“I am a son of Mars, who have been in many wars.”—Burns.
“I am a son of Mars, who have been in many wars.”—Burns.
“I am a son of Mars, who have been in many wars.”—Burns.
“Oh, Hope, Alick’s come,” exclaimed Adelaide Fendie one bright August day, as she alighted from the nondescript gig driven by John Brown, and went with her arm linked in her friend’s into the banker’s sober dining-room. “Mamma is so glad—we’re all so glad—Alick’s come.”
“And, Hope,” added Victoria, “somebody else is come too. It’s the sword and cocked hat that Tibbie saw at Hallowe’en. Oh, Hope, if you only saw him!”
“Who is it, Adelaide?” asked Hope.
“It’s—Alick’s come,” said the slow Adelaide with her dull blush, “mamma is so glad, Hope; and we’re to have a ball and parties—I don’t know how many—and Mossgray and young Mr Graeme are coming to dine to-morrow, and next week we are going to Mossgray—because Miss Maxwell will never go out anywhere now you know, and Mr Graeme wants to have Alick and me,” added Adelaide, with a dignified consciousness of having reached the full years of young ladyhood. “I’m to go too.”
“Will Mossgray ask you, Hope?” inquired Victoria.
“Hope is too young,” said Adelaide, in her new dignity. “Doesn’t mamma tell you, Victoria, not to talk about things you don’t understand? but though you’re too young to go out to parties yet, Hope, you’re to come up and see Alick: and there’s Alick’s friends too, you know.”
Hope was offended. She was full fifteen, and thought herself a very mature womanly person, so she condescended to ask no further questions about Alick’s friends, though Victoria’s malicious laugh, and the dull consciousness of Adelaide, made Hope a little curious; but Hope’s mind was occupied with things of very much more importance than cocked hats or swords.
“Adelaide, does Alick know about Peter Delvie? oh, Mr Insches says perhaps it is not true—and poor Saunders!—does Alick know anything, Adelaide; does Alick think it is true?”
“Hope! do you think our Alick knows anything about Peter Delvie?”
“If he does not it is very bad of him,” said Hope boldly; “for Peter is a Fendie man—they were both Fendie men away in yon great India; but did you not ask him, Adelaide? did you not think of poor Saunders when Alick came home?”
“I forgot, Hope,” said Adelaide, more humbly.
“Will you not forget to-day then? willyoumind, Victoria? and I will come up to the Mount to-morrow to hear; for Saunders thinks he is dead; oh, Adelaide, if he only were living to come back again!”
Hope had never been able to forget the agony of the old man; but her visitors were by no means interested.
“Do you mind Alick, Hope?” said Adelaide, “mamma says he is so improved; and he’s as brown as he can be with the sun; and then there is Captain Hyde, Alick’s friend; he is an Englishman, and belongs to such an old family. They came in with the Conqueror.”
“And they called them Van Dunder at first,” said the malicious Victoria, “and then they were married to a Miss Hyde, a rich lady: and now their full name is Dunder Hyde; but Alick says it should be Dunderhead, because he’s so stupid.”
“Victoria, I’ll tell mamma,” said the offended Adelaide.
“But Van Dunder is not like a Norman name,” said Hope, who was more erudite; “it’s like Dutch: are you sure they were Normans, Adelaide?”
“I don’t know anything about Normans,” said Adelaide, with dignity; “but I know that Captain Hyde’s family came to England with King William; for he told me that—”
“But that would be Dutch William,” said the historical Hope; “and does he wear a sword and a cocked hat; and do you like him, Adelaide?”
Adelaide drew herself up.
“Hope! what are you thinking of!”
“What is the matter,” said the straight-forward Hope; “would it be wrong if you liked him? I am sure I like Halbert Graeme very well, and perhaps I will like Alick; but I like old Mossgray far better; and I wouldn’t be afraid to say it.”
“Young ladies should not speak so,” said Adelaide, in her dull solemnity.
Hope was very innocent:—she still thought of a younglady only as an ordinary mortal, and not as a professional person—for Hope, schemer and matchmaker as she was, had never been initiated into the system of mutual silliness with which boys and girls, just before they become men and women, surround each other; and although perfectly undefended from the romantic, and prone to be overpowered by it, whenever her hour should come, she had triple armour in her honest, artless temper, against all the affectations of the young lady and young gentleman period.
“Has Alick ever been in a battle?” inquired Hope with some awe.
“Oh, Hope, so many! Alick does not care about battles now,” said Adelaide; “if you only heard Captain Hyde and him!”
“I wonder if he ever killed anybody,” said Hope, with a shudder. “I wonder if he ever took away a man’s life—maybe somebody’s son, Adelaide, like poor Peter Delvie—or like the gentleman—”
“What gentleman, Hope?”
“I mean somebody I heard of,” said Hope, prudently checking herself, as she remembered that what she knew of the bereavement of Lilias was not fit news for her gossiping companions; “but to take away a life, Adelaide,—I think it must be very terrible.”
“I don’t know, Hope,” said the stolid Adelaide; “but Alick has been in so many battles that he does not care for them now—and so has Captain Hyde.”
“And will you mind, Adelaide,” said Hope, as she saw them again safely deposited in the gig, under the care of John Brown, “will you be sure to ask about Peter Delvie?—and I’ll come up to-morrow to hear.”
Adelaide promised, and they returned home; but the promise faded from Adelaide’s memory before they were halfway to Mount Fendie; and when the faithful Hope went up to the Mount next day to ascertain the result of her friend’s inquiries, there was much to be said about Captain Hyde, but nothing of the hapless Peter. The strangers were out. Hope did not see them—and she had to go away, contenting herself with another promise, which was in like manner broken.
Peter Delvie was an early friend of Hope’s. He had helped her over burns, and comforted her when stung by the nettles and pricked by the thorns of juvenile mischance—had pulled brambles for her from inaccessible hedge-rows, and fished unattainable water-lilies to her feet. Hope remembered all his gentle deeds, and liked the unfortunate Peter. And Saunders, in rigid, hopeless misery, was condemning himself as the murderer of his son; the old man’s stern grief moved the young heart strangely. Hope would have endeavoured any exertion to bring comfort to the harsh, agonized, despairing heart.
A second disconsolate journey Hope had made to Mount Fendie; but Adelaide still forgot; and wearily, with something of the discontent and melancholy which elder people feel, in sight of the indifference and lack of sympathy displayed by the common herd, Hope was returning home.
She had entered the garden of Mossgray before she became aware that there were visitors in it. Under shadow of a fine beech tree, Lilias, in her mourning dress, sat on a garden seat. It was Saturday, and those holidays were now very frequently spent by Helen Buchanan with her pensive and delicate friend whose health needed all gentle care and tendance. Helen was standing behind Lilias, looking shy and something out of place, as she bent over the downcast Lily of Mossgray, and tried to shield her from the remarks sometimes addressed to her by the young men who stood with the Laird and Halbert at a little distance. The strangers were Alick Fendie and the redoubtable Captain Hyde; Hope did not know them—she came up, stealing under cover of the trees, to Lilias and Helen.
Lilias had turned her head away, where no one could see the drooping, melancholy face. They had been talking in her presence of those fatal Indian wars—had been running over, with careless levity, those names, made so bitterly memorable to her, of places where the dead had been. She had turned aside, with her trembling arm resting against the silvery beech; and Helen’s eyes were cast down too, and no one saw what clouds were passing over the wan face of the Lily of Mossgray.
Hope did not think of that, as she advanced innocently to the mourner’s side, and looked into her face; the tears were standing upon those colourless cheeks in large drops—the pale lips were quivering.
“Hope!” said Helen, in reproof.
Lilias put her hand upon Hope’s, gently detaining her.
“Hope has been my shield before,” she said in her low,broken voice; and Hope’s heart swelled with graver emotion than was wont to move it, as the drooping Lily leaned for a moment upon her shoulder. She remembered very well the other time—the bow window of Mrs Fendie’s morning-room and the first meeting of Mossgray with his ward; but Lilias was still paler, still more fragile now, and people said she would not dwell long in this life.
The young heir of Mount Fendie, lieutenant in his regiment, but captain at home, was the model of his sister Victoria—malicious with a kind of pert cleverness, which passed muster for wit very well among the stupid Fendies; but Captain Hyde, his butt and companion, was much too complacent to be at all conscious of being quizzed. In himself a tall fellow of his hands—in estate a considerable proprietor in one of the rich English counties on the other side of the island—the arrows of ridicule glanced innoxiously from off the glittering armour of good-humoured self-importance which bucklered Captain Arthur Hyde.
“Poor Robertson,” said Alick Fendie, in his loud voice, as Hope began to listen. “He was killed in that skirmish at ——; but, by the by, don’t you remember hearing a rumour before we left India, Hyde, that all these poor fellows were not killed after all?”
Captain Hyde gaped a “never heard it.”
“I am sure you did,” responded his brisk companion. “Why, man, don’t you recollect? Somebody’s servant had turned up, and reported that himself and his master were not dead—very near it—very badly wounded, but not killed outright, and that the Affghan fellows were nursing a lot of them—I think there was a lot; and the fellows who had taken them were just about to turn their coat; they are always doing that, these wretches of natives, and were taking care of them to curry favour with us; yes, to be sure we heard it. It was a mere rumour, you know, but it might be true. Anything may happen in India. Men get killed and then turn up again in the most miraculous way—eh, Hyde?”
Lilias had risen and turned round blindly to Helen, as if seeking support.
“Save me, Helen,” said the Lily of Mossgray, “save me from this hope.”
“And is that all? do you know nothing further about these unfortunate young men?” said the anxious voice of Mossgray.
“Nothing at all,” answered Alick Fendie briskly. “It may not be worthy of the least credit what we did hear. I only give it you as a rumour.”
“Lilias is ill; we will go in,” said Helen, supporting her friend on the nervous, firm arm, which began to tremble in sympathetic sorrow. “Will you come to us when you can, Mossgray? Lilias is ill.”
And Lilias was ill. After this long sinking in the deep waters of grief, the fever of hope was too much for her. Large, cold drops stood upon her white, shadowy forehead, her thin, wasted frame was shaken with sudden pains, the mist of blindness was upon her eyes, and the slender arm twined in Helen’s leaned so heavily—you could not have fancied there was so much weight in the slight, drooping figure altogether as there was in that one thin arm.
“And, Captain Alick,” said Hope, stepping forward bravely, “did you see Peter Delvie in India? They have sent home word that he is dead; do you think Peter is dead?”
“Why, I believe this is little Hope Oswald,” exclaimed Captain Alick, shaking Hope’s hand energetically, and offering a salutation from which Hope, immensely red and angry, withdrew in high disdain. “Why, Hope, you are taller than Adelaide; and what a little thing you were when I went away.”
“Will you tell me about Peter Delvie, Captain Fendie?” said Hope, with some dignity.
“Who is Peter Delvie, Hope? I never saw him in India, I assure you. But why do you never come to the Mount? I must come and see you myself one of these days.”
Hope went away dissatisfied and sad. Nobody would care except for themselves, nobody would attend to her inquiries, nobody would think of the old man who had lost his only child.
Lilias was sitting on a low chair, bending her head down upon her knees, as Mossgray looked in at the door of their usual sitting-room. Her face was hidden in her hands; she did not see him.
Helen stood close beside her, holding one of those feverish, hot hands.
“Helen, it is very hard to bear,” said the broken Lily, “very terrible. I thought I was patient, I thought I had learned to endure; but this hope, this false, vain hope—I cannot bear it, Helen.”
Helen answered nothing; she only pressed gently the thin, trembling fingers which lay in her own.
“And if it was true,” said Lilias, “they were many, very many; would you have me hope that it washim—thathewas saved alone?”
And then the wan face was lifted, supplicating, begging to be contradicted—instinct with its woeful entreaty that this hope which it called false might be pronounced true.
“Will you not speak to me!” said poor Lilias. “Have you nothing to say to me, Helen?”
“I cannot tell,” said the faltering voice of Helen. “I have heard of very wonderful things; this may be one of them. What can I say, Lilias? There have been such deliverances before—I cannot tell.”
Lilias rose up suddenly, and laid her arms upon Helen’s shoulders, supporting herself there.
“He is the only son of his mother. She would pray for him night and day. Helen, Helen, there are few so blessed. Would they not be heard in heaven, those prayers?”
Poor Helen trembled as much in her strength as the other did in her weakness; she dared not recommend this hope to the sick heart, which had already grasped it so strongly.
“We must wait, Lilias,” she said. “It is very hard, very hard to do it, I know, but it is in God’s hands, and we must wait.”
Lilias put up her hands to her head; she staggered as she withdrew from her support. A sickly smile came upon her face.
“I ought to go to his mother, Helen. Will you come with me to seek his mother? Mossgray is very good, very kind, but she has more need of me. She has not written, because she would think, like me, that he was dead; but it may be true. You have heard of very wonderful deliverances. You said so, Helen; you thought it might be true.”
But Helen’s head drooped. She feared to encourage the expectation.
Lilias sat down upon her low chair again, and again bent her head upon her knees; her feeble frame was distracted with bodily pains no less than her mind was with mental.
“I think my head is dizzy, Helen,” she said, in her melancholy, broken voice. “I think I am forgetting myself—for this is only vain and false, a mockery of hope. I see itis. If the grief were yours, Helen, you would see that this could not be true.”
Those strange artifices of misery! they brought tears to the eyes of the looker-on, to whom this did indeed seem a mockery of hope.
“You must stay with her, Helen,” said Mossgray, when they had left Lilias alone. “You must stay with her till I return. I cannot leave Fendie to-night, but to-morrow evening I will. I will go to London, and ascertain at once if there is any truth in this. Do not let Lilias know where I am nor what is my errand. I leave her with you in all confidence, Helen. You will be tender of my poor Lily.”
I do not hope—ah, no!—mine eyes are clear,I see it would be vain; perchance, perchance,Some other heart doth hope and will be blessed;But mine—why should this gladness come to mine?I have been used with grief;A sombre way has mine been, all my days,And yet perchance—oh, Heaven, such things might be!As that one giant joy should come to me,Eclipsing common joys.—Old Play.
I do not hope—ah, no!—mine eyes are clear,I see it would be vain; perchance, perchance,Some other heart doth hope and will be blessed;But mine—why should this gladness come to mine?I have been used with grief;A sombre way has mine been, all my days,And yet perchance—oh, Heaven, such things might be!As that one giant joy should come to me,Eclipsing common joys.—Old Play.
I do not hope—ah, no!—mine eyes are clear,I see it would be vain; perchance, perchance,Some other heart doth hope and will be blessed;But mine—why should this gladness come to mine?I have been used with grief;A sombre way has mine been, all my days,And yet perchance—oh, Heaven, such things might be!As that one giant joy should come to me,Eclipsing common joys.—Old Play.
“Helen,” said Lilias, “do you think I am very weak?”
They were sitting alone together on the morning of the third day after Mossgray’s departure. It was early, and Helen was just preparing to return to the daily labours which she could not intermit.
“I think you have had great trouble, Lilias, and you are not strong; but why do you ask me?”
“Helen,” said the pale Lilias, “do you never think it is selfish to sink under this blow as I have done? I think it has sometimes come into your mind;youwould not have done it, Helen?”
“We are not alike,” said Helen, hurriedly. “I think I should have rebelled, I should have repined. I should have been like the Leonore of that ghastly ballad; but I havemy daily work to battle with, and little cares and little humiliations to teach me patience—yet I will never be so patient as you are, Lilias.”
“It is because I am alone, Helen,” said Lilias, in her faint, pleading tone of self-defence, “because there is no one in the world, not one, to whom I am the best beloved. If I had been like you—if my mother had lived—I think I should have been brave, Helen; but now I have only my grief, nothing more, in all this cold world.”
“And Mossgray, Lilias,” said Helen.
“I am very ungrateful,” said Lilias, bending her head. “I wanted you to think that I was not selfish, Helen; and yet to lose them all—to lose them both in one year, it is very bitter, very hard; you cannot tell how hard it is.”
She was very pale, though perfectly composed; but now as she paused, a red light seemed to flash across her face for a moment, the flicker of that unnatural, feverish hope which she fancied she had tried to quench, but which, instead, was gathering strength every hour, and lighting up her heart with an unnatural radiance.
“I wish you could work as I have to do, Lilias,” said Helen, as she drew her homely shawl about her. “I think it would be good medicine if you were strong enough. If we could only change, if you could fight a little as it is natural for me, and I could be patient as you are; but we must be content. I am going out now to my little battle-ground; there are some struggles and bitternesses in it, you know; will you try to-day to think how important you are to all of us—to us all here, Lilias, and to let the sun come in upon you?”
“These long days!” said Lilias. “I am not patient, Helen. I think they will never come to an end. Will you bring some of the children with you? Hope Oswald—any of them. I like to see the children; and we will try to-night to forget—to forget,” said Lilias, with the flickering red light upon her face again, “not the sorrow, but the hope.”
The feverish hope which had so frail a foundation to build its airy fabric on—what was it that wakened out of the gentle passive depths of Lilias’s mind the feeling that her sinking calm of grief was wrong, and that there was need to exert herself to cast it off? It was not reason, it was not thought; it was a new hysteric strength, other than comesfrom the deliberated wisdoms of man; a fluttering meteoric light, springing up about her, dangerously exciting, desperate, wild. She said she would forget it; she did not know that it was the fairy strength of this hope inspiring her, which made it possible that she should forget.
And while Lilias began to move about the house in the new strength, which, she fancied, arose from a resolve to exert herself and show her gratitude to her friends, Helen went quickly down the Waterside to her daily labour. Her quick, nervous, tell-tale motions seemed to have been subdued in presence of the mourner, and her face looked paler and quieter than was its wont. That varying temperament of hers had a strange facility of catching the tone of the atmosphere in which she was, and wearing it unconsciously as the sky wears the clouds. The happy good-morrow twitterings—not songs—of the birds among the dewy glistening leaves confused the stronger voice of the wan water, and filled all the fresh morning air with inarticulate music—cheerful sounds came through the intervening trees from Fendie. Children, yonder, on the high-road began to flock out of the cottage doors to school. Scarcely any heart could refuse to rise with the buoyant upspringing new day; but along the green, soft path, and through this plain of long waving grass by the side of the bridge, Helen Buchanan went quietly with a dimness on her face.
She had cares and bitternesses enough, as she said. William Oswald was still in Edinburgh; he had not been home even for a day; but the Reverend Robert had learned with inexpressible surprise and considerable pain that the young schoolmistress of Fendie did not choose to accept the dignified position to which he had elected her. It was almost the first rebuff he had met with since the triumphant beginning of his career, and he was a mortal young man, though he was a minister, and felt the mortification of being rejected to its fullest extent. So the Reverend Robert concealed the disappointment of the true honest feelings which did him honour under a veil of pique and pride. He could not manage to be indifferent, yet in his manner, when he accidentally met her, and in his attempt at indifference, was almost rude to Helen. Her sensitive pride began to rise again in full tide; people had begun to notice her for the sake of the minister, who now believing, as thoughtless malice said, that the minister hadchanged his mind and withdrawn in time, withdrew too, and marked the change: and Mrs Buchanan’s little quiet house fell into its old loneliness once more.
And the old weariness came sometimes back, and forlorn bitter thoughts swelled sometimes again about the changing heart. It was the penalty she paid for her power to endure and to enjoy.
So she went to her usual labour, and worked at it as she had worked for years; but other schools were rising in Fendie, where the little daughters of the masons and joiners and seamen of the good town could acquire a greater stock of accomplishments than Helen professed—where the fancy-work flourished in a perfect luxuriance of patterns, and the sober “whiteseam,” which was poor Helen’s staple, was thrust aside in disgrace. Helen was so foolish as to have an opinion on this subject; she had a good deal of wilfulness about her, it must be confessed; she thought it an honourable craft for those small maidens of hers, the manufacture of garments for their various homes; but was somewhat impatient of the tawdry prettinesses after which their ambition yearned.
It did her a little harm this weakness of aesthetical feeling; she thought of the natural fitness and propriety, and they gave her no thanks; and so it chanced that Helen got few new scholars. She felt the evils of competition; as her elder girls dropped off with their quota of education completed, younger ones did not come in to fill up the declining numbers, even when the young schoolmistress having discovered her error began not very willingly to amend it. Mrs Buchanan was beginning to look very sad and careworn; the steps of the coming wolf were already at the door.
The half year’s rent would soon be due, and the mother and daughter, in their anxious consultations, could by no means see where it was to come from. And the banker Oswald was their landlord; the gentle widow and the proud, sensitive Helen were at one in that point; there was nothing that they would not rather do than delay their payment by a single day.
Mrs Buchanan’s little portion was very attenuated now; the expenses of her husband’s illness and death had nearly swallowed it up, and the remnant was in the form of bank shares; but the very meagre dividend which this little capital yielded yearly was not above half what was necessary for this dreaded rent. The good mother painfully hoarded the littlestock of school-fees; painfully expended what was absolutely needed—and lay awake far into the night and started again before the sun was up, calculating that sad arithmetic which could not issue in anything but a failure—laboriously trying to bring together the two ends which would not meet.
So Helen needed the natural spring and buoyant life of her temperament as much as Lilias did the gentle human touch of hope: their sorrows were apportioned to them by the same Hand which did so diversely create their spirits. Lilias had been very patient, until this wild light of hope broke in upon her still dead sorrow; and now Helen was bravely fighting against the cold incoming tide of neglect and poverty; holding up a high heart above the waves, and keeping as she could, unwetted by the chill spray about her, the wings of her strong life.
The banker Oswald was looking on; he had managed to ascertain so much of their need, and means, and mode of life as would have added bitterness to their struggle had Mrs Buchanan or her daughter known of it; and with singular interest and even some excitement, as he might have looked at a strong swimmer contending with the stronger current, the obstinate man looked on. To see these women battling so stoutly with a tide more powerful than that under which Walter Buchanan had sunk in his mid-day; to observe how Helen bore her fall from the temporary elevation which the minister’s attentions had procured for her, and went upon her way alone in her own unconscious dignity, so open to all kindnesses, still, and with the frank, clear skies of youth constantly breaking through the clouds of injured pride—no thought of coming to the rescue entered the mind of the banker, but there were no two persons in Fendie, out of his own household, whom he observed with half the interest which fascinated him to these. He fancied William had altogether forgotten the poor schoolmistress, and while he was entirely satisfied that such should be the case, a certain shade of contempt for this, obtruded itself into the pride with which he regarded the rising name of his son: but had William suddenly presented himself to ask the banker’s consent, as he had done before, the answer would still have been the same; he was still determined, unchangeable, bound by the resolution which nothing should break—never!
“I do not know what to say to Lilias, mother,” said Helen, as in the afternoon she prepared to return to Mossgray,where Mrs Buchanan was to accompany her. “Youwill know—I cannot speak to her of this, for it would be terrible to lead her to hope, and then have that dreary blank of disappointment return again—and such disappointment! It is not like our troubles—troubles which could be almost altogether removed by what would be a very little matter to Mossgray; but Lilias has a heavier burden than we have.”
“The present trouble looks aye the hardest, Helen,” said Mrs Buchanan. “She is young, and has many friends—she will forget; but you must fight on, my poor bairn. I feel your trouble more than hers.”
Helen could lament herself into despondency without much difficulty, but the perverse temperament would not droop for any will but its own.
“Hush, mother!” said Helen; “it is only a fight after all, and there is nothing so very bad in having to labour; I could not do without it, I think, and we will get through yet, no fear.”
Mrs Buchanan shook her head.
“I hope so, my dear—I hope we shall, Helen; but how we are to do at Martinmas I cannot tell.”
“The fear of ill exceeds the ill we fear,” said Helen, with a bright face. “We will do all we can, mother, and we will manage someway—do not let us think of it to-night.”
Mrs Buchanan’s heart did not rise as her daughter’s did; but the good mother was ready to brighten too, lest those occasional gleams of sunshine, the sole solace of Helen’s toiling life, should be overcast.
“When is Hope to come?” she asked, “and what made Lilias think of asking Hope, Helen?”
“She wanted to escape from her own thoughts—at least she said so, mother—she wanted to be prevented from dwelling upon her hopes and fears for this night; and the grown-up people, the young ladies and the young gentlemen, would have tormented rather than eased her. Poor Lilias! I think she has some idea of Mossgray’s errand; she has not asked much about him, but a step without makes her shiver, and at night she grows so anxious. You are used to nervous people, mother, but when Lilias is nervous—so calm as she naturally is—it is far more painful to see, I think, than any natural tremor. Are you ready? for there is Hope.”
Hope led by the hand a little white-frocked, blue-eyed girl, the little Mary Wood of whom she had spoken so much.Miss Swinton had remained only a day in Fendie, and to Hope’s great disappointment, had not seen Helen; but the little Mary was left with Mrs Oswald for a long visit. Hope was exceedingly fond and proud of the child, and eager to display its juvenile wisdom and attainments. They all set out together for Mossgray.
“My papa is in India,” said little Mary Wood, sliding her small hand into the trembling fingers of Lilias, as they sat under cover of the great beech, watching the autumn sun sink gorgeously over the western hill; “and when I am a big lady I’m to go to India too, and then I’m to be married to somebody—Miss Mansfield says so, Hope.”
And Lilias laughed tremulously with the others, communicating a sick melancholy tone to the very sound of mirth.
“But Miss Mansfield says so, Miss Maxwell; and Miss Mansfield is a grown-up lady; she’s bigger than Miss Buchanan—isn’t she, Hope?”
“Never mind Miss Mansfield; nobody cares about her,” said Hope; “but look, little Mary, look at yon star!—oh, Helen, look! in among the gold clouds, and it so white and cold like—I know what it’s like.”
“Oh! what is it like, Hope?” cried little Mary Wood, who had the greatest possible admiration of Hope’s stories.
“It’s like somebody—somebody like what folk are in books,” said Hope, “standing in among the rich common people; it’s far better than the clouds—it’s as good as the sun, only it’s not so great; but for all that, look at it, how it’s shaking, and how pale it is; but it knows it is better than the clouds.”
Little Mary looked up wonderingly in awe of Hope’s occult acquaintance with the star; but this did not strike her as Hope’s stories generally did; for she said, after a little pause,—
“I wish it were to-morrow—I wish it were the day after to-morrow.”
“Why, Mary?” said Lilias.
“Because Miss Swinton said papa was going to write me a letter, and that I would get it to-morrow, or the day after to-morrow. A whole big letter to myself—a letter from papa, all the way from India—oh, Miss Maxwell!”
Lilias trembled a little; a slight painful shiver, as if of cold. She remembered well the time so long marked and looked for.
“The night is getting chill,” said Mrs Buchanan; “I think we must go in now; and come tell me, little Mary, about these great designs of yours.”
“Mary is very little,” said Hope, apologetically, taking the vacant place by the side of Lilias; “she says just what comes into her head, you know, Miss Maxwell.”
“And doyounot say what comes into your head, Hope?”
“But then I am not like Mary, Helen,” said Hope promptly; “I am fifteen—I know—at least I should know better than little Mary. Do you know when Mossgray is coming back, Miss Maxwell?”
Lilias shivered again. “No, Hope.”
Poor Hope! she was not so very much wiser than little Mary, after all.
The harvest moon had risen; the night was considerably advanced; Mrs Buchanan had set out with Hope and the child some time since; Helen and Lilias were alone.
They were sitting together in the deep recess of one of those old-fashioned windows, and the room was perfectly dark, save for the broad, full moonlight which made bars of silver light across the gloom. They were speaking in the hushed tone which people instinctively adopt at such times, and Helen was endeavouring to keep the attention of Lilias occupied, although her broken answers and unconnected words showed how ill she accomplished it, and frequent starts and intervals of listening evinced the anxiety of both.
“Let us have lights, Lilias,” said Helen; “it is not good this—it will do you harm.”
“Yes,” said Lilias, vacantly—“I mean, wait a little—only wait a little, Helen.”
She had repeated the excuse again and again, and now grasping her friend’s arm with those tightened fingers, she bent her pale head in the full mellow moonlight, and listened, shivering with the chills and starts of expectation.
There was a slight noise below.
“There is some one coming, Helen,” and the trembling fingers tightened in their eager grasp. “It is not Halbert—it must be Mossgray—hush!”
“It is only Janet moving below,” said Helen.
“Hush—listen! it is Mossgray! but I dare not go to meet him. Stay with me, Helen—stay till he comes! Now—now—it will be over now!”
And speaking incoherent words of prayer, Lilias held hereager friend tight, so that she could not escape, and turned her own bowed head towards the door.
Lightly up the stair came the elastic footstep, and Mossgray opened the door gently, and stood before them in the grace of his old age, the moonbeams mingling with his white hair.
“Where are you?” said the old man, looking into the dark shadows of the room. “Helen, is she strong? can she bear joy?”
“Mossgray!”
“My good child, there are others in the world to guard your strength for. He is not strong himself, poor fellow! He has had wounds and sickness; but he lives to thank God, Lilias, as we do.”
The room was reeling round her, with its heavy shadows, and bars of broad white light. She held firmly by the firm form of Helen, and laying down her dizzy head upon her friend’s shoulder, closed her eyes. She resigned her strained faculties willingly—at present she did not crave more; the quietness—the peace—fell over her like the moonlight—it was enough.
“Has she fainted, Helen?” asked Mossgray, anxiously, after a considerable pause.
Lilias lifted her head, still sick and dizzy, but with a sickness so different from that of grief.
“No, Mossgray, I am strong.”
And so she was, though she wavered and staggered in the moonlight, and scarcely could stand without support as yet. The winds had spent themselves and past away; the unusual fever had fled in a moment, and in her quietness she was herself again. Already the quick, wild pulse had fallen into its usual gentle beating; the turbulent strength of joy was not hers, any more than the passionate might of grief; but in the great peace of her gladness Lilias was strong.
And then the old man told them his tidings fully; how this very mail had brought home the certain news; howhedid not survive alone, but various others, officers and men, shared his fancied loss, and sure restoration; how the wounded men on the field where the little band had been cut to pieces, were left to the tender mercies of an Affghan tribe, whose fierce chief had perished in the encounter; how the son of this rebel Rajah had been trained by a captiveEnglishman, long ago seized by the wandering banditti of the tribe, and knew of justices and generosities higher than are taught by the creed of Mahomet; how the young sovereign saw how vain the struggle was between his shifting, unstable countrymen and the steady British arms, and moved by policy alike, and friendliness, had caused gentle succour to be given to the helpless wounded British men who were within his power; how they had travelled to his capital, and found his English tutor there, now, after long oppression and confinement, a free and honoured man, and how, with gifts and compliments, the strongest of the prisoners had been dismissed, and the brave young merchant, Grant, was to follow when he could.
Dim, dubious, inarticulate thoughts were rising in the old man’s mind as he told this story, touching a long-past sorrow—a visionary hope of his own; but he gave them no utterance—and Lilias’ face had not lost the flush with which she heard the name of its title—brave—when Mossgray placed a letter in her hand. Lilias was strong now; she hurried away to her own apartment with this crowning joy of all.
“I waited in Fendie till they should arrange their letters,” said Mossgray, “that I might see if there was anything for Lilias, and I got what I desired, Helen. There are other things in this story which interest me greatly. I wonder—but we shall hear, no doubt, when this young man comes home.”
The letter was a very brief one, written while he was still scarcely able to hold the pen, as the unsteady characters bore witness, and only assuring her that he was safe and out of danger, and whenever his wounds permitted, would hasten home.
“Does he say nothing of—of the Englishman?” said Mossgray, anxiously, when Lilias came down to tell him.
But the letter said nothing of any Englishman; the writer had been too feeble to write anything but the few words which told his safety, and that he was carefully tended—“in good hands.”
Open the lattice; let the fresh, soft airBear in sweet Nature’s psalm;Draw the dim curtain quick—the sun is there,Holy and bright and calm—And here a heart trembles for very gladness,Which yesternight fainted twixt hope and sadness.
Open the lattice; let the fresh, soft airBear in sweet Nature’s psalm;Draw the dim curtain quick—the sun is there,Holy and bright and calm—And here a heart trembles for very gladness,Which yesternight fainted twixt hope and sadness.
Open the lattice; let the fresh, soft airBear in sweet Nature’s psalm;Draw the dim curtain quick—the sun is there,Holy and bright and calm—And here a heart trembles for very gladness,Which yesternight fainted twixt hope and sadness.
WhenLilias awoke next morning, her heavy black dress was nowhere to be found. It had been put away out of sight, and a light muslin one was laid in its place. The Lily of Mossgray put on the happier garment with reverence, murmuring to herself psalms of thanksgiving. She had wakened so often to the blank of hopeless grief, that she felt now a solemn gravity in this new beginning of life; it seemed to her like the visible interposition of the Divine Hand—a miracle of joy.
The blinds had been drawn up, and the morning sun looked brightly into the room. These little imaginative attentions could be rendered only by Helen, but Helen had left the room before Lilias awoke from the long, happy sleep of her new peace.
In a room below Helen stood beside the old housekeeper. A great pile of white linen lay on the table before them, and Mrs Mense was exhausting herself in its praise.
“Na, if ye had Mossgray’s ain muckle spyglass that sits up the stair at the study window, ye could scarce count the threads,” said the old woman, triumphantly; “it’s that fine; and ye see, Miss Buchanan, Mr Halbert’s no’ what ye could ca’ weel supplied, coming out from amang fremd folk, ye ken. I’ve been wanting to see about getting them made this lang time, only I didna like to fash the young lady; but Mossgray says I may speak to her noo. Do ye think I may speak to Miss Lilias noo, and no fash her, Miss Buchanan?”
“What is it, Mrs Mense?” said Lilias, coming forward with a peaceful light upon her face which could not be misapprehended. The old woman glanced at her changed dress and brightened.
“Ye see, Miss Lillie, it’s just the new linen. I dinnathink ye ever lookit at it before; is’t no’ beautiful? And I was just thinking we should hae it made. Ye see, Mr Halbert he hasna ower mony, and to be ploutering and washing ance in a fortnight like common folk disna do for the like o’ us; and ye micht get some yoursel’, Miss Lillie; some o’ the new-fashioned kind wi’ the frills, for it’s a muckle web, and it wad be a guid turn to somebody, the making o’ them.”
Helen was twisting a corner of the linen nervously in her fingers.
“I think I could get some one to do it for you, Lilias, if you could trust me,” she said.
“And you’re just the best to ken, Miss Buchanan,” said Mrs Mense, “for ye see Miss Lillie has nae friend to speak o’ but yoursel’, and it’s no like she could ken wha sewed weel, and wha didna; but I’m just as blythe as I can be, Miss Lillie, to see you wi’ your light gown and your smile again, and so is Mossgray; and now I’ll gang my ways, and see that Jen’s minding the breakfast.”
“Lilias,” said Helen, when the old woman was out of hearing, “I don’t need to have any foolish pride with you.Iwill make these things for you if you will take me for your sempstress.”
“You, Helen,” said Lilias, “you don’t need—you don’t wish—I mean—”
“I mean that we have never been rich, Lilias,” said Helen, with her shifting blush, “and that now there is occasion for a little more work than usual—that is all; and you need not look so grave, unless you think I shall not make these new-fashioned things well enough to please Mrs Mense; but I am not afraid, Lilias—I think you may trust me.”
“But, Helen, you have too much to do already; you cannot work always,” said Lilias. “Let me speak to Mossgray—let me—”
“Hush, hush,” said Helen, “you forget that we have some pride still. I have not too much to do, Lilias; people seldom have, I think, and it is no great matter when one can get through one’s troubles by a little additional labour. It is no hardship; this is my kind of fighting, you know, and I can do it very well. I think you will give me your work, Lilias, and a great deal of praise when it is done. I shall please Mrs Mense. I will invent frills. I think you must trust me.”
It was a slight trial to the sensitive, proud Helen; hercheek was flushed a little, and the smile trembled on her lip, but she talked the uncomfortable feeling away, and got it over, with less pain than she could have thought. The great web of linen was committed to her hands, and while Lilias entered into her revival of happy life, calm, peaceful, and at rest, Helen went away home to the little, quiet, dull house, and to her labour, the long, hard toil to which her heart rose, as to the strenuous oar which might keep the little ship afloat.
The autumn days flushed to their brightest and began to wane. It was a gay autumn to the Fendies, and to the other youthful people of the neighbourhood through them; Halbert Graeme had quite forgiven Menie Monikie. The saucy Menie sent him cards and gloves when she became Mrs Keith, and a barbarous lump of bride-cake; but the gift, cruel as it was, did by no means disturb the equanimity of Halbert. The broken gold coin lay snug in a corner of his dressing-case; he laughed merrily to himself sometimes when his eye fell upon it, and thought with a great deal of good-humour, and scarcely any pique, how simple and foolish the boy and girl were who broke that coin in the pleasant twilight of the Aberdeenshire glen. Halbert had got over his first romance very comfortably; the youthful epidemic fell lightly on the heir of Mossgray.
He was much “out.” Alick Fendie and the redoubtable Captain Hyde engrossed a great deal of Halbert’s time, and his hands were full of flirtations now when he had no restraint upon him. But Halbert was not like his father; the flirtations were honest, unsophisticated amusements, and did little harm. He was born to be popular with all, but he killed nobody.
And left thus to themselves in the quiet house of Mossgray, it was a pleasant time to Lilias and her guardian. She had learned to prize the sunshine more from its temporary withdrawal, and the old man spoke to her of the wanderer far away as of an absent son. “When he comes home.” Lilias remembered how that word rung in her own ear when she first saw Mossgray; she remembered how, after the lifetime of wandering, the blessedness of those who dwell among their own people fell upon her; andhetoo was to come “home.”
Another letter came from him in those clear September days; it was brief, like the other. He had much to tell her,he said, but was still feeble, and must defer it until he spoke to her, face to face; and in another month he would reach Mossgray.
The news brought a strange thrill over the calm Lily. It was years now since he went to India. Their engagement had been formed when they were both very young, and she was now matured into grave womanhood. She began to fancy that she was changed; she began to wonder whether he too had grown old as she had done; and while she smiled at herself for these fancies, they sometimes agitated her a little—a very little—only just enough to keep the balance even, and prevent an overpoise of joy.
And Helen Buchanan now could only snatch a momentary glance, from the little wicket gate, of the evening sun, as he went down beyond the hill, and could not linger to watch the golden mist fade into graver purple before the breath of night. She had no leisure now for sunset walks, no time to glean and gather in to her heart the glories of the grand sky and the dimmer tints of earth, and, eating angel’s bread, grow strong. Long labour through the whole bright day, labour at the sunsetting, labour in the fair, dim hours beyond; it was a hard life.
“I have seen the boatmen cross the Firth, when the tawny waves were coming in like lions,” said Helen, as she bent over those weary breadths of linen, “and the wind was so high that the boat could bear no sail, and the current so strong that they could scarcely row; but there was something in their work—- I fancy I must call it excitement—which made it quite a different thing from safe, monotonous labour. I mind how it moved me—the dipping of the oars, which scarcely could enter the great, buoyant swell of water, the forcing forward of the boat, which did not seem to beinthe stream at all, butonit; it makes one’s heart beat. I thought I should rather have been with Willie Thomson then, than when the Firth was as smooth as the wan water.”
“You are not so brave as you think, Helen,” said her mother, smiling. “Willie Thomson would have found you a very timid passenger.”
“Perhaps—if he was prosaic and understood me literally,” said Helen, “but I mean one’s heart rises: and in our poor little concerns, mother, I think we are in the boat, and the Firth is wild with his lion’s mane, and we are at the oars. Never mind the wind—I like it now, when I am used to therocking—and those great, surly, bellowing waves—let us tame them, mother, it is what they were made for; and yonder is the shore!”
Mrs Buchanan shook her head. This hand-to-hand struggle with the meagre strength of poverty was new to Helen. At their best time they had very little—so little that it was almost a marvel how the good, careful mother kept the boat afloat; but then their wants bore proportion to their means, and they were as much content with their spare living as if it had been the richest;—solitary women always have inexpensive households—and never before had there been such urgent need as now. It was well and happy that the young heart rose to meet it; the elder one had old experiences—memories of being worsted in the battle—of failing heart and sinking courage, and the armed man, Want, victorious over all. She sighed and was silent when her daughter spoke; but the storm roused the strength of Helen. It was the trumpet of her natural warfare, and she bent to her oar with a stout heart; the end was attainable—they saw the shore.
“Father,” said Hope Oswald on one of those mellow September days, “Saunders Delvie is not well—will you come and see him?”
Mr Oswald hesitated a good deal; he had not much power of expression, and though he might show his sympathy practically if it was much excited, he could not manage to speak about it. In his capacity as elder, he could administer reproof with very becoming solemnity, and overawe the scorner with the grave dignity of his office; but to encourage, to soothe, to console—these were out of Mr Oswald’s way—he was shy of adventuring upon them.
“Father,” said Hope, “when Saunders heard that Peter was dead he came to you—he wantedyouto advise him and not Mossgray; and now when there is no good word about poor Peter, will you not come and see Saunders, father? for they say he will break his heart and die.”
“People do not die of broken hearts,” said Mr Oswald, hastily.
“But I think Saunders has broken his heart even if he does not die,” said Hope, with reverence, “and I think that is harder than if God had taken him away like Peter; but, father, Robbie Caryl says that he heard Saunders at his worship on Saturday night, and hemindedPeter. Father, Saunders minded Peter in his prayer as if he were not dead.”
Mr Oswald shook his head.
“I am afraid there is very little chance of that, Hope.”
But Hope reiterated her prayer.
“Will you come with me to see Saunders, father?”
“Wait till the evening, Hope,” said the banker: “I will go then.”
And Hope, when the evening came, would suffer no evasion of the promise. Mr Oswald permitted himself to be led away somewhat reluctantly, for he felt the duty a very difficult and painful one.
The door of Saunders Delvie’s cottage was closed when they came up, and from it issued the voice of psalms. It was earlier than the usual carefully-observed hour of worship, but Saunders and his wife were both weary and sick at heart, and they were glad to shut out the world and its gay daylight, and to seek the merciful oblivion of rest as soon as they could.
The cottage was dimly lighted by the fire, and through the window the quick eyes of Hope discerned the two well-known figures seated on either side, and mingling their old cracked, trembling voices in the psalm. It was strange music—the wife’s low, murmuring, crooning tones, and the deeper voice of the old man with that shrill break in it—more pathetic than any sweeter woe of music. Old, poor, bereaved, and solitary, they omitted no night their usual “exercise”—they never forgot, with these sinking, wearied hearts and broken tones of theirs, to praise the God who chastised them.
The banker and his daughter stood without, waiting till their worship ended; the low, grave murmur of Saunders’ voice as he read the chosen chapter came to them indistinctly through the gloom, and then Hope saw the two old solitary people kneel down to prayer.
They could hear what he said then—all the familiar petitions—the daily prayers in which the godly peasant, ever since he first knelt down at his own fire-side, had remembered before God his church, his country, and the authorities ordained in each—had their place first in the old man’s evening supplications; and last of all, with his voice then shriller and more broken than ever, and his hard, withered, toil-worn hands convulsively strained together, there came the soul and essence of the old man’s prayer,—“If he is yet within the land of the living, and the place of hope; if he isstill on praying ground;” terrible anguish of entreaty over which that “if” threw its doubt and gloom.
Mr Oswald turned away his face from the quick scrutiny of Hope; the one vehement strong man understood the other, but the banker felt himself abashed and humiliated before the intenser, sublimer, and less selfish spirit: “People do not die of broken hearts.” The young ladies and the young gentlemen rarely do; but George Oswald discovered, in the stillness of his own awed soul that night, how solemn a thing a broken heart is, and how the strongest might die of that rending, or more terrible, might live.
By and by they entered. The old man was sitting in a homely elbow chair covered with blue and white checked linen. The bed which occupied one end of the room was decently curtained with the same material. The house was only a but and a ben; an outer and an inner apartment, but everything in it was very neatly arranged and clean. Poor Mrs Delvie’s “redding up” was done very mechanically now; her hands went about it, while her mind was far otherwise occupied, but still the kitchen was “redd up.”
She sat in another elbow chair opposite her husband. She was a sensible, kindly, good house-mother, and would have been noticeable in any other connection, but the fervent, strong, passionate old man threw his gentler wife into the shade; and even her sufferings for the lost son, whose name through all these weary months she could mention under her own roof only in her prayers, were dimmed in presence of the intense and terrible love of the father. She looked very old and tremulous as she sat there shaking in her chair, and wiping her withered cheek with her apron. Saunders also had some heavy moisture veiling the almost fierce light that burned in his eye, and the old man trembled too with the wild earnestness of his passionate appeal to God.
Mr Oswald entered with a shy inquiry after Saunders’ health.
“Weel eneuch, weel eneuch—better than I deserve,” said Saunders, rising with a haste which showed still more visibly how his gaunt sinewy frame shook with his emotion. The visit was greatly esteemed and felt an honour, though Saunders scarcely thought it right after concluding the day in his Master’s presence, as he had just done, to enter again into intercourse with men; they shut out the outer world when they closed their cottage door reverently upon the waning daylight, and laid the Book upon the table; but the old man rose to offer the banker his chair.
Mr Oswald sat down upon a high stool near the table, and Hope got a low one, and drew it in to the hearth, where she could look up with those young fearless eyes, whose boldness was not intrusion, to the old man’s face. The banker was embarrassed; he desired to sympathize, but felt himself an intruder.
“I hear you have been ill, Saunders,” he said.
“Na, no to ca’ ill,” said Saunders, clearing his voice with an effort, “I’m an auld man, and I get frail; but I hae muckle mair than I deserve; a hantle mair than I deserve—mair than I wad hae gien to ony ane that did evil inmysight.”
“Oh, Saunders, man!” It was the only remonstrance his wife ever made.
“And I’m no ill,” continued Saunders, with the spasmodic shrillness in his voice. “I’m strong in my bodily health, Mr Oswald, it’s no that: I gaed to ye ance when my heart was turning—ye ken it’s no that.”
To no other man would Saunders have said so much, but he thought better of the rigid banker than he deserved. He thought him possessed of his own stern unselfish nature, without his miseries to bring out its harsher points.
“Oh, Maister Oswald,” said the wife, “say something till him! speak to the auld man; bid him no be sae hard on himsel.”
“Whisht, Marget,” said the old man, labouring to steady himself, “haud your peace—it’s you that disna ken. What would it become me to be but hard on mysel? wasna I hard on ane—ane—” the spasm returned, the voice became hoarse and thick, and then broke out peremptorily shrill and high, “ane that canna ken now how I hae warstled for him, yearned for him—oh, woman, ye dinna ken!”
And the mother drew back into the darkness and hid her face; she too had yearned and travailed—but before this agony she was still.
“And gin we win up yonder where we hae nae right to win,” continued the unsteady, broken, excited voice, “and seek for him amang the blessed, and find him never—will ye say I hae nae wyte o’t? Me that avenged his sin upon him, and shut him out o’ my heart wi’ a vow? The Lord mightna have saved him; it might have pleased the Lord no to have saved him; wha can faddom the Almighty? butIbanishedhim away, I pat him out of sound and sight o’ the word that saves, and isna the burden mine? Marget, I bid ye haud your peace—ye hae nae guilt o’ his bluid—but for me—”
The old man’s head shook with a palsied vehement motion, the wild fire shot out in gleams from under his heavy eyebrows; the hard hand with its knotted sinews distinct upon it was clenched in bitter pain.
The banker sat beside him, awed, embarrassed, incapable; the small motives—the little endeavours of his own worldly existence, shrank away ashamed and convicted of meanness in this presence. He could not act as comforter—he felt a moral inability to speak at all—to presume to intrude his own indifferent feelings, before this stern avenging wrath of Love.
And Hope sat looking up with her fearless, reverent, youthful eyes into the old man’s harshly-agitated face. She laid her soft girlish hand upon those swollen veins of his.
“Saunders, I think he is not dead.”
The young face was quite clear, brave, undoubting—the girl’s heart, in which the first breath of the rising woman and the sympathies of childhood still met and blended, could tread in awe, but without fear, where the worldly man dared not enter. Peter Delvie’s mother threw her apron over her head and wept aloud; and after a convulsive struggle to restrain them, one or two heavy tears ran down the cheek of Saunders.
“Na, na, ye dinna ken—ye’re but a bairn—he’s mine, and I canna hope.”
Oh, secret, hoarded, precious hope, to which the wrung heart clung with such passionate tenacity! He could not bear that a stranger’s eye should glance upon it. He whispered it never in any ear but God’s. His wife, the mother of the lost, knew it not except as she heard it in his daily prayer; and he denied it. Jealous of this spark of light which still was in his heart, he denied it rather than make its presence known; and yet—the light leaped up in its socket—the precious germ quickened and moved within him. He could not resist the quivering thrill, almost of expectation, with which he heard those words—the softening tears that followed them.
“Saunders, God let the prodigal come back that his father might forgive him. I think He will let Peter come back to hear that you will be friends with him now. There was agentleman—Miss Maxwell knows him at Mossgray—and they sent home word that he was dead; but he was not dead—he is coming home—and I think, Saunders, that Peter did not die.”
“Is’t true—bairn, bairn, are ye sure it’s true?” cried Peter Delvie’s mother, “is he coming hame—is he living that was ca’ed dead? Wha telled ye it was true? If it happened wi’ ane it micht happen wi’ twa—and my laddie! my ain bairn!”
“It is quite true, for Helen Buchanan told me,” said Hope.
The old man trembled strangely. He held his head supported in his hands, and was silent. It was the mother who spoke now; the secret treasure of hope in the old man’s vehement breast would not bear the light.
“And she’s true and aefauld, but she’s wiser than the like o’ you,” said the mother through her tears, “I see what she meant now; but she wadna tell me this, for fear I did hope, and my hope was vain. Oh, wha kens—wha kens but the Lord? but if it happened to ane, it might happen to twa, and His mercy has nae measure. It wadna be merciful to send him to his grave wi’ his faither’s wrath upon him.”
The old man’s harsh, stern voice was broken at every word, by the convulsive sob which he could not restrain.
“Haud your peace, Marget; say ony ill o’ me; but if He slew your dearest ten times ower, dinna daur to malign the Lord.”
When they left these old, agitated, sorrowful people alone with their grief and their hope, the banker did not venture to reprove his child for her want of wisdom. His own mind was full. This youthful faith and boldness—this clear uplooking to the heavens—rash as it might be, and inconsistent with worldly prudence, was a higher wisdom than his. He felt that the girl at his side had met in her simplicity, difficulties with which he dared not measure his strength—that the grand, sublime, original emotions were fitter for the handling of the child than for the man. It made him humble and it made him proud; for the fearless girl’s voice of Hope speaking to the desolate had touched him to the heart.
“Should I not have said it, father?” said Hope, after a considerable silence. “Do you think it was wrong?”
“I cannot tell, Hope,” said the subdued strong man, “it may turn out the best and wisest thing. It may—I cannot tell, Hope—you have got beyond the regions of expediency.”
He was not able to cope with these things—he confessed it involuntarily.
“Because Helen did not tell them, father,” said Hope. “If Helen had thought it was right, she would have told them.”
“Does Helen visit them, Hope?”
Hope had forgotten for the moment the antagonism of Helen and her father.
“She goes sometimes—sometimes since poor Peter went away.”
“And what does Helen say about Saunders, Hope?”
“I don’t know, father, except that she is sorry; but I mind once what Mossgray said. Mossgray said it was a good thing that folk were able to change, and that it was very miserable that Saunders did not change till it was too late—very miserable—that was what Mossgray said; but Mossgray should have told Saunders, father, about the gentleman.”
“Mossgray is wise; we are all wiser than you are, Hope,” said the banker; “even your Helen. And that was what Mossgray said? too late—he did not change till it was too late?”
Too late—too late to keep the due honour of a wise father, too late gracefully to approve and sanction the righteous purposes of a good son. Too late! The words rang into his ear as the musical air of night swept by in its waving circles, and the moon rose in a haze mild and silvery. The gentle warmth of change was loosing the chains about his heart.