"'Long hath the night of sorrow reigned,The dawn shall bring us light.'
"'Long hath the night of sorrow reigned,The dawn shall bring us light.'
The morn is wi' us, Donal', an' Robin's at the gate."
Far past the flickering lamp she gazed, and her eyes' light rose and fell in unison with approaching steps.
"He'sbyethe gate," she cried; and joy held death at bay, for the words chimed like cathedral bells.
Fearsome to behold was the awestruck face which Donald turned to mine, and full of questioning dread, I doubt not, were the eyes that met his own. Was this the doing of the Lord, or was it but the handiwork of death, that wizard oculist, so often lending mystic vision to pilgrims setting under darkness out to sea?
Leaving death and Elsie to their unequal conflict,we started with one impulse to the window; but Donald was there before me, his eyes shaded by his hands, burning through the dark a pathway to the gate.
"God be mercifu'," he muttered, and then turned swiftly towards the stairs, for a hand was fumbling at the latch. I waited trembling, and I heard no word; but the aroma of a soul's second spring stole sweet and unafraid into the chamber of death.
I met them at the door as Donald said, "Yir mither's deein'," and there broke from the rugged man beside him a low moaning sound, like to many waters when some opposing thing hath at length been overswept. It was quickly checked, and the silence of love and anguish took its place.
I drew Donald gently back and closed the door upon them twain, the waiting mother and the wandering son, for there was never bridal hour like to this.
"My mither, oh, my mither!" I heard him say; and Elsie spoke no word, but the long ache was ended and the great wound was well.
'Twas but a moment again when a trembling voice called, "Faither, she's wantin' ye."
We entered the love-lit room, and Elsie beckoned him swiftly to her side.
"I maun be gaun sune," she whispered, and then followed some words too low for my ears to catch.
Donald turned to me: "She wants to hae the sacrament dispensit till us a'," and his face was full of dubious entreaty, for the kirk session of St. Cuthbert's was sternly set against private administration.
The session and its rules were in that moment to me but as the dust. Beyond their poor custody was a holy hour such as this. The little table was quickly spread, the snow-white bread and the wine pressed by a mother's priestly hands. I was about to proceed with the holy ordinance when Elsie stopped me.
"Bide a meenit. Donal', get ye the token, the ane wee Elsie loved. My hairt tells me she's no' far awa the noo. She'll e'en show forth the Lord's deith alang wi' us. The Maister o' the feast is here, and why wad He no' bring oor Elsie wi' Him? Wha kens but I'll gang hame wi' them baith?"
Her husband, obedient to the seer's voice, passed quickly to an adjoining room, and in an instant reappeared, bearing the well-worn token in his hands, the same his dying child had fondly held; and I heard again the low refrain which grief had taught him years ago: "Christ an' oor Elsie—an' her mither." This last was new, learned in sorrow's latest hour.
He handed it to his wife, who took it, turning her wan face to mine.
"There's only ane, but it'll dae us a'—let Robin haud it. Tak' it, laddie; it's warm frae yir sister's haun'."
The wanderer's reverent hand received it, and holy memories, long banished, flowed back into the heart that had not been their home since the golden days of boyhood. Of his mother and his sister were they all, and they laved that heart till it was almost clean, for they were in disguise but memories of God, foreshadowing the Greater Incarnation.
"Noo we're ready, an' we're a' here. Raise the psalm, faither, the sacrament ane," she said faintly—"tak' St. Paul's," and Donald's quavering voice essayed—
"I'll of salvation take the cup,On God's name will I call;I'll pay my vows now to the LordBefore His people all.Dear in God's sight is His saints' death,Thy servant, Lord"—
"I'll of salvation take the cup,On God's name will I call;I'll pay my vows now to the LordBefore His people all.
Dear in God's sight is His saints' death,Thy servant, Lord"—
but the faltering voice refused.
I broke the bread and poured the wine, handing the sacred emblems first to the dying one, so soon to take them new in the kingdom of God. Then Donald partook, and buried his face in his hands. To Robinnext I proffered the holy symbols, but he drew back, stretching forth his hands towards the bed.
"I daurna—I've wandered ower far," he said. "I hear the russlin' o' the husks."
"Dinna fear, Robin," whispered his mother's lips. "We're a' but bairns comin' back to oor Faither's hoose; God loves ye mair than either yir faither or me,—I'm near the kingdom, an' I ken."
"My son, my laddie,"—it was his father's broken voice,—"let us tak' the feast thegither. I'm a puir prodigal masel'—but the door is open wide, an' we'll baith come hame to God."
"I'll tak' it frae ma mither's hands," said Robin.
I handed the elements to her, ordained from all eternity to minister to the son she bore; with trembling hands she dispensed them to him, high priestess unto God, her dying eyes distilling the very love which shed its fragrance when the all but dying Saviour first brake the holy bread.
When we were through, Elsie's voice was heard saying to herself "Unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood," which was followed by a long silence.
"Wull ye no' pronounce the benediction?" Donald said at last, for he was by nature an ecclesiastic.
"Did you not hear it?" I replied.
The silence deepened, the breathing grew heavier,and we two stood together looking down upon her face. Robin's was by his mother's. Suddenly her eyes opened wide, fastening themselves upon her son.
"I'll sune win hame," she murmured gladly, "an' I want ye to say yir bit prayer to me, Robin, afore I gang, the way ye did when ye were a bairnie. Kneel doon, Robin, an' say it to me, an' we'll baith say it to God, for I'm weary tae. 'Noo I lay me,' ye ken."
The strong man bowed beside his mother's bed, and the great anthem began, the sobbing bass of the broken heart mingling with the feeble dying voice—
"Now I lay me down to sleep,I pray Thee Lord my soul to keep;If I should die before I wake,I pray Thee Lord my soul to take."
"Now I lay me down to sleep,I pray Thee Lord my soul to keep;If I should die before I wake,I pray Thee Lord my soul to take."
Suddenly she pointed with uplifted hand: "Oh, faither, I see oor Elsie's face—an' the token's in her haun', an' it's a' bricht wi' gowden licht. She's biddin' us a' hame—me, an' faither, an' Robin——" and she passed into the homeland bearing the prodigal's name with her up to God.
I gently closed her eyes. Donald stood long beside the bed; then, taking his son into his arms, he said—
"Yir mither'sbyethe gate."
What self-contradicting things we are! The very joys we crave bring sorrow when they come; for they crowd out some only lesser joy, which, rejected, turns to bitterness and takes its long revenge. It is one of the blessed laws of life that no heart, however hospitable, can entertain more than one sorrow at one time, how many so ever be waiting at the door. Each must wait its turn.
But alas! Joy has its corresponding law; every heart's pleasure is an alternative, and if much we would enjoy, much also we must renounce. Joy usually comes as twins, and the great perplexity is to discern which the first-born is, that our homage may not return unto us void.
Of many of our deepest longings may it not be said that their fulfillment would be our keenest disappointment? For instance, the wife of our family physician is forever lamenting that no spouse in all New Jedboro sees as little of her husband as does she, forever longing that he might be released to the enjoyment of his own fireside. Yet should a fickleor convalescent public suddenly so release him, our doctor's wife would be of all women most miserable.
Even as I write, I am disturbed by a lad of twenty who starts to-day on his long journey to Athabasca and the waiting prairies of our great Canadian West.
Full of pathetic joy is his youthful face; but his mother is bowed beside the bed whereon she gave him birth—her cup, she thinks, would be full to overflowing if her first-born son were suddenly to dispack his box and take up the old nestling life again. The sun would have turned back to its undimmed meridian, she weens; and yet she knows full well that this very longing, were it gratified, would poison her overflowing cup and tarnish her mother's pride. If she were asked to choose between these two, womanlike, she would elect to have them both—but God forbids.
The youth's father says: "Let the lad go forth"—and God is a Father, though He takes counsel of a mother-heart.
All this reflective vein flows from this poor heart of mine, the truth whereof that heart hath sorrowfully proved.
For my daughter Margaret holds within it a place of solitary tenderness, more exclusively her own as the years go by. And I too was forced to the great alternative, the same which hath wrung uncountedparents' hearts before I saw the light, the same as will rend thousands more when that poor light has filtered through darkness into Day.
What father is there who can contemplate without dismay the prospect of his only daughter surrendered to another's care, though that other press the cruel claim of a mate's more passionate love? Where is the father that does not long to shelter his child's sweet innocence forever within the pavilion of his heart's loving tenderness? And yet, where is the father who would be free from torture, were he assured that his soul's yearning would be satisfied, and that no high claim of unrelated love would ever rival or dispute his own?
It was my own fault that Margaret's attachment to Angus Strachan came to me as a bolt from the blue. I had never dreamed of it—I was so sure of everybody loving Margaret that I never thought of anybody loving her. Of course it was easily seen that their friendship was mutually cherished; but friendship, although a mother's hope, is a father's reassurance. Margaret's mother had more than once spoken of their friendship in that portentous tone which all women hope to assume before they die; and her words exuded the far-off fragrance of orange blossoms. She began with the assurance that the friendship between Angus and our Margaret had no particular meaning—to which I agreed. A little later on she ventured the remark that she did not think Angus cared for Margaret except as a friend—to which also I cheerfully agreed. Later still, she resorted to the interrogative, and asked me if I thought Margaret would ever marry, to which I answered: "I hope so, but she shall not with my consent."
"I was married when I was Margaret's age," added my wife. (What woman is there who does not love to say the same?) "Margaret will soon be twenty."
"Yes, my dear, but few women have the chance that came to you and no man ever had provocation like to mine." This was followed by a passage at arms, during which, of course, the fair debater's lips were sealed.
By degrees my wife's attack upon the subject grew bolder and more frontal.
"Do you think Margaret cares anything for Angus?" she asked, the hour being that post-retiring one sacred in every age to conjugal conference.
"I don't think so—certainly not; why should she? We have a triangular family altogether—two to each of us, and why should she want any more? She has you and me, just as I have you and her, and you have her and me."
"But that is foolish; you don't understand."
"I don't want to understand," I answered drowsily. "Margaret's only a child—and I want to go to sleep; if I don't sleep over my sermon to-night, the people will to-morrow." For it was Saturday night.
But "the child" was not asleep. The love affairs of other hearts are by others easily borne, even though those others be the next nearest and dearest of all. But how different with the maiden's heart that loves, and tremblingly hopes that it loves not in vain! Then doth the pillow burn with holy passion, and considerate sleep, like an indulgent nurse, turns her steps aside, fearing to break in upon the soul's solemn revelry. Even when she ventures nigh, gently withdrawing the still unwearied heart from its virgin joy, do the half open lips still sip from the new found cisterns of sweet and tender bliss.
O holy love! Who shall separate the joy thou bringest from the heart that opens wide to welcome it, even as the flower bares its bosom to the sun?
Darkness and tears and sorrow may follow fast; fears and misgivings and dread discoveries may come close upon thy train; broken-heartedness and bleak perpetual maidenhood may be thine only relics; or, flowering with the years, the thorns of grief and poverty and widowhood may grow where youthful fancy looked for radiant flowers; the heart which echoed with thy bridal song may yet peal forth the Rachelcry—but thou belongest to the heart forever, and none of these can dispossess the soul of its unforgotten transport. Nor fire, nor flood, nor fraud can prevail against thee! Thy treasures moth and rust doth not corrupt nor thieves break through and steal!
As a burning building lends its heat to all beside it, so was my own soul kindled, half with rapture and half with anger, by the story of Margaret's passion. Father's and daughter's hearts were never pressed closer to each other than were mine and my only child's.
It was the succeeding Sunday night that Margaret, in her father's arms, breathed out the tender tale; I was enjoying my evening smoke (a post-sermonic anodyne), but long before Margaret had finished, my cigar was in ashes and my heart in flame.
"Father," she began, her face hidden on my shoulder, "I am either very happy or very wretched, and I cannot decide which till I know which you will be."
"The old problem, daughter, is it not?" I answered. "Still longing to enter a hospital? And you want to wheedle your old father into giving you up?" for Margaret, like every other modern girl, had been craving entrance to that noble calling. The high-born and the love-lorn, those weary of life, or of love, or both, find a refuge there.
"No, father, I was not thinking of that at all. I don't want to be a nurse any more."
"What is it then? You have never had any secrets from your father and you will not have any now, will you, dear one?"
"Oh, father, I will tell you all I can—but I cannot tell you all."
I started in my chair, for the child note was absent from her words, and the passion of womanhood was in its stead. Awesome to a father's heart is that moment wherein a daughter's voice unconsciously asserts the suffrage of her soul.
"Go on, my daughter—tell me what you may," I said, for I knew now that the realm was one wherein parental authority was of no avail.
Only silence followed; her lips spoke no word, but the heaving bosom had a rhetoric all its own and told me that a new life, begotten not of mine, was throbbing there. An alien life it seemed to me, a soul's expansion beyond the province of my own, an infinitude which denied the sway of even a father's love. At length she spoke:
"Oh, father, I will tell you all—that is, all I can. But I am so lonely. You cannot follow me, father. I have gone away in—with another—in where you cannot go."
"What mean you, Margaret? In where? Where can I not come?" I asked, perplexed.
"Father, let me tell you. I am speaking in a figure, I know—but it is the only way—and you will understand. Love is a far country, and prodigals take their journey there—but they seek it two by two. Oh, father, another one and I went off together to that far, far land and those who go leave father and mother far behind. But there is no hunger and no famine there."
Rich the endowment love bestows! While we had all thought Margaret anything but dull, yet this new speech of metaphor and music fell upon my ears as a great surprise. That live coal from off God's altar had touched her lips when first another's burning lips of love anointed them with flame. When this new sun arises, the humblest of God's meadow creatures know that the soul has wings and spread them in that holy light.
Closer to my breast I pressed the heart whose tumult, as it struggled with its muffled witnesses, started the same passionate riot in my own.
"There are many voices in your heart, daughter mine; let them speak every one and tell me all their story. Where is it that your father cannot come?"
"Father," she answered, with sweet calmness but with averted face, "I never loved you more thannow. But love's joy is in its loneliness, its sweet bridal loneliness. It was a long weary way that another one and I—you know his name, and I cannot speak it yet—walked together, but not alone together; for others walked besides us—and friendship is a cruel thing. But oh, father dear, one day—no, it was in the gloaming, we saw an avenue far beyond; and we both knew it was for us and for us alone. I saw it first, but I did not let Angus know. But he saw it in a moment and he started quickly on. Then my feet fell back, though my heart pressed on with his. But Angus would not let me stop. He hurried me on; and it was sweet to be overborne, for love makes a man so strong and a woman so weak.
"When we came close up to where you enter in, I saw that the way within was sweet, and shadowy, so shadowy, but I saw that it was long, so long. And I turned away, though my heart never turned. But Angus's eyes never moved from the avenue, and he whispered that it was meant for us two—just for us two—and for none on earth beside; he said no one could go in alone, because it would vanish if they did—and he held me close—and we went in together—and we shall come out no more forever. That is where you cannot come, father—nor mother, nor dearest friend can. You could not if you would, for it is God who keeps the gate."
Her trembling voice was still, but throbbing heart and swelling bosom still poured forth their passionate utterance.
Soon her lips opened again, yielding before the inner tide.
"And father," her hot cheek pressed to mine foretold the ardent story, "it was at evening, as I said, and Angus and I had wandered far—farther than we thought. We were resting on a grassy knoll. Angus had been speaking of his mother, and he said that the beauty of nature always made his heart ache. Surely, father, there is nothing so lonesome as beauty when the heart's lonesome! Angus and I were still a long time—till it was growing dusk; and then at last he said, 'How lonely all this is if no one loves you!' And I started at his tone, and when my eyes met his I went down before them, for they caressed me so. Father dear, I need not tell you all. I could not if I would—no girl could. I know, I remember, oh, I remember what he said, and no one else knows but me, and my soul trusted him and he took me into the sheltering place where nobody but God could see my soul's surrender."
"My daughter, my little daughter," was all I said.
"Wait, father," her face now was hidden deep and she was whispering into my very heart, "there is another thing I want to tell you—no, two things, for they were both together.
"Father, he kissed me—on the lips—and I did not believe it; for just a moment before we had been listening to the crickets and looking at the sun. But he kissed me on the lips and my whole soul surged hot, and my eyes were closed—for I felt him coming and I could not speak or move.
"And I don't know why, but I thought of the sacrament and the holy wine, and everything was holy—not like music, but like a bell, a great cathedral bell with its unstained voice. And father (I shall feel purer when I tell you this), father, that very moment I felt a strange new life in my breast and the old girlish life was gone—and there came before my closed eyes a vision of another just like Angus, white and soft and helpless—and I heard its cry—and my heart melted in me with the great compassion. And I knew that what I called love was really life, just life. And I felt no shame at all, but a great pride that it was all so holy—for it is holy, father, and no one prompted it but God. Father, do you love me?"
I bent to kiss the glowing lips, but I remembered, and kissed her brow instead, beautiful and pure before my misty eyes. She drew herself gently from my arms and in a moment the sweet presence had departed. But the fragrance of love and innocencewas left behind and my faltering answer came at last, though she heard it not:
"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."
It is from joy alone that real sorrow can be brewed. Were joy to perish from the earth human lips would soon forget the bitter taste of anguish. The only intolerable clouds are those which follow swift upon some rosy morn, frowning its every sunbeam into darkness, pursuing its fugitive smiles as the hound pursues the deer. The soul's great sickness is in joy's relapse.
Into the tide of our daughter's virgin gladness her mother and I were soon gladly swept. Love and joy are incendiary things and we soon succumbed to the sweet contagion. Apart altogether from our daughter's choice, he might well have been our own; for Angus Strachan was strong of body and vigorous of mind, and pure of soul. He had made swift strides in his chosen calling, and was now a partner in one of the manufacturing firms which were New Jedboro's pride. At the door of industry he had knocked with patient hand, and wealth had answered to that knock herself. He was a man of influence, ever increasing, in New Jedboro. In St. Cuthbert's, he was held in high esteem by all, and the next election, weknew, would call him to the elder's honoured place. Prepossessing in appearance, manly in bearing, musical in speech, fragrant in character, Angus might well wake the echoes of even our Margaret's noble heart.
Wherefore there was joy in St. Cuthbert's manse, and in its three devoted hearts, beating high with a common hope. Our morning sun shone radiantly.
But the eclipse came suddenly. It was again the Sabbath evening, and Margaret again was nestling close, her face bearing more and more the beauty which love's tuition gives.
"Father," she suddenly began, "I want to ask you something."
"What is it, child?" I said.
"You know that verse in the Bible that says:—'Who did sin, this man or his parents?' You know the verse. Well father, who did sin? Was it the man, or was it his parents?"
"What a strange question, child! What on earth has that to do with you?"
"Never mind, father—let us stick to the text," she answered. "You are a minister and I want you to stick to the text. Tell me who did sin?"
"Well, if the man's blindness was because of sin, since he was born blind and since he couldn't sin before he was born, I suppose it must have been hisparents," I answered slowly. "What difference does it make to you?" For I was curious to know.
"And don't you think," she went on unheedingly, "that it was cruel for anybody to hold that poor man responsible for his parents' sin?"
"I suppose so, but why are you catechizing me like this, burrowing among old questions of two thousand years ago?"
"Oh, father, there are no old questions," and there was a strange cry in her voice, "because there are no old lives. They are all new every day—they all live again, father. Sin is new and sorrow is new—and the Cross is new, father—so new and so cruel," she cried, the tears now flowing fast, "and that question isn't old—it is asked every day. And it is asked of me—and I have to answer it, and answer it as you have done, and as the compassionate Saviour would have done," she concluded, her voice trembling with its passion.
"What on earth do you mean, Margaret? Sin, sorrow, the Cross, what have these to do with you?" I asked eagerly.
"It was only last night that Angus told me. Poor fellow, his face was white when he came and his look was full of agony. Of course I asked him to tell me what was the matter. We were in the library, for I always took him there because it has a fireplace, andwe both love to watch the fire. I had laid the wood myself last night before Angus came, and there was never task so dear—it was the gloaming when I laid it, but I knew it would soon be bright.
"But about his answer to my question. Surely no maiden yet had so strange an answer. For, without a word, he went to the desk and took the Bible in his hands. When he had found the place he stood before me and read me this:
"'Then cometh Jesus with them unto the place called Gethsemane.... My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death.... My Father if this cup may not pass away from Me except I drink it, Thy will be done.'
"His voice was strange to me, and I was trembling for I didn't know what he meant. But I knew it was my Judgment Day.
"'Angus,' I said faintly, 'what do you mean? What has that to do with us? That is a story of two thousand years ago.'
"'Margaret,' he answered, 'the story of Gethsemane is never old. Its willows cast the same shadows yet as those into which our Saviour crept. And that cup is never empty, though human lips are ever draining it to its dregs. It is close to my lips to-night—and to your sweet lips too, my darling—and we must drink it together.'
"'Together, Angus,' I said, 'thank God for that.' The word was sweet. Oh, father, head-winds are precious unto love if only love's hands together hold the sail.
"After a long silence Angus spoke again and my poor heart had to listen.
"'Margaret,' he began, 'no man ever renounced what I renounce to-night, for no man ever loved as I love you, though I reckon many a man would swear the same, knowing not his perjury—for none can know my love. And joy, and pride, and home—and all with which our pure thought had enriched our home—all these must I surrender now. I must give up everything but love—and that is mine forever. Oh, Margaret, I won you, did I not? I, a poor Scottish laddie, a herd among the heather. I came to Canada lang syne, and by and by I won you, did I not, Margaret?
"'But I must give you up—and I will tell you why.
"'It was not hard for me to find that story of Gethsemane. When I was but a laddie among the Scottish hills my mother's Bible aye opened at that very place; and laddie though I was, I noticed it, for the page was marked and worn and soiled with tears.
"'I asked my mother many a time why the Bookaye opened there and what soiled and marked it so. She told me not for long, saying only that it was marked and soiled before her laddie had been born.
"'But the night before I sailed from Annan Foot, she put her arms about me and she told me of the anguish of her soul and all about the tear-stained place—for she told me of her own Gethsemane and of the bitter cup, and said that her laddie's lips could pass it by no more than hers.
"'And ever since that night ma ain buik aye opens at Gethsemane. Oh, Margaret, you understand, do you not?' he cried, 'I am not worthy of you and of your love.
"'The far-off strain of sin starting from another heart than mine (another than my mother's, by the living God) has stained my name. Mine is an unhallowed name. Mine is a shadowed birth. Mine is the perpetual Gethsemane and mine the unemptied cup!
"'Forgive me, Margaret, for the wrong I did you. I should never have spoken love to you at all, or if I did, I should have told you of the blight upon it; but the sky and the trees and the hill were clothed that night in the beauty that wrapt my soul and I thought that God had forgotten and had shrived me in the same sacred light. But He does not forget. That light itself cannot drive the shadow from Gethsemane and the cup has never since been absent from my lips.'
"Angus stopped—and God watched over me; for He pitied me.
"I thought of you and mother first, but God still kept my will in His. I wanted God to lead me and I asked Him to help me—and I waited.
"'Angus,' I said at last, 'your mother loved him, did she not?'
"'Loved!' he answered, 'her pure heart knew no other passion. My own is but an echo. Behold! I was shapen in love.'
"'Then,' said I, 'let her that is without love cast the first stone at her. If any sinning woman love, she has an advocate with the Father. Oh, Angus! Come to me!' I cried, for I was fainting."
Her story was finished now and my daughter added not a word. But she arose and stood before me, her eyes searching my pallid face for a verdict, if haply it might be like her own. I noticed the woman's tactics in her move, for woman's genius makes its home within her soul; she had left my arms that I might, if I would, hold them out to her again and take her back forever. But the arms have their hinges in the heart and mine was tight locked like a vise.
"Margaret," I said at last, and my voice was like the voice of age, "you do not mean that you suffered this man's caresses after he told you what you have just told me?"
Sorrow looked from Margaret's eyes.
"Suffered!" she replied, "suffered! I have learned what suffering is, God knows, but He knows it was not there I learned it. 'This man.' Oh, father, I love him—am I all alone?"
How strong is the weakness of love! There is no panoply like that which love provides, and she who bears it has the whole armour of God.
"Margaret," I pleaded, "you surely will not ruin your life and break your mother's heart and mine by any madness such as this."
"'Ruin my life,' father! what ruin can there be to the life that loves and is loved? I have no life at all apart from him. It seems so simple. I can't take back my heart!"
"Perhaps so, my daughter," I replied, "perhaps so. I know your love is no fickle thing. But Margaret, you do not propose to link your life with his, shadowed as you yourself declare it to have been from his birth?"
"Father, it is already linked. It was not I who linked our lives, nor was it he; nor was it both together—it was God. Surely He wouldn't have letme love and trust, if it was wrong. I want you to help me; I am all alone."
"But you do not mean," I cried with growing warmth, "that I, the minister of St. Cuthbert's Kirk, New Jedboro, am to be called upon to take into my family and to acknowledge as my son, a man who cannot speak his father's name, who cannot," for I was maddening fast, "speak it even to himself, forsooth, because he knows not what it is?"
"Oh, father, do not press me so; I love you—and I love him too, and——"
"But about our family?" I asked hotly.
"I forgot about families," she sobbed. "Oh, father, teach this poor heart of mine to love no more and I will obey your every wish—but it is hard for love to serve two masters."
My heart was wrung by her plaintive voice; but love dwells hard by cruelty, and my self-control was going fast. Let those defend me who have known my agony.
"You know, I suppose, the result that will issue from your madness? You know what it will mean to your future relations here?" I asked hoarsely, explaining my threat by a glance about the room.
"Don't call it madness, father," she replied, pleadingly. "There is no madness in love. I cannot help it, father. Why should I? Surely Angus is thesame as he was when first I loved him. I haven't learned anything new about the soul of him, father."
"But his origin?" I interrupted.
"But he is good, father,—and kind—and true—and he loves me."
It was but a moment till I was past the bounds of reason. Disappointment, pride, shame, anger—all these had their cruel way with me. I am covered with confusion as with a garment while I try to record what followed, though I could not tell it all, even if I would. There is no cruelty like the cruelty of love. For the anguished soul pours out the vials of its remorse and self-reproach upon the well loved head, and fury waxes with its shame.
"I want none of your preaching," and my voice was coarse with anger; "you are a willful and disobedient child and you may as well learn first as last who is the master of this house. Do you hear?"
"Yes, I hear,—and my heart is broken. You want me to go away and not to see me any more. And I don't know where to go."
She was kneeling now and the tears were dropping hot upon my hand, which she had taken in both of hers. "Oh, father, when birdlings leave the nest, surely God wants them to go, because He gives them wings. Father, dear, oh, do not push me out in thiscruel way. I want to keep you and Angus both—and mother. Am I really wrong?
"Father, you are a preacher of the Everlasting Gospel, and doesn't that say we were all born wrong and need to be born again? You said only last Sunday that if we're once on the Rock, God forgets all about the pit and the miry clay. And you said God makes the past new—all new, and that all the redeemed ones are just the same in His sight—all good, and with the past away behind them. I thought it was beautiful, because I thought about Angus—and it seemed just like the Saviour's way."
My heart was wrung with a great desire to take the bended form unto myself. I half moved forward to kiss the lips of this kneeling priestess unto love. But as I did so the memory of other lips that had been pressed to them rolled in upon me and swept away the better impulse. I faltered into compromise.
"Margaret, you are still my daughter and I am touched by what you say. Let us find common ground. Promise me that you will suspend judgment in this matter for a year, your promise meantime to be revoked and at the end of that time, we will take it up afresh. This will give time for sober judgment."
But her blanched face turned to mine, and thewhite lips spoke again. "Oh, spare me, father, for I cannot—you know I cannot—oh, father, pity me!"
My soul flamed with ungovernable anger. I did pity her and this it was that stirred my cruelty. For my soul relapsed to barbarous coarseness and I said: "Then choose between us—you can have your ——," and I called him an awful word, the foulest of all words, whose very sound speaks the shame it means to tell, the curse of humanity hissed in its nauseous syllables.
And more—but how can I write it down! I did not strike her—but I thrust her from me; I laid my coward hand upon her shoulder—not in violence nor heavily, but eternal menace was in it. For I pushed her from me, crying brutally: "Quote me another Scripture. Have you not chosen the better part? There is the door which his shadow first accursed—you see the door?" and I hurled the poisoned word at her again.
She looked at me but once—as one, suddenly awakening, looks at her assassin. Then she went out, a lover as white as snow.
As a stream emerges from its forest tunnel, eluding the embrace of tangled shadows, swiftly gliding from sombre swamps and hurrying towards the sunlit plain, its phantom weeds of widowhood exchanged for its bridal robe of light; so doth this tale of mine glide forth from the sable shadows which garrison the chapter it has left behind.
No man loves to linger by his scaffold, though it be cheated of its last adornment, and though no eye behold its grinning outline but its own. For there are shadowy scaffolds, and invisible executioners, sitting at our own boards and eating of our own bread, discernible only in a glass. Our own Sheriffs and Executioners are we all.
Swift in the wake of sorrow came the unromantic form of toil. Thank God! Work is sorrow's cure, its hands like the hands of an enemy, but its voice the voice of an Eternal friend. For duty is God's midwife, sent to deliver the soul that travails in its anguish.
It was but the day after Margaret had passed from out my door, girding it as she went with crape, invisible to other eyes, that I was called to Archie McCormack's house. The day was bright and clear, but I knew it not—for in this doth sorrow make us like to God, that then the darkness and the light are both alike.
For some months past, my old precentor had been failing fast. The doctor said it was his heart, but none of us believed it; for his heart had grown larger, stronger, happier with every passing year. Its outer life might perish if it would, but its inner life was renewed day by day. Indeed, his soul's second harvest seemed to take the form of cheerfulness, the scantiest crop of all in the stern seasons of his earlier life. Even merriment sought to bloom before the frost should come.
The very day before Margaret and I began our life's Lenten season, I had been to see him, little thinking that my next visit was to be the last. My own heart was full of that joy whose overflow Margaret had entrusted to its care—which is a great gift to a minister, this gift of gladness, seeking as he does to irrigate the thirsty plains of life about him.
"How is my precentor to-day?" I asked as I sat down at the blazing hearth. He was lying on the couch, the fourth gradation—the field, the veranda,the room, the couch, the bed, the grave—thus the promotion runs!
"I'm by or'nar glad to see ye," he replied, evasively. "The auld freens are the best."
"That's good, Archie, the old friends are glad to hear it. They hear it seldom from Scottish lips, however hopefully they suspect it."
"We're nae muckle given to compliments—I'll grant ye that. But whiles we think; an' whiles we speak—an' whiles we wunna. But I'm no backward in tellin' a man gin I care for him. Noo, I was sayin' to the wife this verra day that yon man ye brocht frae Montreal last simmer was like eneuch a graun preacher—I'm no disputin' that, mind ye. But I was sayin' to the wife as hoo I likit yirsel' fully mair nor him."
I smiled with pleasure, for the process was an interesting one. Bouquets look strange in these rough Scottish hands—but their fragrance is the sweeter for all that.
"I understand, Archie. You do not often pay a compliment, but I know its sincerity when it comes and I appreciate it all the same."
He had not finished, for he felt he had gone too far.
"Aye, that's what I was sayin' to the wife. I likit yirsel' fully better nor him—it's different ye see; I'm gettin' kind o' used to ye, ye ken!"
This made his tribute morally complete. Oh, thou Scotchman! Thou canst not withhold a tincture of lemon from the sweetest cup!
"But how is my precentor to-day?" I renewed, fearful of additional repairs to his eulogy.
"Weel, I'm no' complainin'—an' I'm no' boastin'; but there's mony a yin waur. I'm no' sufferin' pain to speak o'. I can sleep at nicht, an' I tak my parritch, an' I hae ma faculties—an' I'm in God's hauns," he said, the climax coming with unconscious power.
"There's no better bulletin than that," I responded. "I see you still take your smoke, Archie," I added cheerfully, nodding towards an ancient trusty pipe which enjoyed its brief respite on a chair, long his familiar friend, and noticeably breathing out its loyalty where it lay.
"Ou, aye, I dinna lack for ony o' the needcessities o' life, thank God," he replied gratefully, and with utter seriousness.
"What a blessing that you are free from pain," I hurriedly remarked; for the mouth, like a capricious steed, is more easily controlled when it is in motion.
"Aye, that's a great blessin'. I've been uncommon free frae pain. A fortnight syne, I had a verra worritsome feelin' in ma innerts—a kind o' colic, I'm jalousin'. Sandy Grant said as how whusky wi' a little sulphur was gey guid. I tell 't him I neverhad nowt to dae wi' sulphur i' ma life, an' I wudna begin to bother wi't noo;" and Archie lifted his eyebrows, adjusted his night-cap, and turned upon me a very solemn smile.
He doubtless saw by my face that I approved his caution, for I secretly believed that he was right. Thus confirmed, he lay meditating for a time, but it was soon made evident that his thoughts had not wandered far from the matter in hand.
"Aye, sulphur's nae improvement to whusky," he slowly averred at length, "forbye, I was richt. I was richt frae a medeecinal standpoint, ye ken. The verra next day ma doctor ordered me to tak a little whusky for the pain I tell't ye o'. An' I did; I took it afore he tell't me."
"And it did you good, Archie?" I asked indulgently.
"Guid?" replied Archie, in a tone of much reproach. Then he said no more, scorning to demonstrate an axiom. But he was not through with the subject. The moral had still to be pointed.
"Is't no won'erfu', minister, the law o' compensation that oor Creator gies us, to reach a' through oor lives?
"Pain has its ither side, ye ken. An' when we say as hoo it's an ill wind that blaws naebody guid, we're acknowledgin' the love o' the Almichty. Ilkacloud has aye its siller linin'. Noo, for instance, it was a fearfu' pain I took—but the ither that I took to cure it—it was Scotch," and Archie drew a gentle sigh, half of piety and half of reminiscence.
When next I turned my steps towards Archie's door, though only two short days had fled, all life had changed to me and darkness hung about me like a pall. Upon which change I was bitterly reflecting when I was interrupted by a message that Archie was taken somewhat worse and not expected to live longer than through the night. And I could not but be glad of this summons from my own life's tragedy, that I might share another's. It is God's blessed way. The balm for secret sorrow is in the bosom of another burden, unselfishly assumed; and the Cyrenian of every age hath this for his hire, that, while he bends beneath another's cross, he is disburdened of his own.
I found my old precentor weak, and failing fast, but "verra composed," as we say in New Jedboro.
He welcomed me with a gentle smile.
"Ye'll pray wi' me," he said gravely, "but it'll no' be the closin' prayer. I'm wearin' awa fast, but I'll no' leave ye till the morn, I'm dootin'. Pit up a bit prayer noo—but there's ae thing—dinna mind theMaister o' His promise to come again an' receive me till Himsel'—no' that it isna a gowden word; but I want it keepit till the last an' it's the last word I want to hear. Speak it to me when I hear the surge. That'll gie Him time eneuch, for He'll no' be far awa. An' I want to hear it aboon the billows. Noo pit up yir prayer."
Short and simple were our petitions; for the prayer of little children is best for those who are about to enter into the kingdom of God.
After we had finished, my eyes, unknown to him, were long fixed on Archie's face. For a strange interest centres about those whose loins are girded for long journeys; and I have never outgrown the boyish awe with which I witnessed the loosening of the ropes that held aerial travellers to the earth. I have seen some scores of persons die,