist of coming rain, and over the dark hill in the west the sun threw his flickering, sickly beams, longer and longer drawn out, as he faintly glided downward to his bed in the sea.
The Marsh was somewhere about a mile in extent, stretching along the bank of the Firth eastward from the mouth of the Fendie water. For the most part it looked verdant and tempting at a little distance, and was indeed scarcely so much a Marsh as a great extent of fine sea-side grass—what is called links in other places in Scotland—save that this wasa complete net-work of clear salt-water pools, only to be traversed by dint of leaping. As Helen approached its borders a few children were painfully disentangling themselves from its labyrinth. Some of the pools were tolerably deep, and the Fendie children, to increase their dread of the Marsh, had been taught to believe them deeper. The little wanderers on this occasion had been struck with fear as they began to see the tawny waves of the returning Firth roll in on the dark pebbly sand far below. The clouds were gathering close over the sky as though the night was about to fall—some of the small hearts were beating timorously—they were all struggling as they could towards the road.
In the very heart of the Marsh where lay the deepest, broadest pools of all, shutting in the unwary wanderer on every side, Helen saw a little girl lifting in her arms a small, heavy brother, much younger, but not much less than herself. On even ground she could scarcely carry him, but now the young heroine had a desperate attempt to make. The rain had begun, the last lingering sunbeam was gone: all their companions were already out of peril; the poor little sister was essaying to leap over the pool which intercepted her, with the great lumbering boy in her arms.
“Dinna, Jeanie—dinna try’t,” cried another little girl, looking back; “just bide a wee while. I’ll rin and get Robbie Caryl—there’s nae fears.”
But Jeanie had many fears, and the rain began to come heavily down, and Robbie Caryl’s cottage was a full quarter of a mile away; so she made the leap, her frightened heart beating loud. It was successful so far; the little blubbering brother was safely landed, but she herself plunged to the knee into the pool, and her frock was torn, and one of her clogs lost in the tenacious wet sand. Poor Jeanie could not wait to get it out, and every step of her progress must be made at the same peril. She sat down on the sharp grass beside her little brother, and looked at her torn wet frock, and cried bitterly, with visions of high tide, and the dreary darkness, and being drowned, alternating in her mind with terror for what her mother would say about the torn frock and the lost shoe.
But Jeanie must rise and lift little Tammie, and try again; and as she looked wistfully over the dark Marsh, she saw some one taller and more agile than herself, springing step by step over the dangerous pools.
“It’s only a woman,” said Jeanie to herself, sadly; but immediately the little heart rose and grew courageous: “It’s the mistress!”
She had cured Helen. The cheek of the young schoolmistress of Fendie was glowing through the rain as if it never could be pale. Peter himself, the embryo fisherman, had never leaped those gleaming pools more bravely than Helen did. It was somewhat hard for an amusement to other than boyhood, but it made her eyes sparkle and her heart beat; she had never been blyther than she was now.
He was a serious weight, that little blubbering Tammie, and was somewhat afraid of the honour of being lifted in the arms of the mistress. It awed him into silence; and Jeanie ventured to pause, to rescue her shoe. The mistress assured her that the pool was not so deep after all, and Jeanie forgot her fears.
It was rather a dreary scene; the rain sweeping down heavier every moment, till against the lowering sky it began to look white, carried on the wind, like long, trailing skirts of some stiff silken garment; a little below, the tawny roaring Firth, making way sullen and strong over his shores, and lashing up on the shingle in long curls of foam, like a lion’s mane; and here the raindrops pattering in the ghostly pools, and the little girl at Helen’s feet forcing on the recovered shoe, and restraining her weeping in hysteric sobs, while Helen herself grasped the waist of the heavy Tammie with both her hands, and gathered up her dress for the laborious progress to the road.
A passer-by who came in sight on an ascending road at some distance hurried forward in fear for them when he looked down. There was no need: as he reached the edge of the Marsh, Helen cleared the last pool. Her dress was thoroughly wet; she had made one or two stumbles, but her rapid movements seemed more graceful, and her face was brighter, the banker Oswald thought, than when he saw her last in the drawing-room of the Manse; for Mr Oswald was the passer-by—and in the heavy rain and gathering darkness, with only the children to prevent their being alone, he was standing face to face with Helen Buchanan.
The little Tammie was rather a pretty child, and considering how his careful sister and he had spent the afternoon, was a very tolerably clean one; for the pools were very clear, and neither dust nor mud were on the Marsh; so as Helenset him on the ground, and bent down to help and console Jeanie, who had painfully followed her, they made by no means an ungraceful group—if we except the stout, perplexed elderly gentleman with the umbrella, who, not much less shy than Helen, stood with confused hesitation looking at them, and not knowing what to say.
A nervous tremor had come upon the young schoolmistress; half of it was physical, and proceeded from the unusual exertion she had made, and half of it owned her consciousness of the presence of William Oswald’s father. It was natural to her; the fingers which rested on little Jeanie’s shoulder trembled a good deal, and Helen’s attitude and glowing face were shy—a shyness which was at the same time frank, and an awkwardness by no means ungraceful. The banker meanwhile stood before her and her littleprotégés, and held his umbrella over his own head, and grew slightly red in the face. But there was no remnant of gracefulness in the embarrassment of the respectable Mr Oswald. The good man felt a little afraid of the shy, unquiet girl, wondered rather what she would say to him, and felt very much at a loss for something to say to her.
There were sounds of loud, boyish footsteps on the road, as Helen, stooping down, wrapped up the children as she best could to defend them from the rain.
“Eh!” exclaimed a voice corresponding to the feet, as Hector Maxwell of Firthside and his brother came up out of breath; “it’s Miss Buchanan—I knew it was Miss Buchanan—and she’s droukit. Here’s my plaid—take my plaid, Miss Buchanan! We’ve run a’ the road from the brae, because we saw you on the Marsh, and if you had just waited—”
Hector looked indignantly at the little heavy Tammie, and in great haste threw off his plaid.
“Miss Buchanan will not be much better with your plaid, Hector,” said Mr Oswald; “she must take my umbrella; it will be more serviceable, and not so heavy.”
Helen answered the somewhat constrained politeness with a little bow.
“Thank you, Hector; but you would be very wet before you got home, if I took your plaid from you.”
“But I’m no heeding,” said the generous Maxwell. Hector did not need to brush up his English for Helen; she was not so easily shocked as his sister.
“And I shall soon be home,” said Helen. “I must gowith these children, you know, and see that they are not scolded; and I am wet already. Come, Tammie. Hector, good-night.”
Helen looked up into the banker’s face, and her natural frankness struggled for a moment with her shy pride. She was almost inclined to say that she would share his umbrella if he pleased, and the next moment she thought she would say nothing; but finally there was a compromise.
“Good-night, Mr Oswald,” said Helen, as she took little Tammie’s hand.
“We are going the same way,” said the embarrassed banker; and so they did; and amicably under shelter of one umbrella, with little Jeanie and her brother getting very muddy and wet at their feet, the banker Oswald and Helen Buchanan walked side by side towards the cheerful lights of Fendie.
Mr Oswald cleared his throat; he rather wanted to begin a conversation, but he did not very well know how. If this young lady was to be Mrs Insches, the good man said to himself plausibly, it was very necessary that he should at least be acquainted with her; but certain it is that with no other prospective Mrs Insches would Mr Oswald have felt himself so uncomfortably conscious. He made a beginning at last on the easiest subject.
“How foolish people are to permit their children to stray out on that Marsh!”
“It is the fault of the bairns themselves,” said Helen.
The banker remembered that Miss Swinton, Hope’s oracle, applauded our natural Scottish tongue, and it was rather a pretty word, “bairns.” In another person he would have thought it vulgar, perhaps, but no one could call that low voice, with its changeful modulations, vulgar, and he began to like listening to it.
“Jeanie is afraid her mother will be angry; but when she sees them so wet, she will forget their misdemeanour, I hope.”
Little Tammie had been tied up as well as it was possible to keep him comfortable, but the poor little fellow was very wet notwithstanding, and was getting weary and sleepy as he trudged along the road. Helen had insinuated him between the banker and herself, and so he was protected by the wonderful umbrella, and moreover had his thumb to suck consolation from, which melancholy pleasure the haplessJeanie, walking on Helen’s other side, and laboriously gathering up her torn, wet frock, and thinking of what her mother would say, was quite deprived of.
“You seem fond of children, Miss Buchanan,” said the formal banker, after a considerable pause.
Helen began to forget the speciality of the case, in that this perplexed man was William Oswald’s father. She did not like, so sensitive and easily moved as she was herself, to see any one ill at ease beside her.
“I like them,” she said, frankly, “perhaps it is because I spend so much of my time among them; but I like their company.”
“And does it never weary you?” said the curious Mr Oswald.
Helen paused a moment—a sort of half-remembrance of the mood in which she left the school-room that day just floating like a cloud over the spirit which had shaken out its wings and was up again, singing in mid-heaven.
“We all weary sometimes,” she said; “but I not more, I think, than others. It is pleasant to work, and my own work, I fancy, is pleasanter to me than any other would be.”
Mr Oswald was a good deal astonished; he did not quite know how to answer so honest a statement, for the good man had taken it for granted that the young schoolmistress must be very sick of her labour, and eager to escape from it, which indeed she was not, except sometimes, when her wayward moods were upon her.
“I did not know that you knew Hector Maxwell,” said Mr Oswald, awkwardly; “do you admit those rude boys to your liking as well as the little girls, Miss Buchanan?”
“Hector Maxwell is not rude,” said Helen. “He is a genuine boy, and a great friend of mine. Yes, indeed; I like them all very well, until they become young gentlemen and young ladies.”
“And what then?” said the banker.
“And then I become a little afraid of them, and they do not suit me any longer,” said Helen, smiling, as she paused at an open door, where the mother of Jeanie was looking out anxiously for her little truants. “I thank you, Mr Oswald; good-night.”
Is she not proud? doth she not count her blessed,Unworthy as she is, that we have wroughtSo worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?Romeo and Juliet.
Is she not proud? doth she not count her blessed,Unworthy as she is, that we have wroughtSo worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?Romeo and Juliet.
Is she not proud? doth she not count her blessed,Unworthy as she is, that we have wroughtSo worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?Romeo and Juliet.
Thelittle roundabout Miss Insches began to grow disturbed about the length of her own continuance in office. She saw that very soon her dominion over the dining-room and the drawing-room, and her share of the comforts of the library, must come to a close; and while the good-humoured sister anticipated, with considerable relief, her return to the plebeian, unpretending home where there was no necessity for being always genteel, she felt also a good many qualms about resigning Robert, and Robert’s beautiful chairs and tables, into the keeping of a stranger.
“For ye see, Miss Buchanan, she’s young,” said Miss Insches to herself, not daring to have any other confidante, “and for a’ she’s nae better—I’m meaning for a’ she’s a hantle puirer than oursels, no to speak of Robert—she has gey high notions like himsel’; and I’m very doubtful that she’ll just let Nelly dust the big room, and no think of putting to her ain hand. Robert says I should do that too, but he’s a young lad for a’ he’s the minister, and doesna ken a’thing. I wish she may just be mindful o’ himsel’. He’s aye been used wi’ his ain way, puir man, and has been muckle made o’, and muckle thought o’; and I’m sure a better lad—”
Miss Insches paused with an incipient tear in her eye. The worshipped minister son, of whom the mother at home was so proud—the omnipotent brother whose slightest word was law—alas! was he to cease to be an idol—to come down from his absolute throne, and be limited to a constitutional monarchy like any other man, with perhaps a young, proud wife exacting service from him, instead of rendering the devoted homage which was Robert’s due? Miss Insches’s eye again wandered over the shining tables of the sacred drawing-room, and her heart was troubled.
“He’s aye had his ain way, puir man!” she repeated, mournfully, as she carefully closed the door and sighed. PoorRobert! he was to be married, as all Fendie said—he was to have his own way no longer.
The Reverend Robert was seated at his writing table in the library; it was a study day. Miss Insches stole noiselessly in, closed the door, and took her seat at the window, with her seam in her hand. Robert was writing his sermon; the good sister sewed those new shirts of his in devout silence; when her thread fell she picked it up with a look of guilt—she might have disturbed Robert. Foolish Robert! the young wife would not reverence his stillness so.
“Janet,” said Robert, graciously, “we are to dine at Kirkmay on Monday. I have just had a note from Mrs Whyte.”
“Ye dinna mean me, too, Robert?” said Miss Insches.
“Certainly I mean you too, Janet,” said the young man, with some impatience. “Why, you have been at Kirkmay before.”
“Yes, Robert, I’m meaning that,” responded the dutiful sister humbly, “but it’s the Monday of the preachings, is’t no? and will there be more folk than ministers?”
“Mrs Whyte is to have a few friends,” said the Reverend Robert, with a conscious smile, “and there is no reason why they should only be ministers.”
“I didna say there was,” said Miss Insches; “is onybody we ken to be there, Robert?”
Robert smiled again. His sister had come to understand the particular meaning of this smile.
“I fancy Miss Maxwell of Mossgray will be there,” he said with a blush as he returned to his sermon.
Miss Insches applied herself to her shirt with another little suppressed sigh. She understood very well what was meant by Miss Maxwell of Mossgray; and Miss Insches by no means disliked Helen; but the great question whether she would be sufficiently careful of Robert when advanced to the dignity of Robert’s wife was hard and difficult to solve. Miss Insches shook her head as she went on with her work. On Monday—the crisis might come on Monday.
Monday when it came was bright with the sunshine, and fragrant with all the sweet sounds and odours of May. On the preceding day had been the half-yearly Occasion, the Communion Sabbath of Kirkmay, and the Monday’s services were of thanksgiving, according to the reverent usage of Scotland. Mr Wright of Fairholm was the officiating minister, and preached a chaotic ponderous sermon, which, according to the judgment of the Kirkmay elders, had “guid bits in it; very guid bits; but was naething like the minister’s.” The minister was very much beloved in his parish; they rather prided themselves, these simple people, on their possession of a man who wrote books, even though the books were but sixpenny ones; and read his small biographies with proud regard. The one gentle weakness of his fine character came out as an excellence in their eyes, and there were few in Kirkmay who did not boast of “the minister.”
After dinner, while the gentlemen were still down-stairs, Mrs Whyte, with her lady guests, pleasantly occupied the comfortable plain drawing-room, which, though it was by no means so fine, did yet, Miss Insches could not fail to perceive, look a very much more habitable place than the corresponding room in the Manse of Fendie. Mr Whyte dabbled a little in all the gentler sciences—the flowers which his wife cultivated, because she cultivated everything beautiful which was within her reach, the good minister classified, and talked of with gentle erudition; and specimens of fine seaweed, and delicate mosses, and fossils not very rare, and shells picked up on the margin of the Firth, evinced his universal liking, and his only rudimentary knowledge of the kindred philosophies of nature. He was not very learned in these various departments; he only marvelled over the wondrous mechanism of everything which came from his Master’s hand, and cherished them all tenderly for their Maker’s sake.
The ladies—Mrs Gray, Lilias, and Helen were the onlylaypersons present—were very comfortably gathered into groups in the drawing-room discussing the notable things of their own district: the church, their several families. The small company was by no means dull, especially as Mrs Whyte’s children, the little boy and girl about whom their frank mother had said there could not be two opinions, were, with all their might, entertaining the guests.
The room was rather an oddly shaped room; it had a curiously angled corner, with a window in it, which Mrs Whyte chose as her summer seat, and playfully called her boudoir. The work-table which stood in it was scarcely clear of its ordinary lumber even now; there were traces that the minister’s wife had been sitting there this morning, singing over her household work the low-voiced songs of a pure mind, happily at ease. Lilias Maxwell had strayed alone into MrsWhyte’s chair by the window. She was very pale, and as she looked out upon the verdant country, and the Firth and the hills far away, her fingers came slowly towards each other, and were painfully clasped as was their wont. It was drawing near again—that day which might change the current of her life.
As she sat there, Helen Buchanan approached quietly; the pale, sad, absorbed face touched her to the heart.
“You are very sad, Lilias,” said Helen, as she stood screening her friend from the other occupants of the room, “but you will not tell me why; will you let me say anything—do anything for you?”
“Yes, Helen.” Lilias rested her head silently upon her companion’s shoulder, and closed her eyes. It was a relief to her; her heart was sick—she could not speak of it, but here in silent confidence she could lean for a moment the weight of her trouble. “I have heard nothing; I have had no word this long, long, weary time—and the day is coming near again. To-morrow—after to-morrow will be the day.”
There was nothing more said, for the sickness rose up blank over the heart of Lilias, and the tears were in Helen’s eyes; but the drooping head of the Lily of Mossgray, overcharged with heavy rain, leaned on the friend’s breast, and was comforted. She remembered the moment long after, and so did Helen. More than many words—more than much bewailing together of a sorrow more openly confessed, did that silent confidence bind them together.
The conversation going on in the room was not in the least abstract; local and individual were all the subjects under discussion, and the talk about them might have been called gossip. It certainly was of the genus if not of the species to which that unpopular name is given. In a “countryside,” and above all in a little town, metropolis of a country-side, where each family has a certain connection with all, conversation, unless galvanically kept up in the region of books, must glide into this channel; and the clerical character which this little company of ladies possessed, as strongly marked as their husbands below, increased the necessity. Having satisfactorily dismissed the children of the respective Manses, and ascertained who had had hooping cough, and which it was who had come so easily through the measles, the respective parish over which she presided was the next grand object before the mind of the clerical lady.Its successes, its adversities, its sins, its great people and its small; and each parish lady was interested in her neighbour’s dominions.
Now it happened that this chapter of backslidings was a peculiarly sad and melancholy one; revealing under the healthful rural air and sweet fresh sunshine, a moral atmosphere, dense, unwholesome, and heavy. While one listened to what those lamenting people said, one’s arcadian visions of rural purity sorrowfully vanished. Follies of youth, the world said; alas! not follies, but sins, dark, far-spreading, unregarded; and public opinion had even ceased in the peasant class to brand them with the unutterable disgrace which is their fate in others. Young, fresh girls heard of those vices—heard them lightly spoken of by older lips grown callous—and saw the sinner scarcely disgraced at all; it was a great evil, shadowing the souls of many as with a low, spreading, deadly tree, between them and the sun.
“Could nothing be done,” whispered Helen in Mrs Whyte’s ear, as, trembling with bitter shame and pain, she had listened to some story of the fallen, “you who have influence; who may dare interfere in such matters; could the air not be purified in some way—could nothing be done?”
“My dear,” said Mrs Gray, “it is nothing but our evil nature; we cannot mend it; what can we do?”
“We cannot mend it,” said Helen in her low, vehement voice; “but we can strive, endeavour, fight—do anything, anything to change such a state of things. It is our work in the world; the other things are only by the way; this is our work—what we were born for. To pull away all obstructions, to let in, everywhere, the light of heaven. If we once did that, this evil could not be—surely it could not be.”
“I think so, Helen,” said the kind Mrs Whyte; “we, in our position, might do much more than we are doing; but at least, we all lament these evils bitterly—you believe that?”
Helen did not answer; she wanted that experience of the maturer mind which could discriminate between an exceptional and an ordinary case, and refrain from sweeping judgments. The shock of pain with which she heard of evil was always with her, a spur to endeavour something against it; but while others lacked will, she lacked power. She could not cast herself into the crusading ranks and assail the powers of darkness as she thirsted to do; but the impulse of warfare was strong upon her—she could not rest.
“Ah, my dear,” said Mrs Gray, “you do not know yet as you will know the misery of this wicked world, and how vain it is striving with it; every day I live I see it more and more.”
“Yet it is to be pure,” said Helen, with her head erect and her eye kindling, “it is to be filled with the knowledge of Him—it is to be made fit for His reign. I do not know—no one living may see that day—but I think sometimes that if we believed that, we could have no doubt, no fear. We should look to the great hope which lies upon the world like sunshine, and not to the misery which it earns every day. It is to be pure—God is pledged to us that it shall be so; but our arms rust, and we use them not—our days pass and we do nothing; yet we are to labour for it—it is so ordained—and it is to be pure!”
Helen’s eyes suddenly fell, her head drooped. The gentlemen, some of them, had already strayed upstairs, and close beside her stood the Reverend Robert listening with ostentatious attention.
“Yes,” said the somewhat rough voice of Mr Wright of Fairholm; “a minister’s life is a very hard life, Miss Buchanan; we have to labour as you say; the very Sabbath, which is a resting day to everybody else, is a hard-working day to a minister.”
Helen turned rapidly away; it was a strange anticlimax.
“Miss Buchanan did not mean that,” said Mrs Whyte. “Miss Buchanan likes the good, wholesome work. She thinks we do too little, instead of too much, Mr Wright.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” said the cumbrous, heavy man, “there is a great deal of truth in that. The people ought to know their own duty, and not leave the work entirely to us as they do; and the elders really need stirring up; but a minister—few people know how much is laid on the shoulders of a minister.”
“And you, Mr Insches?” asked Mrs Whyte, smiling, as her quick eye glanced over the great, stooping, uncouth figure of the strong man beside her in whom was no impulse to work, and who actually felt fatigue more easily than would the nervous delicate girl.
Mr Insches hesitated; it was not his policy to differ with Helen; but he had not received the inspiration much more than his sluggish brother. He was still, to a considerableextent, a matter-of-course man, doing what he must do, and not very much more.
“The ministerial life,” said the Reverend Robert, with some dignity, “is a life of great exertion. We are never perfect of course, but it is a most laborious life, the life of a conscientious minister.”
It was a compromise—it pleased nobody. Helen turned away, unconsciously disappointed. She had expected something better.
“’Deed, Robert,” said Miss Insches, “I’m aye feared the ither way about you. It’s my terror, Mrs Whyte, that he’ll just wear himsel out, and I’m sure if he was to get a wife and I kent beforehand wha she was to be, I would warn her no to put such nonsense notions into his head; for ye see, Miss Buchanan—Eh! Robert, is there onything ails ye?—are ye no weel?”
But Robert was not “no weel”—he was only frowning upon his too-honest sister, and making an elaborate face. It was too late; all the eyes in the room were turned to the blushing, angry countenance of the Reverend Robert, and he heard tittering in the corners. He turned away full of wrath—it would not do; there was no putting the restraints of delicacy or prudence over the simplicity of Janet.