CHAPTER VIII.

He speired at her mother, he speired at her father,He speired at a’ her kin,But he speiredna the bonnie lass hersel,Nor did her favour win.—Katherine Janfarie.

Walter Johnstoneremained nearly a month at Fendie. During this time he made two or three visits to Edinburgh, but as a new beginner, he was not yet very much cumbered with business. He was the brother of Lilias—I became interested in all his pursuits, and indulgent of all his foibles. We were seldom separate; for if I was abroad with Walter almost all the day, I sat in my especial corner in the Greenshaw parlour all the evening, and that privilege was cheaply purchased by any fatigue or inconvenience. I fancied I began to make some silent gradual progress. I fancied Lilias was scarcely so shy as she used to be in my presence, and I myself began to be a little more rational in my adoration. To the devout homage of the age of chivalry, I endeavoured to add a little of that more ordinary and slighter thing, which is called “paying attention.” I adopted asmuch of it as the shyness of my deeper feeling would permit, and almost envied, while I was offended by, the fluent ease of Maxwell, who like myself was a frequent visitor at Greenshaw, but who, unlike me, could be quite at ease with Lilias, and ventured to treat her like any ordinary girl. Ordinary girl! what do I say? there was no such being in existence to me. Unapproachable, above all others, was my own queen and lady, but the light of her presence shed a reflection uponthem. I owed them all a reverence for her sake.

Maxwell was preparing to go away, he said. I wished him in India with all my heart, and wondered audibly why he delayed so long. Not that I was what is vulgarly called jealous; but while I did feel envious of any sharer in my sunshine, I grudged that it should fall on one to whom it was merely common light. I was angry because he did “pay attention” to Lilias, and I thought meanly of him because, admitted as he was to her society, he could be content with “paying attention.” Altogether his presence irritated me. I heartily wished him away.

Walter Johnstone was a pleasant companion—even forgetting, had that been possible, whose brother he was: we became great friends. He was too acute not to perceive how matters stood, and I fancied he had no desire to discourage me. We were out together on the last day of his stay at Greenshaw: he had become very confidential, he told me his circumstances with his partner, his anticipated income, his intention of taking a house in York Place; and finally, the last and greatest of all, his prospect of getting a mistress to the house. I listened with the greatest interest, and congratulated with the utmost warmth—it was impossible for any brother to have been more sympathetic than I—and then, with sudden boldness, I poured out into his ear my own great secret. When the first barrier was removed, the flood poured forth too strongly for any diffidence to check it. I spoke very fervently, as I felt. I fancy it must have been with some sort of natural eloquence too, for Walter’s hand trembled when he grasped mine, and promised me his help.

Before I recollected myself, while we were still in a kind of cloud of excited earnestness, I found myself in Mr Johnstone’s presence; and then, as there is no boldness like the nervous boldness of your shy man when he reaches the needful heat,I made speedy conquest of him. Then I was ushered into the well-known parlour, with its forenoon look of quietness and new arrangement, to wait for Lilias.

The slow sunbeams stealing through the blinds, the chairs standing formally in their places, the closed piano, the books replaced in their shelves, the work-table withdrawn in its corner; how vividly I remember all these homely usual things, and how solemn they made my waiting. She came at last—and then I remember in a mist how the full tide of my eloquence poured forth again, and how I was successful. Yes, successful! I left Greenshaw triumphantly, the proud possessor of the plighted troth of Lilias.

I returned home in happy unconsciousness of how or where I went. On the way I met Maxwell, I recollect, and was too much elevated above all ordinary things to do more than speak the briefest words of recognition to him, overflowing though I was with the universal benevolence of a light heart; and yet, withal, I remember how some faint ghost of consciousness haunted me that I was not happy enough—that Lilias’s consent was sadly mechanical, that it lacked—but no! I was not so profane as that; I could see nothing lacking in Lilias.

I was not to see her again that night—she was engaged at some Fendie party—and so I wandered the evening out by the water-side, flying from less ethereal society. I had half an idea of going to tell Lucy, but, like a miser, I chose to exult over my secret treasure a little longer before I shared the joy of it with any one.

And I remember well what wondrous dreams glided before my eyes, in bright processions, peopling yonder far-away glades and noble trees with groups of fairy figures, more beautiful than ever dreamer saw before. I saw her pass over the threshold of Mossgray with her bridal grace upon her. I saw her dwell there in her gracious, growing womanhood, drawing all pleasant things towards her as flowers turn to the sun; and though my heart did indeed beat high with proud gladness, when I remembered that it wasmyname she shed so sweet a lustre on, and that it wasIwho stood beside her in all the shifting groups of my fancy—even that stood aside, as selfish rejoicings must always do, in presence of the supreme joy I had in herself. That she was—that in our dim world there shone this one especial star, as true, as pure, as gracious as the heavens—whose constant outcoming must bebeneficence and love; whose constant meed—too poor a one for her lofty deservings—must be blessings and honour. I could not fathom the depths of my own happiness—I could but float upon its sunny stream.

The next morning rose brightly in all the brilliant joy of June, and as early as I could venture, I set out for Greenshaw. The slight morning traffic of those quiet Fendie streets—the cottage wives, upon its outskirts, going about their cheerful household labour—the domestic sounds that came pleasantly from the wayside houses—I remember them with the sunshine of my own joy over all, giving harmony and finest keeping to the homely picture. At last I approached the well-known holly hedge. A woman stood at the gate looking down the lane; the parlour-blinds were closed; there was a look of excitement about the house, as if something unusual had happened. I hurried on, noticingthatin my haste, but too pleasantly expectant to think of it.

The woman at the door was Mr Johnstone’s factotum—a sensible, matronly person, who exercised the more laborious duties of housekeeper, for which Lilias was too inexperienced and young.

“Good morning, Margaret,” I said, as I came up and was about to pass in.

Margaret stretched out her hand to stop me.

“Oh, Mossgray!”

There was evident distress and trouble on her face. A slight tremor of alarm came over me.

“Has anything happened?” I said. “What is the matter, Margaret?”

“Ower muckle—ower muckle,” said the housekeeper of Greenshaw, lifting her apron to her eyes; “oh, for onysake dinna gang in!—and yet he maun ken—there’s nae use trying to keep it frae him.”

The last part of the sentence was spoken under her breath; I became very much agitated.

“What is it, Margaret? Is Lilias ill? What has happened?”

“I’ll tell ye, Mossgray,” said Margaret, quickly, the arm which she had extended to bar my entrance falling to her side. “It wad be dearly telling her, she had been ill this day. She’ll live yet to ken, that the sorest fever that ever chained a mortal to a sick bed wad hae been a blessed tether o’ her wilful feet this woefu’ morning. Dinna think o’ her, MaisterAdam. I ken it’s hard, but ye maun try; dinna think o’ her—she’s no wurdy o’t.”

I clutched the woman’s arm, angry and eager. I could not speak.

“Weel then, she’s gane—she’s away—her that was the light o’ our e’en—that we couldna see ill in—that I’ve heard ye even to the very angels, Mossgray. She’s gane—fled out from her father’s house with yon young haverel o’ a doctor, that has neither wealth to keep, nor wit to fend for her. Oh, guid forgie me, Mr Adam! what have I dune?”

My face alarmed her, I fancy. I pressed blindly in—Walter Johnstone stood before me. I was close upon him before I was aware of his presence; I looked in his face.

He turned from me with a burst of emotion, which seemed to wake me from some terrible nightmared sleep.

“Mossgray, I did not know it—I had no suspicion of this. Believe me, Adam, believe me, that I am blameless! She has deceived us all!”

I felt a hoarse contradiction struggling from my dry lips—still I could not hearherblamed. Then I turned away; I could hold no further parley with any one; I hurried into the sheltering solitude of my own lonely house.

The bright world without mocked and scorned me—the passers-by looked wonderingly at my stricken face. I could not linger by the water-side now, in the first shock of my vanished and ruined dreams. I fled into this solitary room, within the silent walls of which so many slow years have passed since then, and threw myself into my chair, and pressed my throbbing head between my hands. It was only then that I realized what had come upon me.

I am an old man now, and these passionate struggles of youth have faded in the far distance, veiled in the gentler mists of memory. Yet I do remember them—I do remember me of minute and trifling things—the open book lying there upon this floor—the solitary lily drooping in its vase—the snowy leaf that had fallen upon the window-ledge below; and how the pale and fierce light of my calamity fixed the image of them for ever on the tablets of my heart. I remember—it is not such seasons that men can forget.

I had lost her for ever—alas! that was not all—she had never been. The conviction forced itself upon me till I grew well nigh mad. I dashed my clenched hands into the air; I could not restrain the wild fit of passion, the irrationalfrenzy that possessed me. I was alone! the things which I had worshipped and made my idols were things of air—mists of my early morning, melting away before the stern and sober light—and I was left here desolate, forlorn, and solitary, and there was nothing true under the sun.

It is a bitter and a sorrowful thing to mourn for the dead—to lament over those who have gone away out of this shadowy land into the brighter country, where they yet are, and shall be, all the more sure in their wonderful existence that we see them not. But to mourn for those who have never been—to behold stars fall from your horizon, the glory of whose shining was but a phantasm of your brain, a creation of your own soul; to awake suddenly from your contemplation of some noble and beautiful spirit, the fairest that ever gladdened mortal vision, and to find that itisnot, andwasnot, and that the place, which in your dream was illuminated by its glorious presence, is filled by a shadowy thing of unknown nature, which you never saw before—this is the bitterest of griefs. If there is sorrow more hard than this, I bow my head to it in fear and reverence; but this is my woe, and prince of woes.

Drifting from false anchorage, surrounded by spectral ships and ghostly receding shores, hopelessly driven over the treacherous sea; with no light but an indefinite twilight, sickening the faint heart with visions of shadowy haven and harbour, and false security. A world of mists—a universe of uncertain, unknown existences, which are not as you have dreamed, and among whom you must go forth alone, no longer devoutly to believe and warmly to love, but to grope darkling in the brightest noonday, to walk warily, shutting up the yearning heart within you, in jealous fear. It is hard to make this second beginning—hard to fight and struggle blindly against this sad necessity—yet the poor heart yields at last; either to put on the self-wounding mail of doubt and suspicion, or to live in dim and mournful patience, a hermit all its days.

Oh! wherefore should I busk my heid?Oh! wherefore should I kame my hair?When my true love has me forsook,And says he’ll never loe me mair.Oh, Mart’mas wind! when wilt thou blawAnd shake the dead leaves aff the tree?Oh, gentle death! when wilt thou comeAnd take a life that wearies me?—Old Ballad.

I took little note of how months or weeks went after that era. I lost that summer time. It has fallen entirely from the reckoning of my life, leaving only some vestiges of what looks now like incipient madness behind; for I was entirely alone; shut out as much from that ordinary communication with the world, which painfully and beneficially compels the suppression of one’s agony, as I was from all human sympathy, all kindness, all compassion. I had lost all; my dreams of a brighter home—my friends—all were gone. Hew Murray far away in India, and his sad sister Lucy alone in Murrayshaugh—to no others in the wide world could I look for any of those gentle offices which belong to friendship; and the one was thousands of miles away—the other was no less solitary, no less stricken than I.

I did not see her during the whole of that summer. Had there been no cloud overshadowing her own lot, I believe I might have sought the balm of Lucy’s pity, and perhaps been in some degree comforted; but as it was I never sought to see her—I saw no one—I shut myself up through those scorching summer days—I remember yet how their unpitying sunshine sickened me to the very soul—in this solitary room. I wandered ghost-like on the water-side at night; I neglected everything that I had formerly attended to. I held no communication even with the servants of my lonely household, which I could possibly avoid. It was little wonder that they should think me crazed; the belief shot in upon my own brain sometimes like an arrow—almost the consciousness that I was mad.

I might have been—how soon I know not—but that I was mercifully snatched from the edge of the precipice.

The summer was over, the autumn days were darkening and growing chill, and the wan water of Fendie carried showers of faded leaves upon its bosom, and grew husky and dark with frequent floods. The transition from the fierce summer sunlight soothed me. These six terrible months had done on me the work of years. I was young—almost a lad still—but I had always been older than my years, and pain brings with it unenviable maturity. In my solitude I felt untimely age come upon me; I carried in my youth’s frame a man’s worn-out heart.

My housekeeper, Nancy Mense, suffered no one to come near me but herself; and her own services were rendered in silence, with something of that compassionating awe, which we hear is paid to the victims of mental malady in the East. I had never observed this until the day of which I am about to speak.

It was a dim, cloudy October day, overcast with showers, and I was subdued and softened; the drooping, disconsolate sky and damp air seemed to hush the fiery pains within me. Mrs Mense entered my apartment, and, without speaking, laid a letter upon the table. I noticed a painful solicitude in her face, as she looked at me before she left the room; I took up the letter—it was from Lucy Murray.

“We shall be far away before you receive this, Adam. I write, because hereafter you might think I did you wrong in sending you no farewell. Of our own affairs I can tell you little, even ifnowyou cared to hear of them. I can guess that my father gives up almost all he has; all the land, everything but a bare pittance that will merely maintain us—and the house. He has not parted with Murrayshaugh itself. He vows he never will—but utterly reduced in means as we must be, we must leave it now—perhaps—perhaps sometime, if good days ever come, to return home again.

“I dare not tell you where we are going; indeed, I do not even know. You know my father’s harsh and haughty pride; he says no one shall see our poverty who has ever heard our name before. He might have lingered longer, I believe, had I not told him of your generous offer; he took it, as I fancied he would, with hard and bitter anger as a humiliation. Yet thank you again, Adam, for thus cheering me, when the world indeed was black enough around us.

“For yourself, what can I say, Adam Graeme? that you are not alone; but alas! that is small consolation. Whocan tell the appointed place which this trial has in the lives of each of us, the appointed purpose for which it has been sent? Adam, let us not look upon those wrecks of the vain dreams we fancied true; all is not untrue, though these are; all is not dark because these lights have failed. The feverish flashing of these meteors is gone for ever; but there remains the sober, stedfast, healthful light of day, the sunshine of heaven over all.

“Adam, let us awake; let us think no longer of those who have done us wrong, but of Him who took so grievous wrong upon Himself for our deliverance. It is not meet that the lives for which he paid so wonderful a price should go down ignobly to the grave; do I need to say more to you? do I need to do more than bid you arise, Adam, for His sake, and do the devoir of a man, whether He send sunshine or gloom, a dark day or a bright.

“I have only one word to say more; be careful, Adam: look well to your words and deeds, lest the tempter take advantage of them to bring more sin among us. I cannot venture to speak more plainly, but as you would have others—others whom both of us have held very dear—preserved from a deadly snare and sin, look heedfully to yourself, and let this wild grief engross you no more.

“Write to Hew; and remember us all if we never meet again. Farewell, Adam, and farewell.

“Lucy Murray.”

I was roused by Lucy’s letter, roused in some degree to remember my manhood, and to think how I wasted it; but one struggle does not overcome a grief like this. So I fell into a bitterly selfish mood, contrasting her lot with mine—her cold womanlike submission with my self-torture—and while I thought of the conclusion of her letter, with a certain degree of idle languid wonder, I hugged my calamity closer to my heart. No one had fallen from so bright a heaven into so blank an earth as I; no one had ever equalled my misfortune, and who but myself could comprehend my grief.

The wailing breeze suited me; I opened the window and leaned out, resting my brow upon my hands. Heavy raindrops fell from the eaves upon my unsheltered head—I did not heed them.

The sound of voices below arrested my attention; I remember wondering that they did. No later than the daybefore they would have made me shrink into myself jealously, in fear of contact with the speakers; now I only remained still and listened.

“My good woman, I want to see Mr Graeme,” said a strange voice; “I assure you I will take no denial fromyou, so it is needless to keep me here on the damp soil—my feet are quite wet enough already.”

“Your feet are nae concern o’ mine,” said Mrs Mense, with some ill-humour in her tone; “nae doubt ye can change them when ye gang hame, like other folk. But my maister’s no heeding about seeing strangers; and sae I tell ye—no meaning ony disrespect—once for a’.”

“But your master does not choose to let you answer for him, I presume,” said the stranger. “You can surely ask him at least.”

“And wha has as guid a right to answer for him, puir lad!” said Mrs Mense, her voice sinking to an under-tone, “as me, that have fended for him a’ his days? I tell ye there’s nae need for asking, Sir; I ken weel enough he’ll no see onybody.”

“This is insufferable!” said the applicant for admission. “Here, my good girl, doyougo and tell your master that I want particularly to speak with him—I, Doctor Pulvers of Edinburgh.”

“Eh, I daurna for my life!” exclaimed the shriller voice of Janet, Mrs Mense’s niece; “I wadna face Mossgray for—”

“Haud your peace, ye silly tawpie!” cried Mrs Mense. “Do ye mean to saythat’slike a gentleman, speiring at the fuil of a gilpie, and me here?”

“Don’t be afraid, my girl,” said the stranger. “What is it that alarms you for Mossgray?”

“If you say anither word o’ your havers, I’ll fell ye, Jen!” exclaimed my housekeeper, in a voice shrill with passion. Then I heard a slight noise, as if the girl had made her escape.

“Well, Ma’am,” said the stranger, “I hope you’ll condescend to inform me what special reason you have that I should not see your master.”

Mrs Mense seemed to falter.

“I’ve nae special reason, Sir; only if Mossgray doesna heed about seeing strangers, it’s nae business o’ mine or yours either.”

“But why does he object to see strangers?” persisted the pertinacious visitor.

“I didna say he objected; I only said he wasna heeding; and it’s no my place to be aye asking the whys and the wherefores. Maybe you never were no weel, or had a sair heart yoursel? and if a gentleman like the laird canna be fashed wi’ a’ the gangrel bodies that come about the town, naebody has ony business wi’ that.”

“But I am no gangrel body,” said the stranger. “Come now, you have kept me out long enough; if the young man is unwell, that is only another reason why I should see him—I’m a physician.”

“I didna say he was no weel.”

“Then in the name of wonder, what did you say?” exclaimed the stranger. “I shall have serious suspicions, I assure you, my good woman, if you answer me so. Why was the girl afraid to speak to her master? and what do you mean?”

The heavy drops from the eaves had fallen one by one on my head—my hair was wet with them—my brow damp with more painful dew. I rang my bell hurriedly.

“Ye can bide till I come down,” I heard Mrs Mense say, as she shut the door, “and I’ll ask the laird, since ye will hae’t; but ye’ll stay where ye are till I come back again.”

In a minute or two after she appeared at the door of my study; her ruddy face was paled by emotion, and her eyes turned upon me with a painful solicitous look that smote me to the heart.

“What is the matter?” I asked as calmly as I could, “and why do you not bring that man up to me at once, Nancy, instead of keeping him so long at the door?”

Again she looked at me—a conscious, terrified look, which I trembled to interpret.

“Oh, Mossgray! for the Lord’s sake tak tent o’ yoursel! you’re an innocent lad—ye aye were an innocent lad—ye kenna what ill may be brewing. I saw ane that saw Mr Charlie in the toun yestreen—oh, Mr Adam, dinna look sae fearsome!—and if ye canna meet this man—if ye’ve ony fear—just say the word, and I’ll send him away.”

I felt large drops of moisture burst upon my brow; I shuddered through my whole frame; I felt an irresistible inclination to flee away, and escape from all these miseriesfor ever. I had indeed awakened from my frenzy of grief—and such an awakening!

“Why should I fear to see him?” I asked, the words refusing to come plainly from my stammering tongue. “What is this? Do you think—do you think I am mad?”

She did not answer; but with tears streaming from her eyes she continued to fix that painful, terrified, conscious look upon my face.

I felt my nostril dilate—I felt some bitter scorching tears flood my eyes. Then I became suddenly calm.

“God help me!” I exclaimed in my agony, and my prayer was heard.

I grew calm in a sudden consciousness of restored strength. I thought steadily of Lucy and her warning; of this humble woman here, whose honest heart sorrowed and laboured for me. I was roused—I put my wrongs forth, out of my heart, and committed myself to God.

“Now,” I said, “let him come up.”

My kind housekeeper withdrew, wiping the tears from her cheeks. I saw she had acquired some sort of trembling confidence from my bearing; then I did what I could to make my appearance less conspicuously negligent, and then with a nervous concentrated quietness, I waited for my visitor.

He looked me very steadily in the face, with a singular emphatic look. I did not think at the time what was the meaning of this, or it might have raised a ferment in my veins, and made me appear as they wished me. As it was, I saluted him calmly, gliding at once into my usual manner, and feeling with a consciousness of unspeakable relief, that I was myself again.

“I have been residing in the neighbourhood for a week or two, Mr Graeme,” said my visitor, after introducing himself as Doctor Pulvers of Edinburgh, “and hearing that you were in delicate health, I took the liberty of volunteering a call; that is to say—for I am taking too much credit to myself—some of your friends begged me to do so, expressing themselves very anxious about you.”

“My cousin, Mr Charles Graeme, I presume?” said I. “My friends are not so many that I should have any difficulty in discovering them.”

Doctor Pulvers looked confused. “No, no. Mr Charles, whom I have the pleasure of knowing, is no doubt much attached to you, Mr Graeme; but, to tell the truth, the principal person was a lady—and a very young and charming one, I assure you. Mrs Edward Maxwell.”

It was a lie, I knew, and I contained myself—the person who bore that name was not my Lilias; but I would not have inflicted on Charlie such a pang as shot through my heart, while these words were deliberately pronounced in my ear, for all the evil he had done, and for all he designed to do. This was the application of the touch-stone; my simple unsuspicious wits were miraculously sharpened as I thought—I saw that this was the test.

“Mrs Maxwell is very kind,” I said, and I did not falter.

Then he began to inquire into my symptoms.

“This is quite useless,” I said. “I cannot suppose, Doctor Pulvers, that you can have been in the neighbourhood as you say, without hearing from some benevolent friend the history and origin of any sufferings I may have been enduring. Such as they are, they belong to myself alone, and admit of no probing; but I am glad that I can authorize you to satisfy the sudden anxiety of my friends, by an assurance of my rapidly progressing recovery. I beg you will carry my thanks to all; but symptoms I have none to tell you, unless it were of one or two swellings of indignation which I have been sensible of lately—and that I presume is a tolerably healthful emotion, and one which you are not accustomed to class as a symptom of disease.”

Doctor Pulvers looked annoyed and discomfited, and I became sorry for him; however he changed the subject with admirable art, and had plunged me into a long discursive conversation before I was well aware. He was an intelligent, agreeable man, and I had shut myself out from all society so long, that I forgave him the object of his visit, and would have almost forgotten it, had he not with most delicate tact andfinesse, when he fancied me completely off my guard, suddenly introduced that name again, which made my whole frame thrill as with a wound, and brought the moisture in cold showers to my brow. He repeated this again and again, but each time I conquered.

At last he rose to leave me.

“Mr Graeme,” he said, offering me his hand, and looking again in my face, but this time with a less singular steadiness of gaze than before, “I assure you I am most happy that Ihave found you so much better than your friends imagined. I congratulate you heartily on your evident sound health and good constitution; but, if you will permit me to advise, do not try it so severely as you have done, and come yourself, and let all interested in you see how perfectly competent you are on this, and all other matters, to judge for yourself.”

His tone was grave and significant—I believed the man. He was glad that his mission had failed; he was glad that I was not added to the list of his miserable patients. I had strength enough left to part with him in firm calmness—nay, I went further; I accompanied him to the door, and saw him leave Mossgray.

And then—those bitter, scorching, desperate tears of manhood that burned upon my cheek—those convulsive sobs that shook me with their fierce strength—this fearful loneliness, which left me a prey to all the fiery fancies within, and all the secret foes without—“God help me!” I had need.

A sudden fancy took me, as I wrestled fiercely with this fierce affliction. I left the house, and hurried along that side of the grounds of Mossgray which immediately skirts the road—where there was a wall of four or five feet high, lined by old trees, which hung their high foliage over, shadowing the highway below. They were nearly bare then, but under the sombre covert of a group of firs, and taking advantage of the stump of an old ash tree, I ventured to look over. Doctor Pulvers was proceeding at a dignified slow pace along the road, while some one approached hurriedly in the other direction—I looked again; it was Charlie. They must meet immediately beneath the spot where I stood—I drew back among the firs and waited.

“Well, Doctor?”

“You have fortunately been quite misinformed, Mr Charles,” said the constrained voice of the physician. “Your cousin has as perfect possession of his faculties as either you or I. I am glad to be able to inform you of his perfect health. He is not either very robust or very happy, I dare say, and has the good sense and courage not to veil the latter, with false pride or levity, as I have seen many young men do, but his constitution is sound, and his mind elastic. I have not the slightest fear of him.”

There was a dead pause; for a moment or two after, Charlie said not a word. Then he exclaimed, somewhat loudly,—

“Well, of course I am very happy to hear it. The more fool he, to give these gossips the chance of speaking of him so; but Adam was always a sentimental fellow. Of course it is a great satisfaction to me to find it all groundless.”

They passed on. I heard no more of their conversation, nor wished to hear; and I was too thoroughly worn out to be moved by my former passions, either of sorrow or anger. So I took rest—not very quiet nor peaceful, but still more natural and refreshing than I had known for many nights and days.

There is no light in earth or heavenBut the cold light of stars,And the first watch of night is givenTo the red planet Mars—Is it the gentle star of love?The star of love and dreams?Ah, no! from that blue tent aboveA hero’s armour gleams.—Longfellow.

I was roused. I began to understand the necessity of that ruling one’s own spirit which is greater than taking a city. I began to see that my self-martyrdom, with all the indulgence of its pain, was but, in its kind, a selfish pleasure after all, and that the duty before me was not any shutting out of the common mercies of the world, or lingering act of self-torment, but a firm and manly subduing of my sorrow. It is a trial even to make this discovery. It is a hard test of patience, when the soul quivering with its own suffering yearns to plunge into some great matter—to endure, to do, to sacrifice—and feels within its aching veins the spirit of a Xavier, eagerly flying to the painfullest labour, and refusing the solace of usual comfort—to have the blank of a steady endurance offered to it instead; to be compelled to yoke its turbulent might of grief again to the common toils of every day; to put on the usual smile, to draw the usual outer garment of ease and seeming peacefulness over the wild pulses of a wounded heart. I say you shall find more scope fordesperate bravery in this than on any louder field of battle; for true it is, and of saddest verity, that there be many men to whom taking a city is a small and light matter, in comparison with the firm ruling of this precious stronghold and violent garrison within; many men who, like the proud Syrian of old, would willingly dare the fiery process of some sudden miracle, but with hearts full of bitter disappointment and pride, would turn from the placid Hebrew waters in which the blessing lay.

I was bound to the stake. I was compelled to rule myself with the iron hand of a despot; to return to all my ordinary occupations; to come and go as I had been wont; to listen and to speak of things and persons whose names sent my blood flooding back upon my heart, in the shivering heats and chills of agony, with an assumption of calm ease and indifference the while terrible to bear. And I did all this, that my only relative might be prevented from dooming me to the prison-house of madness—might be preserved from the sin of unrighteously making himself master of the lands of one by whom he had been regarded as a dearly cherished brother. My lands! I would have given them gladly for the joy of believing that Charlie had not meditated a cruelty like this; but for the sake of my good name, and for his own miserable sake, that his sin should at least go no further than intention, I constrained myself to bear this hard and painful discipline of ordinary life. I could not go away as I longed to do, and in strange lands and among new faces endeavour to forget myself, and the loneliness which was my fate. I was bound first to vindicate myself to our little world, and remove all occasion of evil speaking; for my liberty and my means were both concerned. Had Charlie established his case, I must have lost all.

Edward Maxwell had not gone to India. Afterherfate was united to his, her father made some exertions to establish them at home. They were shortly going to Glasgow I heard, but as far as I could I shut my ears to their name; and though many mentioned them before me with cruel smiles, there were some who knew more truly the nature of my feelings, and tried to hush the rest. But it is hard to do what I laboured to accomplish. To convince one’s self that the being held highest and most loveworthy through all one’s lifetime has altogether vanished from this earth, though there still remains the external form in which the imagination shrouded so fairand beautiful a spirit. I knew indeed that the Lilias of my fancy had never been, but I could not mourn for her as for one dead.

No, the dead are sure. Our most jealous fears cannot think of change—our utmost misery of grief cannot suppose end of existence to them. I fancy the very death makes them more peculiarly our own; but far other and far bitterer is such a calamity as mine.

I was shortly to prove both.

The Murrays were gone, no one knew whither; a single servant remained in the house, but she could give me no information as to the retreat of her master. I felt that I did wrong to ask her, and when I wrote to Hew, I did not repeat the question.

In the beginning of the year, Hew answered my letter. I remember noticing with sudden fear that the address was not written in his hand; but the long letter within reässured me, and I did not observe, in my eagerness to read it, another brief note which dropped from the enclosure upon the table.

There was a tone of subdued and unexpressed sympathy in the letter which touched me deeply. No one in this world, not even Lucy, could enter into my feelings as Hew could, and what he said was the inferred sorrow of closest friendship; the sympathy which does not speak of your grief, but which enters into your heart, and stands at your own stand-point, and thinks as you think—as you think, but more gently—as you will think when your grief is further away, and in the hushed and quiet land of memory it has become dim and calm.

“Cheerly, Adam,” wrote Hew Murray, “we are becoming men; and if there are harder processes involved in that than in the old disciplines we used to share together, we must nevertheless bear the heavier means for the sake of the greater end. Manlike and masterful as our fathers were, when the old steel breast-plates at Murrayshaugh and Mossgray covered brave hearts beating high to the natural warfare which they carried over the Border. They too must have had foes, less tangible than the rough barons and yeomen of Cumberland, those fighting men of other generations; and I begin to think, Adam, that the natural element of us all is war—active contention, strife of one kind or another—and that we depart from our most healthful state when we lay down our weapons, and endeavour to halt in the inevitable contest. No longerfor imprisoned princesses—though there is right good meaning and simple wisdom in these stories of our youth—nor yet any longer forlosand fame, but because there is true life and health in the warfare, and because—

“Adam, we have had much and intimate intercourse, but scarcely ever have we spoken together of Him who is the centre of this world’s history, the wonderful Presence that pervades all the changes of its many ages past and to come. But, Adam, because He bids, because He leads, because He himself for the strife and for the victory’s sake was clothed as one of us. It is a wonderful history, that, of this long struggle ascending up to the very source of time, of the good and the evil, the righteousness of heaven, and the sin of earth; and now to mark the individual ways by which we solitary units, thus far down in the stream of the world’s existence, are wakened by so many different obstacles, each in his own separate course, to carry on the warfare. To turn from our idolatry of the false beautiful here, to lawful worship of the true sublime yonder; to take up arms for the Lord’s sake and do valiant service against His enemy and ours, that ancient Titan, Sin. The true work of a man, the great war worthy this humanity, which He shares who saved it.

“I think it is a gracious and blessed thing, Adam, that this natural propensity to strife within us should have so noble an outgate. Do you ever think how we used to dream long ago of delivering Scotland? and there are foes greater than the old Edward scheming against her purity and freedom now. Ah, Adam! you are happy, you are at home, and can do your devoir for our own land and people, while I, a stranger and a sojourner here, can only strive to maintain the ancient honour of our name, and commend our faith to minds which know not how to receive the one religion—the one Lord. I think I am not the kind of stuff which the mission-man should be made of, for continually I yearn for home.

“You do not tell me if you saw Lucy before she left Murrayshaugh; and I want to ask you a delicate question, Adam, which I should not put to any one whom I trusted less entirely—Charlie Graeme—what of him? Lucy does not speak of him as she once did; her last letter indeed intimates vaguely, that from the change in her own feelings towards him she has seen it necessary to break the engagement between them. Do you know anything of this?Whether Lucy is sinned against or sinning, I cannot tell—from her letter I should fancy the latter; though certainly she is the last person in the world whom I could think of as likely to change.”

Poor Lucy!—in her solitary bravery, her woman’s pride, she was stouter of heart than I.

My spirit rose to the encouraging words of Hew. I too had been thinking more of late of the true end and aim of life; that momentous matter which always stands out in the twilight of grief, sometimes indeed arrayed in fantastic lights and shadows, but sometimes distinct and clear as it has been revealed. I had begun to discover how much my wayward soul was out of tune with the infinite mind disclosed to us in revelation, and the harmonious universe around. The warfare was begun within me. Hew Murray’s letter was such as I needed; it stirred me to better things, it made me ashamed of my indolent brooding, my cumbering of the ground.

As I laid it down, I remarked the note which had fallen from its enclosure, and took it up with some curiosity. The handwriting was strange to me, and the first words made me start in the utmost alarm and terror—the remainder smote me down into the blank of utter grief.

“Sir,

“Finding the enclosed letter addressed to you among Mr Murray’s papers, and having heard him speak of you often as a much-valued friend, I think it my duty to inform you of a most unhappy occurrence which, if it has not already resulted in death, must have placed him in the utmost danger, and made his ultimate fate almost certain. A short time ago, Mr Murray was despatched on a political mission to the Rajah of ——, whom, it was thought, his firm and energetic character would especially qualify him for dealing with. The Rajah is an artful, wily, dangerous man, and Mr Murray knew before setting out that the mission was of a perilous nature. But our unfortunate friend has not been able to reach the place of his destination. Two or three days ago one of his native servants returned here, worn out with fatigue and want. He states that his master has been made prisoner by one of the predatory parties that infest that district, and that when he himself contrived to make his escape,Mr Murray, who had made a very desperate resistance, was entirely overpowered by his captors, who were stripping him of everything he possessed, including costly presents intended for the Rajah. He was severely wounded, and Doolut (the servant) believes that these fierce native bandits would not encumber their retreat with a prisoner so helpless. At the same time, there is a possibility that his life might be preserved (though, I fear, the chances are all against it) in expectation of a ransom. Every effort has been, and will be made, to discover if he still exists, and the place of his imprisonment; though I can give you very little hope of a favourable result. This most unhappy event has occasioned much regret in all circles here, Mr Murray having been, for so young a man, very greatly respected; and I can again assure you that every exertion will be made to discover his fate with certainty.

“I have the honour to be,“Sir,“Your most obedient servant,“R. Churchill.”

The letter dropped from my hands; I was stunned. I had thought of death—in my thankless folly I had almost wooed it for myself—but never had it occurred to me in connection with my young, strong, life-like friends; and Hew—Hew, the dearest, truest, most noble of them all! I groaned aloud in the bitterness of my soul; I had held lightly this terrible hopeless might of death, and now I fell prostrate under its power.

Then I started in a frenzy of hope, to write to the stranger who had sent to me this sad intelligence. I do not know what I said to him; but I remember how I begged and prayed, with involuntary unconscious tears, urging my entreaty aloud in the intensity of my emotion, that nothing should be left undone; that every means that could be used, should be put into immediate operation—that my unknown correspondent would employ agents for me to prosecute the search for Hew. When I had finished, I thought it cold and indifferent—it would not do—I could not be content to depute to mercenary hands such an undertaking as this. I resolved to go myself to India, to seek for my dearest friend.

But in the mean time there was much to be done. Icould not leave home without making many arrangements, and losing precious time. So I sent off my letter, and began immediately to prepare for my journey.

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