She sat down; she put back her wet hair, and wiped the heavy dew from her forehead. Then she clasped her hands over her brow.
“Not life—not joy—not temporal deliverance—whatsoever is in Thy hands is well—be it to us as seemeth good to Thee. But light, O, my Father! light to this darkness—deliverance to this bondman—the grace of Thine infinite mercy—the touch of Thy divine compassion. Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst deliver him.”
There was a faint call from another room. Christian Lillie paused for a moment to compose her agitated features, and then hastened to the restless sick-bed. Anne Ross sat still at the high turret window, looking out through silent tears upon the dim country, and the gleaming sea.
That sky serene, and calm, and boundless, beholding all beneath its infinite extent—that mighty eye above, looking down amid the countless myriads of its universe, as certainly upon the untold agonies of this house as if all humanity were centered there—that One, at the right hand of the Father, who, in the might of His eternal Godhead, doth dwell in heaven—a man! The appeal of the broken heart was to these; and they do not fail to answer.
WEARILY, mocking sick hearts with their floods of brightness, the summer days stole on. The house of Schole gaunt and melancholy, stood shrined in the full glory of that sunshine. The dark figures within wandered about in restless pain, like ghosts uncongenialto the light, or gazed forth with vacant eyes upon the rejoicing country, and dazzling sea. In the sick chamber lay that restless, suffering man, wending unconsciously nearer and nearer the valley of the shadow of death.
The doctor from the little town had visited him repeatedly.—Nearly a fortnight after the wreck, he had a final conversation with Christian. Anne was watching eagerly in Patrick Lillie’s study. Christian accompanied the doctor to the door, and answered his subdued and sorrowful farewell; then she entered the study. Anne looked up anxiously in her face.
“The time has come,” said Christian, solemnly, “there is no hope of his life. He has but a little way to go, and yet he knows not the only entrance. God succor us—what can we do alone? Come with me—now there is no longer any obstacle or hindrance—come with me.”
Anne followed her silently. The room in which Patrick lay was high, and had also windows looking on the water—that broad placid, noble Firth, the sole companion of the watcher.
Wan and wasted, with only the hectic spot burning on his cheek to distinguish it from the pillow on which it uneasily rested, lay the dying man. Cold, wasting, death-like perspiration lay heavily upon his brow; his long, white hand and emaciated arm were stretched upon the coverlet with a power of nervous motion in them, which contrasted strangely with their color and form of death.
On a small table beside him lay a paper closely written. Near at hand were writing materials. His eyes were fixed upon the manuscript—he did not seem to notice the entrance of Christian and Anne. He was speaking in broken sentences, with incoherent intervals between.
“Sevenfold—sevenfold. Thou God of mighty justice! Thou Lord of holy revenge! What can a sinful man do more? Not an old man, O, Lord! not a little child; seven lives in their prime—seven full of health, and strength, and hopefulness—seven saved for one lost. Lord of mercy, wilt Thou accept them! what can I more?”
“Patrick,” said Christian Lillie, “if the whole world had lain perishing at your feet, what more than urgent need was it to save them all; the seven will not atone for the one. If ye have no other atonement to offer, then the blood is still crying upon God for vengeance.”
“Christian,” exclaimed the dying man, “what can I do?—what shall I do? They tell me I am near the hour of judgment; will you thrust away my last plea?—will ye deny me my last hope? Did He not accept the publican who restored fourfold? Behold my offering, O, Lord, and be merciful—be merciful! I have toiledthrough all this terrible life—labored, and groaned, and fainted for the uplifting of Thy countenance—and shall I go away in darkness, and wilt Thou show me no more light at all for ever? Lord! Lord!”
The thin, worn arms were lifted in passionate appeal—the long white fingers clasped—the wasted face convulsed with despairing earnestness. Christian Lillie knelt by her brother’s bedside.
“Mercy and light, Patrick—mercy and light! our Father in heaven does not give them for a hire. Take them out of a gracious hand that has paid a bitter price for the gifts—take them, Patrick. Take them from Him who has made the sole sacrifice that can stand in the sight of God. Blood for blood.”
“Blood for blood!” said Patrick Lillie, with a wild shudder. “Blood for blood! has it come to this end? Christian, I have been laboring to make amends—I have labored in vain: let me pay the price now at last—there may be peace then. Let me away—let me away—I will pay the price—a life for a life!”
He was struggling to rise—his emaciated features shining wildly with his desperate purpose. Christian’s arms were stretched over him, subduing the frenzy.
“Patrick,” she said, solemnly, “in a little while the Lord will recall the life He has sent so fearful a shadow on. A day or two—maybe only an hour or two—and in this ghastly noon of ours, which is more terrible than the darkest midnight, the sun of your life must go down. The Lord is taking the price with his own hand. Patrick, let me but know that you are grounded on the one rock—that ye can see the one sacrifice.”
The unhappy sufferer sank back exhausted.
“ ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.’ Christian, it is a just sentence—take me away—I see it—I see it—it is what no mercy can wipe out—no grace forgive—it must be atoned for. Ye hear me, Christian! the price must be paid. If ye would have hope in my death, take me away.”
“It is a just sentence,” said Christian Lillie, firmly. “Just in the sight of God and man—I say not that there needs no public atonement; but ye cannot pay it now—and I say that for your life, your higher life, Patrick, an atonement has been made. Do you forget Him that died at Jerusalem? they ranked him with murderers—was He one? He was accursed for the shedders of blood. Throw but your sin upon Him—rest but your soul upon Him, and I will have hope in your death—ay! such hope as will cover all the by-gone darkness with a mist of radiance; only let me know that you are safe in His shadow—strong in His faith, and I am content.”
“I have slain a man to my bruising, and a young man to my hurt,” murmured the dying man, “and I should—God forgive me that Ihave shrunk and trembled from this fearful penalty—I should pay back blood for blood in the sight of man. Christian, hear me: I acknowledge Him, my Saviour—my Lord—my King. I acknowledge His work—only not for this—for this I must render justice in the sight of men. Let me go—I have trembled for it all these dreadful years—I have hid me from the very sunshine for its fear—I have doomed them—God bless them! God, out of his gracious heaven, send down the blessings of the covenant upon them! whom I shall never look upon in this world again—to exile and shame for me. Christian, let me go—I see it all now—my eyes are opened. Let me pay the price—then there may be peace; whoso sheddeth man’s blood—Christian, let me go!”
“Patrick,” said Christian Lillie, “you have told me when your mind was clear that this deed was not wilful, nor springing from a heart of evil against him that is gone. Tell me again. Patrick!—do you mind how he fled into the sacred city in the ancient Israel, who had shed blood unawares, and there was safe? Can you see? is there no shadow before your eyes? Can you tell me? Patrick, you shed this blood unawares.”
A wild gleam shot over the sick man’s death-like face. His lips moved—he shut them convulsively as though to keep down some thrill of agony.
“I cannot tell—I cannot tell. God help me—there is nothing clear; that I did it—that I took away the divine mysterious life which all the universe could not give back again—Christian, Christian, it will make me mad—the remembrance of it has gone near to make me mad a thousand times. Oh, that my life had been taken instead! oh, that he had slain me, and not I him!”
Christian knelt by his bedside holding his hand—he became calmer.
“Lord, show it to me—show me the past—show me what is to come. I was angry with my brother in my heart—I cannot see—I cannot tell, if the fiend was within me then. Christian, havetheynot suffered a death for me?—have I not slain them in cold blood with my fear and cowardice! I will do them justice—I will bear my own sin. Let me go.”
He sat up in his bed, his excitement giving nervous strength to his wasted frame; as he rose he saw Anne for the first time—she stood awed and wondering by the door.
The unhappy man threw himself back upon his pillow, covering his face.
“Send her away. Do you want to kill me—do you want to betray me, Christian? Send her away.”
Christian Lillie made a motion with her hand, and Anne withdrew. Most strange, and sad, and terrible was this scene; this unhappy sufferer enduring in those agonies so intense a retribution—eager to do justice on his death-bed, and yet shrinking from the sight of her who might bring that justice speedily upon him—her, the sister of the injured Norman, who would not have inflicted another pang upon the man for whom her generous brother had sacrificed his all.
She did not see Christian again that day: during all its long, weary, sunny hours, Christian remained constantly by that sick-bed—through the shorter watches of the balmy and tranquil night her vigil continued; those melancholy wistful eyes never closed in slumber; that gaunt, attenuated frame sought neither rest nor nourishment; the agony of eighteen years had come to a climax; the heroic work of all her desolate lifetime was drawing to an end.
Anne did not leave the house till late that evening; she could hear the sound of voices in the sick chamber, and Christian’s slow step sometimes traversing it, when she went away. In the morning she returned early. Christian was in her own room, as Anne could hear, while she sat in the apartment below—sometimes kneeling—sometimes pacing it slow and heavily as was her wont, and sometimes with the agitated quick step, which she had heard before during the short time in which she witnessed Christian Lillie’s supplications. Her patient was for the time asleep. She was there, not resting nor seeking rest, absorbed in the unutterable earnestness of her pleadings, wrestling with God for a blessing.
The day glided on, so slow—so wearily, with but the drowsy ripples of the sea, the steady, cold, immovable beating of that strange pulse of Time, whose sound fatigues the anxious ear so miserably, and the irregular, agitated throbs of her own heart, to fill its languid lingering hours, that Anne sickened when she looked abroad upon its cloudless radiance. Then those books of Patrick Lillie’s fascinated while they irked and pained her—the pensive, contemplative tone—the microscopic, inward-looking eye—the atmosphere of monastic quietude and meditative death! She was in no mood for studying character, yet she felt how strangely constituted the spirit must have been which found its daily ailment in these.
Had he done that deed and yet was he not guilty? Did he stand in the position of the manslayer, for whom God’s stern law of olden vengeance, in one of those exquisite shadings of mercy, which mark the unchanging unity of our Gospel Lord and Saviour—ordained through ancient Palestine, the sacred cities of refuge? Had he shed this blood unawares? and whence then came the terrible mist which had gathered in his memory about the deed? Was it possible that he could be uncertain of himself?—that he could have forgotten those momentous circumstances?or had his long-diseased brooding over them made imagination and fact stand in his remembrance side by side?
At last, the weary day declined. Christian Lillie came to her at sunset, and with few words, bade her follow to the sick room again. Anne obeyed.
It was very near now, that awful peace of Death. The emaciated face was sharp and fixed—the stamp was upon his forehead. A little time now, and all earthly agony would be over for him.
But there was a tranquil shadow on his face, and the large caverns of Christian’s eyes were full of dew, which did not fall, but yet had risen to refresh the burning lids which had kept watch so long. The manuscript was upon the table still—the thin arm lay quietly on the coverlet. A slight shudder passed across his frame as Anne entered; an involuntary thrill of that coward fear which had overwhelmed his nature. Then he turned his eyes upon her with a steadfast, melancholy, lingering look, failing sometimes for a moment as the slow blood crept coldly to his heart in another pang of terror; but renewed again—a sorrowful look of lingering, clinging tenderness, as though he saw in her face the shadow of another—the generous glance of one dearly beloved long ago, who had given up name, and wealth, and honor for his sake.
“Christian,” he said, “Christian, it comes. I feel that I am entering the dark valley. What I have to do, let me do quickly.—Raise me up.”
She lifted him in her arms—in her strong devotion she might have borne a threefold weight—the dying man was like an infant in her hands.
He took the pen she offered him into his unsteady fingers, and began, in feeble characters, to trace his name at the bottom of the manuscript. While he did so, he murmured broken words.
“I am guilty—I am guilty! I only. Lord, Thou knowest who hast saved me! Only his tenderness, like Thine—only his gracious heart, Thy true follower, has screened me, a miserable sinner, from the doom of the slayer! It is I only—my Lord, Thou knowest it is I!”
He had signed his name. Christian laid him back tenderly upon the pillow. With a firm hand she placed her own signature at the side of the document, and then gave the pen to Anne. The sister of the man who had done the deed, and the sister of him who had suffered for it—it was meet their names should stand together. Anne added hers. She could form some idea, of what this paper was. She signed it as a witness.
The words of the dying man ran on—a feeble, murmuring stream.
“Christian! he is alive—he is safe! No evil has come upon them! Tell me again—tell me again! They do not curse me—they forgive the miserable man who has made them exiles? It is over now, Christian. All your anguish—all your vigils: their disgrace and banishment—it is over now. God knows, who has visited me with His mercy and His light, why this desolation has fallen upon you all for my sin. I have been a coward. Christian, Christian! when they are home in their joyous household—when they have forgotten all their grief and dishonor, when they are tranquil and at rest—they will never name my name; my memory will be a thing of shame and fear: they will shrink from me in my grave.”
The thin hands met in silent appeal. There was a wistful, deprecating glance thrown upon Anne and Christian.
“Patrick,” said Christian, “canweever shrink from you, who have been willing, for your sake, to endure the hardest calamity that could be thrown upon man? Cantheyforget your name, who have lost their own for your sake, and never murmured? Patrick! look upon his sister. She has come to us in our sorest trouble; she has clung to us with her tenderest service, as if we had blessed him, and not blighted. Take your comfort from her. As for me, my labor is over. I will live to see Marion. I must, if it be the Lord’s will—but for forgetfulness, or shame, or shrinking, ye never thought of me!”
Anne stood by the bedside. The eyes of the dying man, so intensely blue, and strangely clear, were shining wistfully upon her. She could not find words to speak to him.
“Mind them of me,” said Patrick Lillie, faintly. “Tell them, that if they have suffered pain for me, they never can know what agony, bitterer than death, I have endured within this desolate house. Bid them mind me as I was, in yon bright, far away time, that I have been dwelling in again this day. Tell them, the Lord has given me back my hope, that He gave me first in my youth. Tell them, I am in His hand, who never loses the feeblest of His flock. Tell them—”
He was exhausted—the breath came in painful grasps.
“Do not fear,” said Anne, gently. “We will remember you in all tenderness, with sorrow and with reverence. I will answer for Norman.”
“For Norman!” said the dying man. “All blessings on the name that I have not dared to say for years! The blessing of my God upon him, who has been separated from his brethren. Norman! Marion! They have suffered in exile and in grief for me. Tell them, that with my last breath, I bade God bless them—God bless them! They have done as my Lord did—they have suffered for the guilty—and He will acknowledge His own.”
There was a pause. His breath came painfully. The hectic onhis cheek flushed deeper. Christian made a gesture with her hand to Anne, dismissing her. He saw it.
“Stay,” he said, “stay—my work is not yet done. Christian, hear me; when I have said this, I will take my journey in peace. My eyes are clear now. I dare look back to that terrible time. I did it unawares. The blood on my hand was not wilfully shed; ye hear me, ye trust me, Christian! I had that deadly weapon in my hand; my mind was far away as it often was. I was thinking of the two, and of their bright lot; my eye caught something dark among the trees. I thought it was a bird. Christian, it was the head of Arthur Aytoun, the man that I was hating in my heart! I came home; my soul was blinded within me. I was as innocent of wish to harm him as was the water at my feet; but yet in my inmost heart long before, I had been angry with my brother! My soul was blind; now I see, for the Lord has visited me with His mercy. You know all now. I have sinned; but I did this unawares, and into His city of refuge, my Lord has received my soul.”
The shadows were gathering—darker, closer—the face becoming deadly white. His breath came with less painful effort, but the end was at hand. He made a sign which Christian knew. She lifted a Bible, and began to read. Anne stood behind in silent awe, as the low voice rose through that dim room, whose occupant stood upon the eternal brink so near an unseen world. “There is, therefore, now no condemnation.” Wondrous words! spanning all this chaos of human sin and feebleness with their heavenward bridge of strong security.
Christian read on calmly, solemnly while the slow life ebbed wave by wave. She had reached the end.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For—”
She was stayed by the outstretching of that worn and wasted hand. A strange shrill voice, unnaturally clear, took up the words:
“I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus my Lord.”
Christian sprang forward to support him. He needed no support. In the might of that one certain thing, of which he was at last persuaded, the spirit of Patrick Lillie had ascended into his Saviour’s heaven.
A pale, feeble, worn-out garment, over which no longer thefluctuating fever of a wavering mind should sweep and burn—a fair, cold face, whose gentle features could answer no longer to the thousand changes of that delicate and tremulous soul, Christian laid back upon the pillow—no longer restless, or ill at ease, or fearful, but sleeping peaceful sleep—tranquil and calm at last!
And she stood by his bedside who had borne, through all these dreadful years, the strong tenacious life of deadly agony for him. As pale as his, was the thin, worn face bending over him; for a moment she listened with that intensest pain of watching, which seems to make the listener blind, and concentrates all the senses in that one—listening for the faint fall of his breath. It was in vain: those pale lips, until the great day of resurrection, should draw breath again—never more.
“I thank God,” said Christian Lillie, in the solemn calm of that death-chamber; “I thank God, Patrick, my brother, that you are safe, and at rest. Safe after perils greater than time could wear out. At rest after the hourly warfare and deadly travail of a lifetime—I thank God. My Father!—my Father! I thank Thee, who rejectest no petition, that Thou hast heard my cry!”
Her hands were clasped. Anne feared they were becoming rigid in the attitude of supplication so common to them. She laid her hand upon Christian’s arm.
“Ay, I will not linger,” said Christian, “but look at him—look at him at peace, and blessed at last. Do you see my tears? I have not shed one since yon June morning, but now I can weep. I will not linger; but can you not feel the blessedness of seeing his salvation—his rest in the fair haven—his solemn peace at last? I thank God, Patrick—I thank God!”
“You are worn out,” said Anne, gently; “come now and take rest—leave the further cares of this sad time to me.”
The tears were falling from her eyes like large soft rain-drops; there was a quivering, woeful smile about her lip.
“Ay, ay, I will go; I have one work yet for his sake, and theirs. At peace in the pure heaven of our Lord and Saviour—at rest. In hope and certainty that nothing can shake again, look how he has begun his tranquil waiting for the second coming. He is with his Lord, and I—yes, I will go and rest. Here I take up again the human hope that has been dead within me for eighteen lingering years; it died by him, and by him it is alive again. I will go and take rest for my labor. I trust him to your hands; I have never trusted him before in the care of any mortal. Now, I must rest for Norman’s sake, and you will watch for Patrick’s; I trust him to you.”
And so, at last Anne was able to lead her to her own chamber. The tension of mind and frame had been so long and stern, that now, when it was relaxed, Anne trembled for the issue; butChristian had borne all the vicissitudes of mental agony too long to sink now when there still remained labor to do “for his sake, and theirs.” She suffered Anne’s attendance with a strange child-like gentleness, as of one whose own long task is over; and while she lay down upon her bed, continued to speak of that blessed rest and peacefulness with a tremulous quivering smile, and wandering of thought which brought the tears fast from Anne’s eyes.—Deeply pitiful and moving was this pathetic garment of her grief.
At last, sleep was mercifully sent, such sleep as God gives to His beloved—calm, serene, and child-like—the sad smile trembling upon her lip—the mild tears stealing from under her closed eyelids, and her soul the while carried back to times of past tranquillity—the peace and gentle joyousness of the old cottage home.
From Christian’s bedside, Anne proceeded to a sadder work; a work too painful and repugnant for anything but callous habit, or deep tenderness. She called up the old serving-woman, and together they rendered the last offices to the dead.
The solemn, calm, majestic, awful dead, in whose still presence, were he in life the meanest, the princeliest soul of earth must stoop and bow. Strange doom which, with its sad mysterious ending, can make the meanest lifetime a sublime, unequalled thing! Strange death which, in its ghostly silence, can thrust so lightly the vain speculations of man aside, and make our mortal flesh shrink and tremble from the thrilling power of unseen life, that moves behind the curtain of its gloom. What man shall stand in its presence, and dare to say that this is the end? What man shall look upon its majesty, and tell us that is the mere death at which he thrills and shivers? It is not so—mightier, more terrible and great—it is the supernatural glow of an unseen life beyond that thus appals us.
The moonbeams glided over the Firth in spiritual stillness.—The necessary offices were done, and Anne and Marget sat down in a small adjoining room to watch. The old woman began to nod in her chair; this was to her but an ordinary death, and death to those who are accustomed to assist at its dread ceremonials, loses its awe and solemnity. Anne opened the window as the sun rose, and bathed her pale face in the delicious air of the morning. Under her sadness and awe a solemn joy was trembling.—Her work was accomplished—now for the exile’s home-coming—for household rest and companionship—for communion with the near and dear kindred over whom her heart had yearned so long.
The country was beginning to awake: the early morning labor of those rural people had commenced. She could see smoke rising from the indistinct dim towns on the Fife coast.—She awoke her companion, and then went softly into Christian’s room.
But Christian was gone; her Bible lay open upon the table, where she had sought its comfort when she rose. Her plain black silk cloak and bonnet had been taken away. Anne began to be alarmed; where could she be?
In the chamber of death she was not. Anne fancied she could perceive some trace of her having entered the room, but they had watched in the adjoining apartment, and Anne knew that she had been wakeful. She hurried down stairs and searched the rooms below: Christian was not to be found.
Looking through the low window of the study, she saw Jacky standing at the gate, and hastened to admit her. The girl was shivering with intense anxiety, and alarm—she had been standing there for more than an hour. On the previous night, she had haunted the precincts of Schole in fear and trembling for her mistress, and had been abruptly dismissed by Marget, with a fretful explanation that “Maister Patrick was in the deadthraw”—since then she had been watching at the window of Miss Crankie’s parlor. Now, she was awe-stricken, speaking below her breath, and letting fall now and then silent, solitary, large tears. She had never been in the shadow of death before, and her imaginative spirit bowed before its majesty.
“Jacky,” said Anne, “he is dead.”
Jacky did not answer—she only glanced a timid, wistful, upward look out of those keen, dark eyes of hers, dilated and softened with her sympathy.
“You will come in and stay with me, Jacky,” said Anne. “I must remain here for some days—you are not afraid?”
Afraid! no. Jacky was stricken with awe and sad reverence, but not with fear.
“I do not well know what to do, Jacky,” said Anne, thoughtfully. “Miss Lillie seems to have wandered out: I cannot find her.”
“If ye please, Miss Anne, I saw her.”
“Where, Jacky?”
“I was standing at the window looking out—it was just at the sun-rising—and I saw the gate of Schole opened canny, and Miss Lillie came out. She was just as she aye is, only there was a big veil over her face, and she took the Aberford road; and she didna walk slow as she does at common times, but was travelling ower the sands as fast as a spirit—as if it was a great errand she was on; naebody could have walkit yon way that hadna something urging them, and I thought then that Mr. Patrick was dead.”
Anne did not observe Jacky’s reflections and inferences—she was too much occupied in speculations as to Christian’s errand.
“If ye please, Miss Anne, would ye no go up to your ain room and lie down? I’ll stay and keep a’thing quiet.”
“I must see Miss Crankie,” said Anne. “The air will revive me, Jacky, and I could not rest. In the meantime, you must stay at Schole, and see that no one disturbs the stillness that belongs to this solemn vicinity. We should have reverenced him living—we must reverence him more sadly dead.”
Jacky was overcome—her eyes were flooded—she needed to make no promise. Anne’s charge to her was given in consequence of some grumbling threat of Marget’s to “get in some o’ the neighbors—no to be our lane wi’ the corp.” Anne was determined that there should be no unseemly visits, or vulgar investigation of the remains of one who had shrunk from all contact with the world so jealously.
“If ye please, Miss Anne—”
Anne had put on her bonnet, and stood at the gate on her way out.
“What is it, Jacky?”
Jacky hung her head in shy awkwardness.
“It was just naething, Miss Anne.”
Anne comprehended what the “just naething” was, and, understanding the singular interest and delicate sympathy of this elfin attendant of hers, knew also how perfectly she was to be trusted.
“Jacky,” she said, “what I tell you, you will never tell again, I know: this gentleman who died last night was nearly connected with us—if Marget asks you any questions, you can tell her that; and my work is accomplished here—accomplished in sorrow and in hope. By-and-by my brother of whom you have heard, will come home I trust, in peace and honor, to his own house and lands.—The work we came here for is done.”
Jacky was tremulously proud, but she had yet another question.
“And if ye please, Miss Anne—little Miss Lilie?”
A radiant light came into Anne’s eye. It was the first time she had dared to speak of the near relationships with which she now hoped to be surrounded.
“Lilie is my niece—my brother’s child—I believe and hope so, Jacky.”
Jacky’s first impulse was to turn her back on Schole, and flee without a moment’s delay to Oranside. She recollected herself, however; she only sat down on the mossy garden-path, and indulged in a fit of joyous crying—pride, and exultation, and affection, all contributing their part. “For I kent,” said Jacky to herself, tremulously, when Anne was gone, “I aye kent she was like somebody—a’ but the e’en—and it would be her mother’s e’en!”
But Jacky recollected her charge—recollected the solemn tenantwho lay within those walls, and became graver. Marget was sitting in the kitchen when she entered, refreshing herself with a cup of tea. Their salutations were laconic enough.
“Is that you, lass?” said Marget.
“Yes, it’s me,” said Jacky. “Miss Anne said I was to come in and stay; and she’ll be back soon hersel.”
“And wha’s Miss Anne that’s taking sae muckle fash wi’ this puir afflicted family?” said Marget. “Are ye ony friend to us, lassie? or what gars your mistress and you come into our house, this gate?”
“Miss Anne says Miss Lillie is a friend. I think it’s maybe by ither friends being married, but I dinna ken—only that they’re connected—Miss Anne said that.”
“And what do they ca’ ye?” continued Marget.
“They ca’ me Jacobina Morison—I was christened that after my uncle—but I aye get Jacky at hame; and they ca’ Miss Anne, Miss Ross, of Merkland.”
“She’ll be frae the north country,” said Marget. “I never heard o’ ony Norland freends Miss Kirstin had. Onyway it maun be for love ony fremd person taks heed o’ us—for it canna be for siller. They’re a strange family. Ye see the breath was scarce out o’ Maister Patrick, puir lamb—he was liker a bairn, than a man of years at ony time—when Miss Kirstin she gaed away. I saw your leddy seeking her—whaur she’s gane, guid kens.”
“Did she ever do that before?” asked Jacky.
“Eh, bless me, no: she was aye ower feared abouthim, puir man, wha has won out o’ a’ trouble this night. Maybe ye wad like to see him? He’s a bonnie—”
Jacky interrupted her hurriedly. In that imaginative, solemn awe of hers, she could not endure the ghastly admiration which one hears so often expressed by persons of Marget’s class for the dead, about whom they have been employed.
“Ye’ll be wearied?” said Jacky, hastily.
“Ay, lass, I’m wearied: it’s no like I could be onything else wi’ a’ that I have to do—and that sair hoast, and the constant fecht I hae wi’ my breath—it’s little the like o’ you ken—forbye being my lane in the house. If ye’ll just bide and look to the door, I’ll gang an get some o’ the neighbor wives to come in beside me: there’s nae saying when Miss Kirstin may be hame.”
“Miss Anne’s coming hersel,” said Jacky, eagerly. “And if ye would lie down and get some rest, I’ll do the work—and I’m no feared to be my lane—and if ye had a guid sleep, ye would be the better o’t.”
“I’ll no’ say but what I would,” said Marget, graciously; “and ye’re a considerate lass to think o’t. Tak a cup o’ tea—it’s no right to gang out in the morning fasting—and I daresay I’ll justtak your counsel. It doesna do for an auld body like me to be out o’ my bed a’ night.”
So Jacky got Marget disposed of, and remained with much awe, and some shadow of superstitious fear, alone within the house of Schole—supported by the sunshine round about her as she lingered at the door—for Marget, in decent reverence, had drawn a simple curtain across the window. The other rooms were shuttered and dark—the natural homage of seemly awe and gravity in the presence of death.
Anne had no difficulty in inducing Miss Crankie to take upon her those matters of sad external business, which she herself was not qualified to manage. With more delicacy than she expected, Miss Crankie undertook them immediately. Mrs. Yammer was “in sore distress with rheumatics in my back, and my head like to split in twa wi’ the ticdoloureux—and it’s a’ yon awfu’ nicht—and I dinna believes Miss Ross, I’ll ever get the better o’t.—Johann and you, that are strong folk, fleeing out into the storm, and me, a puir weak creature, left, to fend my lane—forbye being like to gang out o’ my judgment wi’ fricht, for you and the perishing creatures in the ship. Eh! wha would have thought of a weak man like yon saving them—and so he’s ta’en to his rest! Weel I’m sure, Miss Ross, you’ve been uncommon kind to them—they canna say but they’ve found a friend in need.”
“They are my relatives,” said Anne: “I mean we are nearly connected.”
Miss Crankie opened her little dark eyes wide. Mrs. Yammer began, with an astonished exclamation, to recollect the pedigree of the Lillies, and acquaint herself with this strange relationship.—Her sister stopped her abruptly.
“Take your breakfast, Tammie, and dinna haver nonsense. Is Kirstin content, Miss Ross, to have ye biding in her house?”
“Quite content,” said Anne.
Miss Crankie’s eyes opened wider. She began with a rapid logic, by no means formal, but which had a knack of arriving at just conclusions, to put things together. She had a glimmering of the truth already.
“Miss Lillie is out,” said Anne. “I fear, in her deep grief, she wandered out, finding herself unable to rest; but neither she nor I are able for these details. You will greatly oblige me, Miss Crankie, and do your old friend a most kind service, if you will undertake this.”
Miss Crankie promised heartily, and Anne returned to Schole. Again there passed a long, weary, brilliant summer day, but Christian did not return. The night fell, but the roof that covered the mortal garment of Patrick Lille, sheltered no kindred blood. Anne had taken Christian’s place—she was the watcher now.
ANOTHERday, as bright, as weary, and as long, and still there were no tidings of Christian. Anne became alarmed. She sent out Jacky to make inquiries; Jacky ascertained that Miss Lillie on the previous morning had gone by the earliest coach to Edinburgh. The intelligence was some relief, yet perplexed Anne painfully; the arrangements were going on, but what could she do, if Christian remained absent, thus left alone with the dead?
In the middle of the day, Miss Crankie brought her a letter from Mrs. Catherine. Anne’s conscience smote her; during Patrick’s illness, she had scarcely written to Mrs. Catherine at all; and her brief notes had only intimated his illness, and her hope of obtaining some further information through the Lillies. Mrs. Catherine’s letter had an enclosure.
“My Gowan,“What has come over you? I have been marvelling these past mornings whether it was success or failure—a light heart or a downcast one, that made you forgetful of folk to whom all your doings are matters of interest, and have been since you could use your own proper tongue to testify of them. Think you this lad Lillie has any further knowledge than you have yourself? I count it unlikely, or else he is a pithless laggard, not worthy to call Norman Rutherford friend, and Norman was not one to choose his friends lightly, or be joined in near amity with a shallow head and a faint heart. So I would have you build little on the hope of getting good tidings from him, seeing that if he had known anything, he must have put it to its fitting use before now. You say it gave him a fever? I like not folk, child, who are thrown into fevers by sore trouble and anguish, and make themselves a burden and a cumbrance, when they ought to be quickened to keener life—the more helpful and strong, the greater the extremity; it augurs a narrow vessel and a frail spirit in most cases—it may be other in his. Certain he bore himself like a man in the night you tell me of. Let me see his sister, if you can bring her; there, seems—if ye draw like the life—to be no soil in her for the cowardice of sickness to flourish on, from which I take my certainty, that if she had kent any good word concerning this dark mystery, she must have put it to the proof before now.“To speak about other matters, I send you a letter—worthy the light-headed, undutiful fuil from whose vain hand it comes. You will see she will have none of my counsel, and puts my offerof an honorable roof over her, and a home dependent on no caprice or strange woman’s pleasure, in the light of a good meaning—will to do kindness without power. If it were not for Archie’s sake, and for the good-fame of their broken house, she should never more say light word to me. He has been but a month dead, this miserable man of hers—that she left her mother’s sick-bed for—and look at her words! without so much as a decent shadow on them, to tell where the sore gloom of death had fallen so late. I am growing testy in my spirit, child; though truly sorrow would set me better than anger, to look upon the like of a born fuil like this—her brother ruined, and her man killed. Archie, a laboring wayfarer, with his good name tarnished, and his father’s inheritance, lost; the husband for whose sake she brought down her mother’s gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, taken away suddenly from this world by the red grip of a violent death, and the wanton fuil what can I call her else?—as if she had not gotten enough to sober her for a while, returning in haste to her vanities—feared to leave the atmosphere of them—singing songs over the man’s new grave, and giving long nights to strangers, when she can but spare a brief minute to say a kind word to her one brother—a kind word, said I! I should say a bitter one, of folly and selfishness,—not comfort to him in his labor, but records of her own sinful vanities.“You will say I am bitter, child, at this fuil—so I am—the more that I cannot be done with her, as I could with any other of her kind. She is still the bairn of Isabel Balfour—in good or in evil I am trysted to keep my eye upon her. I have been asking about the household she is in. The mistress of it, her friend, is at least of pure name; a scheming woman as I hear from one of their own vain kind—who has a pride in yoking the fuils about her in the unstable bands of marriage. Isabel has her mother’s fair face; they will be wedding her again for some passing fancy, or for dirt of siller. I scarce know which is the worst. I will have no hand in it, however it happens. Since she will be left to herself, she must. If deadly peril ever comes, I must put forth the strong hand.“You will come to me with all speed when you can win. If you have any glimpse of good tidings, or if you have none—I am meaning when you come to any certainty—let me know without delay, that I may make ready for our home-going. To say the truth, I am weary at my heart of this place, and sickened with anger at the fuil whose letter I send you. Let me look upon you soon, lest the wrath settle down, and I be not able to shake it off again; which evil consequent, if you prevent it not, will be the worse for you all.CATHERINE DOUGLAS.”
“My Gowan,
“What has come over you? I have been marvelling these past mornings whether it was success or failure—a light heart or a downcast one, that made you forgetful of folk to whom all your doings are matters of interest, and have been since you could use your own proper tongue to testify of them. Think you this lad Lillie has any further knowledge than you have yourself? I count it unlikely, or else he is a pithless laggard, not worthy to call Norman Rutherford friend, and Norman was not one to choose his friends lightly, or be joined in near amity with a shallow head and a faint heart. So I would have you build little on the hope of getting good tidings from him, seeing that if he had known anything, he must have put it to its fitting use before now. You say it gave him a fever? I like not folk, child, who are thrown into fevers by sore trouble and anguish, and make themselves a burden and a cumbrance, when they ought to be quickened to keener life—the more helpful and strong, the greater the extremity; it augurs a narrow vessel and a frail spirit in most cases—it may be other in his. Certain he bore himself like a man in the night you tell me of. Let me see his sister, if you can bring her; there, seems—if ye draw like the life—to be no soil in her for the cowardice of sickness to flourish on, from which I take my certainty, that if she had kent any good word concerning this dark mystery, she must have put it to the proof before now.
“To speak about other matters, I send you a letter—worthy the light-headed, undutiful fuil from whose vain hand it comes. You will see she will have none of my counsel, and puts my offerof an honorable roof over her, and a home dependent on no caprice or strange woman’s pleasure, in the light of a good meaning—will to do kindness without power. If it were not for Archie’s sake, and for the good-fame of their broken house, she should never more say light word to me. He has been but a month dead, this miserable man of hers—that she left her mother’s sick-bed for—and look at her words! without so much as a decent shadow on them, to tell where the sore gloom of death had fallen so late. I am growing testy in my spirit, child; though truly sorrow would set me better than anger, to look upon the like of a born fuil like this—her brother ruined, and her man killed. Archie, a laboring wayfarer, with his good name tarnished, and his father’s inheritance, lost; the husband for whose sake she brought down her mother’s gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, taken away suddenly from this world by the red grip of a violent death, and the wanton fuil what can I call her else?—as if she had not gotten enough to sober her for a while, returning in haste to her vanities—feared to leave the atmosphere of them—singing songs over the man’s new grave, and giving long nights to strangers, when she can but spare a brief minute to say a kind word to her one brother—a kind word, said I! I should say a bitter one, of folly and selfishness,—not comfort to him in his labor, but records of her own sinful vanities.
“You will say I am bitter, child, at this fuil—so I am—the more that I cannot be done with her, as I could with any other of her kind. She is still the bairn of Isabel Balfour—in good or in evil I am trysted to keep my eye upon her. I have been asking about the household she is in. The mistress of it, her friend, is at least of pure name; a scheming woman as I hear from one of their own vain kind—who has a pride in yoking the fuils about her in the unstable bands of marriage. Isabel has her mother’s fair face; they will be wedding her again for some passing fancy, or for dirt of siller. I scarce know which is the worst. I will have no hand in it, however it happens. Since she will be left to herself, she must. If deadly peril ever comes, I must put forth the strong hand.
“You will come to me with all speed when you can win. If you have any glimpse of good tidings, or if you have none—I am meaning when you come to any certainty—let me know without delay, that I may make ready for our home-going. To say the truth, I am weary at my heart of this place, and sickened with anger at the fuil whose letter I send you. Let me look upon you soon, lest the wrath settle down, and I be not able to shake it off again; which evil consequent, if you prevent it not, will be the worse for you all.
CATHERINE DOUGLAS.”
Mrs. Duncombe’s letter was enclosed.
“My dear Mrs. Catherine,“It is so good of you to think of troubling yourself with me at the Tower, and must have put you so much out of the way, coming to Edinburgh, that I hasten to thank you. Poor dear Duncombe was taken away very suddenly; you would be quite shocked to hear of it. I was distracted. They had been quarrelling over their wine. Poor Duncombe was always so very jealous; and it was all for the merest word of admiration, which he might have heard from a thousand people beside. So they fought, and he was wounded mortally. You may think how dreadful it was, when they brought him home to me dying. I went into hysterics directly, I believe I needed the doctor’s care more than he did: before he died I was just able to speak to him, and he was so very penitent for having been sometimes rude to me, and so sorry for his foolish jealousy. Poor dear Edward!—I shall never forget him.“I am staying here with a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Legeretie. She has got a delightful house, quite out of town, and they have come here just for my sake, to be quiet and away from the gay world, which of course I could not bear just now. We have quite a nice circle of friends, besides our visitors from London, and just with quiet parties, and country amusements, get on delightfully. Dear Eliza is so kind, and gives up her engagements in town, without a murmur, just to let me have the soothing quietness of the country, which the doctors order me—with cheerful society—for if it were not for that, my poor heart would break, I am sure—I have suffered so dreadfully.“You will have heard that dear Archibald has arrived safely at that horrid place in America. What could induce him to do such a thing, when he might have gone into the army, or got into Parliament, or something? and the friends of the family would have helped him, I am sure. It’s just like Archie; he’s always so hot and extreme. I thought he would have killed himself that dreadful time at Paris, before he took the fever; and what a shocking thing that would have been for me, with all my other misfortunes. To be sure, it was a horrid, foolish business—that of losing the estate—and if it had not been that dull old Strathoran, where papa and mamma managed to vegetate all the year through, I don’t know how—I should have been broken-hearted. I am sure, considering that dear Archie was only my brother, there was nothing I was not willing to do for him; but to go away a common clerk, into a horrid mercantile office! I must say he has shown very little regard for the feelings of his relatives, especially as he knows how I detest these ogres of commercial people. One can only bear with them if they are very rich, and I am afraid dear Archie is not likely ever to become a moneyed man.“They are so fond of me here, and dear Eliza has done so much to make me comfortable, that I should be very ungrateful to run away, else I should have been delighted to spend a week or two at the Tower. Mr. Legeretie has a shooting-lodge in the Highlands, and dear Eliza talks of going down with him this year to give me a little change; if we do, we shall come by dear old dreary Strathoran just to look at it again. I hope the Rosses, and all the other old friends, are well. I used to think a good deal of Lewis. I suppose Anne is never married yet; she must be getting quite ancient now.“My dear Mrs. Catherine,“Very sincerely yours,“ISABEL DUNCOMBE.”
“My dear Mrs. Catherine,
“It is so good of you to think of troubling yourself with me at the Tower, and must have put you so much out of the way, coming to Edinburgh, that I hasten to thank you. Poor dear Duncombe was taken away very suddenly; you would be quite shocked to hear of it. I was distracted. They had been quarrelling over their wine. Poor Duncombe was always so very jealous; and it was all for the merest word of admiration, which he might have heard from a thousand people beside. So they fought, and he was wounded mortally. You may think how dreadful it was, when they brought him home to me dying. I went into hysterics directly, I believe I needed the doctor’s care more than he did: before he died I was just able to speak to him, and he was so very penitent for having been sometimes rude to me, and so sorry for his foolish jealousy. Poor dear Edward!—I shall never forget him.
“I am staying here with a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Legeretie. She has got a delightful house, quite out of town, and they have come here just for my sake, to be quiet and away from the gay world, which of course I could not bear just now. We have quite a nice circle of friends, besides our visitors from London, and just with quiet parties, and country amusements, get on delightfully. Dear Eliza is so kind, and gives up her engagements in town, without a murmur, just to let me have the soothing quietness of the country, which the doctors order me—with cheerful society—for if it were not for that, my poor heart would break, I am sure—I have suffered so dreadfully.
“You will have heard that dear Archibald has arrived safely at that horrid place in America. What could induce him to do such a thing, when he might have gone into the army, or got into Parliament, or something? and the friends of the family would have helped him, I am sure. It’s just like Archie; he’s always so hot and extreme. I thought he would have killed himself that dreadful time at Paris, before he took the fever; and what a shocking thing that would have been for me, with all my other misfortunes. To be sure, it was a horrid, foolish business—that of losing the estate—and if it had not been that dull old Strathoran, where papa and mamma managed to vegetate all the year through, I don’t know how—I should have been broken-hearted. I am sure, considering that dear Archie was only my brother, there was nothing I was not willing to do for him; but to go away a common clerk, into a horrid mercantile office! I must say he has shown very little regard for the feelings of his relatives, especially as he knows how I detest these ogres of commercial people. One can only bear with them if they are very rich, and I am afraid dear Archie is not likely ever to become a moneyed man.
“They are so fond of me here, and dear Eliza has done so much to make me comfortable, that I should be very ungrateful to run away, else I should have been delighted to spend a week or two at the Tower. Mr. Legeretie has a shooting-lodge in the Highlands, and dear Eliza talks of going down with him this year to give me a little change; if we do, we shall come by dear old dreary Strathoran just to look at it again. I hope the Rosses, and all the other old friends, are well. I used to think a good deal of Lewis. I suppose Anne is never married yet; she must be getting quite ancient now.
“My dear Mrs. Catherine,“Very sincerely yours,“ISABEL DUNCOMBE.”
It was a strange contrast—with Christian Lillie’s desolate life before her—with her own heart throbbing so anxiously for the stranger, Norman, whom, in her remembrance, she had never seen—to hear this Isabel, her play-mate long ago, talking of Archie as “only” her brother. The effect was very singular. What had become of the sad sufferer who lay within these walls in the tranquil rest of death, if for Christian, and Marion, and Norman there had been any “only” stemming the deep tide of their self-denying tenderness?
Anne wrote a brief note to Mrs. Catherine, announcing Patrick Lillie’s death, and saying that her mission was now accomplished; and that in a day or two she would return to Edinburgh to explain the further particulars of this long mystery. The day was waning again; in weary sadness and solitude she sat in Patrick Lillie’s study. From the kitchen she could hear the subdued voices of Marget and Jacky: above, the stealthy step of Miss Crankie, as she arranged the sad preliminaries of the funeral. The second evening had fallen since he departed to his rest; and where was Christian?
A dark shadow flitted across the window. She heard a footstep enter, and pass quickly up the stair. Anne rose and followed. The footstep was quicker than Christian’s, but it went steadily to the chamber of death.
Anne paused at the door. The lonely dimness of the evening air gathered shadowy and spiritual round the bed, a dark background, from which that rigid marble face stood out in cold relief. A deadly stillness—a dim, brooding, tremulous awe—which carried in it a vague conviction of watching spirits, and presences mysteriously unseen, was hovering in the room.
And kneeling at the bedside, her veil hanging round her white, thin face, like a cloud over the tearful pallor of a wan Novembersky, was Christian Lillie, the quivering smile upon her lip again, and the words of sad thankfulness falling from her tongue.
“Ye are thanking God in His own heaven, Patrick, my brother; the justice is done, the cloud is taken away. Henceforward, in the free light of heaven, may Norman bear his own name; and now there remaineth nothing but to lay you, with hope and solemn thanksgiving into your quiet grave.”
Anne stood still; there was a long pause. Christian knelt silently by her dead brother’s side, in darkness, in silence, in the presence of death, thanking God.
At last she rose, and turned to leave the room. Anne’s presence did not seem to excite any wonder; she took her offered arm quietly and kindly.
“I have been very anxious,” said Anne.
“Ay,” said Christian; “did you think I could rest, and that blight remaining on their name? Did you think there was any peace for me till all my labor was accomplished? Now—you heard me speak—Norman Rutherford may bear his own name, and return to his own country with honor and blessing upon him, in the open sunshine of day. My work is ended: I must but tarry for one look upon them, and then I wait the Lord’s pleasure. His call will not come too soon.”
“You have taken no rest,” said Anne, anxiously: “remember, there is one trial yet remaining. Let me get you some refreshment, and then try to sleep. This constant watching will kill you.”
Christian suffered herself to be led down stairs. Into the little parlor Anne hastily brought tea, and, considerably to Jacky’s horror, insisted upon rendering all needful services herself. It was evident that Christian felt the delicacy which kept strange eyes from beholding her grief. She took the tea eagerly, removed her cloak and bonnet, and met Anne’s anxious look with a tremulous, tender smile, inviting, rather than deprecating, conversation now.
“Let me go with you to your own room,” said Anne; “you have been in Edinburgh, and are quite exhausted, I see. You will be better after you have slept.”
“Sit down, I need no sleep,” said Christian: “I scarcely think now, after my long watching, that I can begin to think of rest.—Sometimes—sometimes—”
She rose and stretched out her thin arms, like one who complains of some painful void within, drawing them in again wearily to her breast.
“Sometimes, when I do not think ofthem, and mind that he is gone, I could be content to bear it all again, were he but back once more. God aid us, for we are weak. Patrick, my brother, are ye away at last? are ye at peace? And I am ready to lamentand pine, and not to thank God! God be thanked! God be thanked! that he is away in blessedness at last.”
She paced the room slowly for a while, and sitting down by the window, drew the curtains aside, and looked out in silence upon the sea—the placid, wakeful sea—with which so often in her misery she had taken counsel.
“The morning after he went home,” she said at last, turning to Anne abruptly, “I saw you looking out upon the Firth, when I departed on my needful errand. You mind the soft fall of the air, like the breath of a young angel—a spirit in its first joy—the latest born of heaven? You mind the joy and gentleness that were in the air?”
“Yes,” said Anne.
“On such a morning—as soft, as joyous, and as bright—he came to me, who is now in heaven at peace. There was no peace about him then. Within his soul, and in his face, was an agony more bitter than death. You know the reason. He had done the deed, for which, through eighteen lingering, terrible years, Norman Rutherford has been a banished man.
“I took him in, and closed the door: he fell down upon the ground, at my feet. From the terrible words of his first madness, I gleaned something of the truth. Think of it—think of that.—The horror of great darkness that fell on me that day has scarce ever been lightened for an hour, from that time to this.
“I sent for him, for Norman, your brother, and mine. He came to me, into the room where Patrick lay, in a burning fever of agony and madness. By that time a breath of the terrible story was abroad. It was his gun it was done with. He had parted from Arthur Aytoun in just anger. There were but two ways—either to give up the frantic, fevered lad that lay there before us, knowing neither him nor me, to a death of shame and horror, or for him—him, in his honorable, upright, pure youth—to sacrifice honor, and home, and name.
“He did not hesitate—the Lord bless him!—the Lord send the blessings of the convenant upon him, promised and purchased!—he made up his mind. And to us, as we stood there in our first agony, with Patrick stricken down before us, there was no consolation of innocence. We knew not but what the blood had been wilfully shed: we thought the torture he was in was the just meed of a murderer.
“I gave him a line to Marion: she was at a friend’s house, between Edinburgh and Glasgow. She had gone, a joyous light-hearted girl, with as fair a lot before her as ever lay at mortal feet, to get apparel for her bridal. I bade her go with Norman. When I wrote that, I was calmer than I am now. I, that wasparting with them both—that was left here alone with this stricken man and his blood-guiltiness.
“They went away, and he was still lying unconscious on my hands. Then I had to hear the unjust stain thrown upon the noble and brave heart that was bearing the burden. I had to hear it all—to listen to the certainties of his guilt—to hear them tell how he had done it like a coward; and with my heart burning within me, I dared not say to them that he was pure and guiltless as ever was righteous man. I turned from the scorching summer light, and the false accusation, in to the bedside of my raving, maddened brother, and he was the man. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! how did I live?
“Then there came the word that they were lost; and a calm, like what you will see in storms, came over the miserable heart within me. I defied my misery: I dared it to add to me another pang.
“Then I said that Marion was dead—my bird—my light—my little sister! When I said that, I knew not it was false; I believed she was gone out of her new grief; I believed I was alone in the world.
“Then the secret news came to me that they were safe, and then the life struggled through that time of horror, and Patrick rose from his bed. One solemn still night I told him all, and in his agony he said he was innocent. Since that time through all this life of desolation, he has repeated that at times, when his mind was clear; but his soul was frozen within him in terror. When I spoke of justice to Norman, he shrank and trembled, and bade me wait. What could I do? I could not give him up as a shedder of blood—he was in my hand. To my own heart, and to my Father in heaven, I had to answer for him; and when I dared hope that he had shed this blood unawares, I became strong.”
She paused. She had been speaking rapidly, without stop or hesitation, almost without breath. Anne endeavored to soothe and calm her.
“Last year, they sent me their child. He had called her Lilie. He himself, whom our unhappy name had blighted. The child was pining under the hot sun of yon strange land. I could not keep her in our desolate house. I took her to Norman’s country. I was to place her with his nurse, near to his old home. When we got there, I feared to enter; I trembled to betray the secret I was burdened with. I thought a heart that he was dear to, could not fail to discover his bairn, and so I took her to a stranger.
“When I left her there—you mind?—I met you, and we looked upon each other face to face: I did not need to hear the name that the blue-eyed girl by your side was saying. I knew you wereNorman’s sister—I felt that his spirit was within you, and that we would meet again.
“Now we have met, and you know it all. The history is public now. The ban is off Norman’s name—your brother and mine. I will see them again—my bird Marion—my bairn, that my own hands nurtured!”
“Christian,” said Anne, “for her sake, and for us all, you must rest. There are quiet days in store—tranquil days of household peace and honor. You have done your work nobly and bravely, as few could have done; for Marion’s sake, who is my sister as well as yours, and for the sake of the dead, for whom you have watched so long, take rest now. Your work is over.”
Christian drew the curtain aside again, and gazed out upon the sea. “For him—for Marion—for Norman; for Thy mercy’s sake, O, Lord! and for Thy beautiful world, which Thou hast given to calm us, I will be calm—give me now what Thou willest, and Thy rest in Thine own heaven, when Thy good time shall come.”
And so peacefully, in chastened hope and with gentle tears, refreshing with their milder sorrow the weary eyes that had burned in tearless agony so long, they laid the innocent shedder of blood in his quiet grave.
On the evening after the funeral, Christian wandered out alone. “She goeth unto the grave to weep there,” said Anne, as it was said of the Mary of the Lord’s time; and she made no attempt either to detain or to accompany her. To Christian, the balm of Anne’s sisterly care and sympathy was evidently very dear; but she was not wont to lean upon any mortal arm, and it was best that she should be left with her sorrow alone.
The house had the exhausted, worn-out look which is common after such a solemn departure. Marget sat, dressed in her new mourning, in the kitchen, in languid despondent state, telling Jacky traits of the dead Master, whom, now that all excitement was over, she began to miss and lament, and weep some natural tears for. Jacky was half-listening to these, half-buried in an old volume of “Quarles’ Emblems,” which she had recently brought from the study. Anne had opened the low projecting window, and sat in the recess with one of those devout contemplative books in her hand; she was reading little, and thinking much—feeling herself affected by the listless weariness that reigned around her.
She saw a lad come in at the gate, without observing who he was. In a minute after Jacky entered the study.
“If ye please, Miss Anne, it’s Johnnie Halflin.”
Anne started.
“Has he come from Mrs. Catherine?”
“If ye please, Miss Anne, Mrs. Catherine’s at Miss Crankie’s.”
Anne rose immediately, and proceeded up the lane to MissCrankie’s house. Mrs. Catherine’s carriage stood at the door. Mrs. Catherine herself was in the parlor, where Miss Crankie stood in deferential conversation with her—keenly observant of all the particulars of her plain, rich dress and stately appearance, and silently exulting over the carriage at the door—the well-appointed, wealthy carriage, which all the neighborhood could see.
“Anne!” exclaimed Mrs. Catherine, as Anne in her deep mourning dress entered the room. “What is the matter?”
Miss Crankie sensibly withdrew.
“He is dead, Mrs. Catherine,” said Anne.
“Who is dead? Who is this lad?”
“The brother of Marion—the brother of Norman’s wife.”
“Anne,” said Mrs. Catherine, “you have not dealt ingenuously and frankly with me in this matter. Who is this lad, I ask you? Have you a certainty that Norman’s wife was his sister, that you are thus mourning for a fremd man?”
Anne sat down beside her.
“What I knew formerly was so dim and indistinct that I feared to tell you. They avoided me—they went away from their own home to shun my presence. In the confusion of my imperfect knowledge, I felt that I could not speak of them. Now I am sure. There is a most sad story to tell you, Mrs. Catherine—Patrick Lillie is Marion’s brother—he is more than that.”
“Speak out, child. Who is he?”
“He is the man for whom Norman sacrificed all—he is the slayer of Alice Aytoun’s father.”
Mrs. Catherine started—in her extreme wonder she could say nothing.
“An innocent man, Mrs. Catherine; this dreadful deed was done unawares, and in a life of agony has it been avenged.”
Mrs. Catherine remained silent for a moment.
“And he let Norman, the honorable, generous, just lad, suffer a death for him—suffer the death of a lifetime? Anne—Anne, is it a coward like this you are mourning for? A faint heart and a weak spirit—what could it be other that would let a righteous man bear this for him?”
“There is justice done,” said Anne, “it is over now. I acknowledge the weakness, Mrs. Catherine; but he has suffered dreadfully. A gentle, delicate, pensive spirit, unfit for storms and trials—altogether unfit for doing any great thing: one to be supported and tenderly upheld—not to take any bold step alone.”
“Suffered!” Mrs. Catherine rose and walked through the room, till the boards, less solid than those of the Tower, quaked and sounded below her feet. “Wherefore did he not come forth in the light of day, and bear his own burden? Good fame andhonor—land and home—what was he that a just man should lay down these for him?”
“He was a feeble, delicate, dependant spirit,” said Anne: “one of those whom it is our natural impulse to defend and suffer for. That was his only claim; but you know how strong that is.”
Mrs. Catherine did know, but she felt no sympathy for the shrinking weakness which could suffer another to bear its own just punishment.
“I know? Yes, I know; but what claim has the like of such a weakling to call himself a man? Eighteen years—eighteen long, slow years—all Alice Aytoun’s lifetime. Anne, I marvel you can bear with his memory, or lift up your face to me, and speak of him as kindred. He shed this blood unawares, said you? Did he doom Norman to this death unawares? was it without his knowledge that he laid this blight upon the two that have borne banishment for him? Speak not to me of this coward, child. I say, mention not his name to me.”
“Mrs. Catherine,” said Anne, “bear with me till you hear his story. If you had seen him as I have seen—if you had listened to Christian as I have listened, you too would mourn over this blighted, broken man, less in his death than in his life. When Norman fled, he was in an agony of fever and madness, unconscious of what was passing round him—only aware in his burning horror and grief that he had shed blood. When he recovered—and most strange it was that he should have recovered—most strange the tenacious life and strength of his feebleness—he heard of Norman’s sacrifice; and then I acknowledge he ought to have done justice, had not his weakness overpowered him. He dared not face the terror and the shame; perhaps the dreadful death due to his blood-guiltiness, and so he lived on—such a life as few have ever lived in this world—a life of despair, and gloom, and misery: terrible to hear of—more terrible to see.”
Mrs. Catherine seated herself again.
“And the sister and the righteous man, his friend, bearing a dark name for him over the sea; and the sad woman at home, that you have told me of, wearing out her days for him. Was his miserable life worth that, think you? Should that not have been worse than any death?”
“Should have been,” said Anne; “but I do not speak of what should be, Mrs. Catherine. Why this shrinking, feeble spirit was conjoined with such a lot, who can tell? It had a strange, feverish, hysteric strength, too. When he battled through yon dark waves to save the perishing seamen, you would not have said that Patrick Lillie was a coward.”
There was a pause. Mrs. Catherine’s manner softened. Annetook advantage of it to repeat to her Christian Lillie’s story. The stern, stately old lady was moved to very tears.
“And so at last justice is done,” she said. “Anne, it is meet that this worn woman, after her travail, should have light in her evening-time. If she will come with you, bid her come to my house. The like of her would do honor to any dwelling, were it a king’s. And she left him at his grave’s brink, whenever he was at rest, to render what was just to the banished man? She did well. It behoves that all who known this history should render reverence. I say she did well.”
There was again a momentary pause.
“And where is he?” asked Mrs. Catherine. “Where, and in what condition is Norman Rutherford?”
“I have never asked yet,” said Anne. “I was anxious to soothe her; she has been so worn out with watching and grief. I will ask her now, when all excitement is over, and she has only to bear her gentle sorrow for Patrick’s death.”
“Ay—ay,” said Mrs. Catherine, slowly; “ay—and yet you do not know, Gowan, the terrible, dreary calm that is left by that shadow of death. I speak of the death that carries home a godly, honorable, righteous man, whose life was a joy and a blessing.—This is a grief sorer than mine. I bow my head to this tribulation. I cannot fathom all the depths of its bitterness; it is greater than mine.”
And with her large gray eyelid swelling full, Mrs. Catherine Douglas bowed her stately head. Yes! the solitary, desolate, dumb might of anguish with which her strong spirit quivered, when she left all that remained of Sholto Douglas sleeping peacefully in his calm island grave, overwhelming as it was, became a gentle sorrow in presence of the life of wakeful agony which Christian Lillie had borne silently within the desolate walls of Schole.
Mrs. Catherine began to speak of the possibility of remaining for the night. It was a very strange idea for her, who had not slept under a strange roof for more than thirty years. Since Patrick’s death, Anne had passed both night and day at Schole, and the pretty little clean bed-room behind was unoccupied. Miss Crankie herself was called in to be consulted on the subject.
Miss Crankie had scarcely entered the room, when there was a rush in the passage. The door flew violently open, and Mrs. Yammer, her head bound up with mighty rolls of flannel, and a newspaper trembling in her eager hand, stood before them.
“Eh, Johann!—Eh, Miss Ross!” she could articulate no more.
“What in the world has come ower the woman now?” exclaimed Miss Crankie, peevishly. “If ye will be a puling, no-weel fuil, yemay keep your ailments to yoursel at least. For guid sake, Tammie, haud your tongue; dinna deave the ladies.”
“Eh, Miss Ross!—Eh, Johann!” exclaimed the aroused and excited Mrs. Yammer, “if it wasna for the stitch in my side, I wad read it to ye mysel. Look at this.”
Anne took the paper wonderingly. She glanced down a long paragraph, headed “Romance in real life,” with hurried half attention, and little interest. Her eyes were arrested by the concluding words: they seemed to shine out from a mist. Unconsciously, in her sudden excitement, she read them aloud: “This most honorable vindication of Norman Rutherford, of Redheugh—”
“Gowan,” exclaimed Mrs. Catherine, hastily, taking the paper from her powerless hand, “what is that you say?”
“Ye see,” said Mrs. Yammer, following up briskly her unwonted independent movement, “we get it atween us. Mr. Currie, the saddler, and Mrs. Clippie, the captain’s widow, and Robert Carritch, the session-clerk, and Johann and me; and I was just sitting ower the fire, trying if the heat would do ony guid to my puir head, when I saw that about young Redheugh—and I’ll be out o’ my wits the morn wi the draft frae that open door.”
“Gae way to your fireside again, and haud your tongue,” said Miss Crankie, bundling her sister unceremoniously out of the door before her. “Wits!—woman, if ye had as muckle judgment as wad lie on a sixpence, ye wad see that the ladies have mair concern in that than either you or me.”
Anne had been looking at them vacantly with a vague, unconscious smile upon her lip. Now, when the door was shut, she suddenly knelt down at Mrs. Catherine’s knees, scarce knowing what she did, and leaning there, burst into tears. She was conscious of Mrs. Catherine’s hand laid caressingly upon her hair; she was conscious of an indistinct mist of joy and thankfulness. It overpowered and weakened her; she could not stay these tears.
In the meantime, Mrs. Catherine read: