‘He’s ay awfu’ dry and fusionless in his prayers,’ Jean whispered to Isabel, ‘but wait till it’s Ailie’s turn.’
When they had all resumed their seats, the speaker opened his Bible and began to read ‘a chapter.’ For some part of this, all went on with perfect quiet and decorum. You might have been in the kirk, Isabel said to herself, had it not been so dark, and the people so thronged together. The thought was passing through her mind when all at once a crash of sound startled her. She rose to her feet in wonder, gazing where it might come from; but to her amazement no one else moved. Heads were raised a little, the attention of the mass was quickened, but nobody except herself thought, as Isabel did, that something terrible had happened. Who could it be that dared to interrupt the worship? But while she gazed and listened, there suddenly arose another sound; this time it was a voice distinct and musical. And Isabel, relieved, sat down again, and lent an attentive ear. The next moment she was once more on her feet in a confusion too great to be restrained. ‘What is she saying? what is she saying?’ she whispered in her stepmother’s ear. Jean, habituated to the wonder, was scandalised by this excitement. She twitched at Isabel’s cloak to drag her back to her seat. ‘Whisht! sit down. It’s nothing but the tongue,’ she said. The girl strained her eyes upon the listening crowd, but no one was moved as she was. She dropped back appalled into her seat. It was Ailie who spoke; and in the intense silence and darkness poured forth an address full of that eloquence of intonation and expression which is perceptible in every language. ‘Is it Latin? is it Hebrew?’ Isabel asked herself, moved by wonder, and awe, and admiration, into an indescribable excitement. When the voice suddenly paused, and changed and turned into ordinary utterance, there was a little rustle of roused attention among the crowd; but Isabel leant back upon the wall and burst into silent tears. The excitement had been more than she could bear. When she came to herself the same fresh youthful voice was making the room ring, and compelled her attention. It was like bringing down to ordinary life the vague grace of youthful fancies. When she awoke from the surprise of her excitement, and found that Ailie was speaking so as everybody understood her, the wonder and the mystery were gone.
‘O ye of little faith,’ cried Ailie, ‘wherefore do ye doubt? are ye feared to go forth from the fine kirk and the comfortable meeting to the hills and the fields? Where was it He went to commune with His Father, that is our example? was it to biggit land, or lightsome town? No; but to the cauld hill-side in the dark, where nothing was but God and the stars looking down out of the lonesome sky. O the puir creatures we are—thepuir creatures! Think ye it’s for the good of this bit corner of the earth that He has given me strength to rise up from my bed, and poured forth the gifts o’ tongues, and teaching and prophesying upon this parish? I was like you. He knows how laith—laith I was to come out of the kirk I was christened in, and open my heart to the weary, wanting world. But I take ye a’ to witness it’s no us that have begun. They have lifted up their hands against the ark of the Lord. They’ve tried their best to stop us in our ministry and in the salvation of souls. They’ve scoffed and they’ve said where are the signs o’ His appearing. Look round ye, friends, and see. Me that never learned more than my Bible—I speak wi’ tongues—I see the things that are to come. Think ye that is for nought? It fell on your sons and your daughters in your very presence and is that for nought? Bear ye witness, friends, that I take up my commission this night. Go forth into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, that is the command that’s given to me. Throw off your bonds, ye that sleep—arise and let us go forth! It’s no a question o’ a parish, or o’ a village, or o’ a kirk or a meeting, but of His coming to be prepared and the world to be saved.’
Whether this wild but sweet voice had come to a natural pause, or whether it was suddenly interrupted and broken by the same extraordinary burst of sounds which had been heard before, Isabel, terrified out of all her self-control, could not tell. She gave a suppressed scream, as Mr. John stood up with his rigid arms stretched out and his features convulsed with the passion of utterance whatever it was. The sound which had alarmed her came from him, bursting from his lips as if by some force which had no relation to his own will or meaning. The cry came from him like the groanings and mutterings of a volcano, moved by some unseen power. Isabel clung to her stepmother in her terror and hid her face in her hands.
Such sounds echoing through the darkened room, over all those hushed and eager listeners, were impressive enough to overawe any lively imagination; and it was with her head bent down on Jean Campbell’s shoulder, and her eyes closely shut, that Isabel heard the inarticulate horror change into words.
‘Hear the voice of the handmaid of the Lord,’ cried Mr. John. ‘The Lord sent His servant to her with a word from Him, saying, Go forth and convert the world; but she would not listen. She said, Who am I that I should go forth and preach? Thy handmaid is a child, she said. But lo! the Lord himself hath taught her. Not to you only, O people of Loch Diarmid; you havehad the first-fruits, but the ingathering is not yet! Like those that have not long to be with you, we turn and cry—Repent! Repent, and be converted. You have waited long. And God has sent you prophets, miracles, and wonders, in your midst. And lo! your moment of privilege is nearly over, and He sends His servants forth. Repent! Oh, that my voice were a trumpet, that it might ring into your hearts! Oh, that it were as a rushing, mighty wind to sweep you to the Lord! We are going forth in His name. We are going out upon the world. Give us first-fruits—first-fruits for the Lord! Let us pray! Let us pray! Let us pray!’
Then the darkling mass rose to their feet, and the enthusiast poured forth his prayer. Isabel could scarcely restrain herself from joining in the subdued outcries round her. By degrees, time and place, and all mortal restrictions, vanished from her excited mind. What roused her was Ailie’s voice, once more soft, pleading, sympathetic. A voice that calmed her wild emotions, and brought her back in some degree to herself.
‘I have wondered and wondered, and asked of the Lord,’ said Ailie, ‘what for His gift of speaking wi’ tongues should have come to me—me that kent nothing, that had so little way of speaking forth His praise. But it has pleased Him to show me what He aye says, that out o’ the mouth o’ babes and sucklings His praise is perfected. Eh, neebors! I ken one that’s like the angels of the Lord! She wants faith, but she wants nothing else. She’s wearying, wearying to be at hame with the Lord, and hasna the heart to rise up off her bed, and come forth wi’ me to the salvation of men. You a’ know her as well as me! Maybe it’s Margaret’s prayers that have brought the Spirit on this parish. Ye know how she has prayed for us up bye at the burn, wrestling wi’ the Lord like Jacob. Eh, freends, if I had Margaret I would go forth light as the air! Lord, give her faith! Lord, raise her up! Lord, send thy blessed creature forth with us! Lord, Lord, listen, and give her faith! Oh, my freends, will ye no pray?’
At this moment Isabel’s emotion became altogether uncontrollable. It seemed to herself as if the inspiration she had witnessed had suddenly come upon her. She held up her hands wildly out of her dark corner where no one could see. Then a scream burst from her lips.
‘No,’ she cried out, in a voice so strained with passion that no one would have recognised it for hers. ‘No, no—not for Margaret; she shall not live, she shall have her will. Leave her in peace, and let her die.’
Isabel fell like a dead creature into her stepmother’s arms, not unconscious, with all her senses still wildlyvivid, but trembling like a leaf, and helpless as an infant. Then there was a moment of terrified silence, and heads soon turned timidly round in the darkness to search for the new prophet. Ailie, standing with her arms uplifted in sight of them all, gazed intently into the gloom with her great lambent eyes, waiting and listening for some moments after the voice had ceased. Then the prophetess suddenly sank into the girl by a transition so extraordinary that it caught once more the wavering attention of the audience attracted from her by the new miracle. Her arms fell by her side, a flood of tears came pouring from her eyes.
‘Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord! ye have never refused me before!’ said Ailie, with a wild cry of reproach, and sank upon the floor in a burst of weeping so helplessly natural and girl-like that the excited group around her gazed at each other in dismay.
Her sobs were audible through all the wild supplication that followed. But Isabel, worn out, was conscious of little more until she felt herself drawn into the fresh air, and saw the moonlight lying white upon the braes.
Therewas little said upon the walk home. Isabel was too much exhausted to make any reply to the questions, and half reproaches, and soothing speeches, made in regular succession by her stepmother.
‘What put it into your head to speak out like yon? And, eh, I’m glad naebody saw it was you. It would break my heart to hear them say the Captain’s Isabel was gane after them. Lean heavier, my lamb. It was naething but the love and the contradiction in your bit warm heart. Ye’ve never been drawn to me, Isabel, but I was aye ane that kent ye had a warm heart.’
Thus they went on clinging to each other along the white line of road between the dark rustling whin-bushes and tough stalks of heather which caught at their dresses as they passed. When the light in her own low window at last appeared, a very fervent ‘God be thanked’ burst from Jean Campbell’s lips. ‘I canna face thae awfu’ lonely roads. Ye never ken wha ye mayna meet, face to face,’ she said as the cottage became fully visible, her soul encouraged by the sight of it.
To go out of the magic, significant night, silent with such excess of meaning, into the absolute stillness of the little parlour, all grey and brown, with its one windowshuttered and curtained, and the two candles twinkling solemnly on the table, and Margaret dozing in her chair, was the strangest contrast. The clock was still ticking steadfastly as if it never would stop, through and through the house; little Mary, with very large wide-open eyes, sat on a footstool opposite Margaret, from whom she never removed her anxious gaze. ‘She’s been dozing and waking, dozing and waking,’ said Mary; ‘and eh, but ye’ve been lang, lang!’
‘It was a lang meeting the night,’ said Jean. ‘But what way have ye closed up the window, and Margaret sae fond of the view? I would have gotten an awfu’ fright to see a’ dark if we had come round by the Loch.’
‘It was like as if something terrible might come and look in,’ said little Mary, with a shudder. And then Margaret, roused by the stir, opened her feverish bright eyes and asked what news.
‘You’ve been long,’ she said. ‘And were ye as pleased as you thought you would be, Isabel?’
Isabel had taken off her bonnet and pushed back her hair from her aching forehead. She looked up at her sister with the intention of replying, and then suddenly overpowered, hid her face in her hands and burst into tears.
‘Ah, she may well cry,’ said Jean. ‘If I was ever mair shamed in my life! Isabel, the Captain’s daughter, and a lady born!—she was that led away, Margaret, that she spoke like the rest.’
Isabel gave her stepmother an indignant warning look, and then rose, throwing aside her cloak, and placed herself behind Margaret’s chair out of reach of those eyes which she could not bear.
‘Isabel—spoke—like the rest! I cannot understand,’ said Margaret faintly. ‘Are you meaning that it came upon her—in power?’ And the invalid turned round wistful and wondering. Could it be that God had passed over her in her suffering and given this gift to Isabel? Perhaps, for the first time, there came to Margaret a touch of that strange, wondering envy which all her friends had already felt in her behalf. She had been content that Ailie should have the privilege denied to herself. But Isabel! She turned and sought her sister with her eyes, wandering. ‘It is because I am not worthy,’ she said to herself, but not without a pang.
‘It was them that were speaking of you,’ said Isabel; ‘that you wanted faith; and that we were to pray, and that you were to be made to arise and go forth with Ailie to convert the world. It made me mad. I couldna sit still and keep silence. I cried out—“She shall have her will. It’s not for you to say"—and then Mr. Johnsaid it was a lying spirit and not from the Lord; and then I mind no more!’
‘My poor Isabel,’ said Margaret, with a smile of relief and tenderness; ‘it was true love that spoke and nothing else. But she’s not to go there again—neither Isabel nor little Mary. It can do them nothing but harm.’
‘It does me no harm that I ken,’ said Jean. ‘It’s awfu’ exciting whiles; but I never find myself the worse.’
‘You’re different from these young things,’ said Margaret; ‘but, oh! you’ll always mind—both of you—that it’s my wish you should not go there. I’m not uneasy about it from the present. After—when I’ll, maybe, not be here to speak—you’ll both mind.’
‘Go to your bed this moment, bairn,’ cried Jean, with the petulance of grief, ‘sitting glowering at Margaret with thae big e’en! but mind ye dinna waken my poor Jamie going up the stair. It’s getting late, and time we’re a’ in our beds after such a night.’
‘I am very comfortable,’ said Margaret. ‘I am not disposed to move. I’m better here than in my bed, with that glimmer of the fire. I was always fond of a fire. It’s like a kindly spirit with its bits of flames, crackling and chattering. I have it in my mind to speak to you both, if you’ll have patience and listen. Don’t contradict me, Isabel. I know I am going fast, and why should you say no? But it would be a real comfort to speak and tell you what I wish before I die.’
‘Oh, Margaret! anything but that,’ cried Isabel.
The invalid shook her head with an expression of pain. ‘Nothing but this,’ she said; ‘if you want to cross me, and vex me, and drive me to be silent, it’s in your power: but my sister will never do that. I must speak, if you would leave my heart at rest. Dry your eyes, Isabel. I’m selfish, but ye must yield to it. If it was you that were going, would not your heart burn to speak before you left to them you hold dear? and to-night you must think not of yourself, but of me.’
It was a strange group: the room so poorly lighted, with the two candles on the table, the fire smouldering in the grate, dying into dull embers; Margaret laid out on her invalid chair supported by pillows, her pale face absorbing all the light there was; Jean sitting crouched together on the stool with her honest, comely countenance, serious now and full of anxiety, turned to her stepdaughter; and Isabel in her chair apart against the wall, as if she were not one of them—her face visible only in profile—her hands hanging listless in her lap—her eyes cast down. The dying girl, who did not understand it, was wounded by her sister’s withdrawal; and yet what did it matter?—perhaps it left her more free tospeak than if Isabel’s tender eyes had been searching out the meaning in her face before she could utter it? Even the irritation and half-estrangement of a grief too poignant to be submissive, Margaret could understand.
‘I am thinking most of Bell,’ she said. ‘I’ve always thought most of Bell. It was natural. There were but the two of us in the world. And I’ve always been a woman, you’ll mind. When she was but a bairn playing on the hill-side, I was like her mother. That was my nature; and now the sorest thought I have is to leave her without a guide in this hard world.’
Isabel could not speak—but she made a hasty, deprecating gesture with her hand.
‘You would say, no,’ said Margaret; ‘but, Isabel, I know best. I am not vaunting myself, but I know best. For a while past you’ve been that you did not understand yourself. Your heart has been breaking to part with me, and yet you could not bear the sight of me. It is wearying to everybody when a poor creature takes so long to die. Oh, Bell, dinna say a word! Do you think I doubt you? I’m speaking of nature. And when I’m gone—so young as you are, and so hasty, and so feeling;—you’ve been a trouble to yourself and a mystery already, and what will you be then, with none near you to turn it all over in their minds?’
‘If there’s only me,’ said Isabel, gazing into the vacant air before her, ‘who will care?’
‘I’ll care wherever I am,’ said Margaret. ‘Oh, you canna think I could be happy in Heaven and my bonnie Bell in pain or sorrow. If you could but harden your heart against the movements that come and go—if ye would but take patience and think before you put your hand to aught. You were aye so hasty and so innocent. Do you mind when Robbie Spence fell into the Loch, and her after him in a boat before a man could move?’
‘Ay, do I,’ said Jean, ‘and our ain Jamie when he broke his arm——’
‘It was Isabel that carried him home, that big laddie!’ said Margaret with pathetic smiles and tears; ‘aye hasty, though she was so young and so slight; but there’s worse danger than that. Ye might take burdens upon you that would be harder to carry. Oh, my bonnie Bell! if I could but have seen you in a good man’s hands!’
‘I’ll not hear you speak,’ cried Isabel, almost wildly; ‘am I wanting any man?’
‘If you would promise to take thought before you made up your mind,’ said Margaret; ‘I’m no myself when I think of my Isabel in trouble. If you would go to your room, and take a while to think. I canna tell what’s beyond the veil, nor what’s permittedyonder;but, Bell, I would aye promise you this—not toappearto be a terror to you. But if you would take time to think, and shut to your door, and say to yourself, “Margaret loved me well. She’s been dead and gone for years and years, but she couldna forget her sister wherever she is. What would Margaret say if she were here?” And, Bell, I promise you this—not to frighten you, or appear like one coming from the dead, but to draw near and let you know what I’m thinking. Always if it is permitted—I canna tell.’
‘Oh, Margaret! Margaret! I will die too,’ cried Isabel, suddenly throwing herself at her sister’s feet; ‘I can bear no more.’
‘No, there’s plenty more to bear,’ said her sister, caressing the head which was buried in her coverings. ‘You cannot get out of the world like that. It is me that has the easy task. I have but to bide quiet and let Him do a’—me that took pride in being the wisest of the two, and able to guide you. And it is you that will have all to bear. But, Bell, it’s a promise—you’ll mind when the time comes? I will not say, Take this one or take that, for the heart is free. But take thought, Isabel!—oh, my darling, take thought; and I’ll always give you my opinion, not in your ear like the living that are bound in the flesh—but into your heart. And now,’ she added, raising herself a little, with a cheerful tone in her voice, ‘I have but two or three more words to say.’
Isabel did not move nor speak. She had her face hid in the coverlid as if she were weeping. But she did not weep. Her eyes were blazing, covered by her hands, like stars, parched with drought, almost fiery in their light; her heart beat with the violence of a creature at the fullest height of life. But no one saw those wild heavings; she knelt there with her face hidden, and only her soft hair, which had fallen into disorder, within reach of Margaret’s hectic hand.
‘You’ll aye take care of her as long as may be,’ Margaret went on addressing Jean. ‘When she’s older she’ll understand. It is just that all should be hers—everything we have; but she’ll not depart from my desire about Jamie, you may be sure of that. And, Isabel, you’ll no rebel, but let her be good to you, all her days. And be a good sister to the bairns. I’m real foolish,’ she went on, with a smile; ‘as if me being away would make such a change—I’m real vain. But you’ll no blame me, you two.’
‘Blame you!’ said Jean, with her handkerchief to her eyes; ‘O Margaret, you’re ower thoughtfu’; but it was that the callant should be bred for a minister? that was what you meant?’
‘If he turns his mind to it,’ said Margaret. ‘And I think that is all. You’ll be good toher, Bell, and she’ll be good to you. And keep little Mary out of the meetings. She’s very keen and bright, brighter than Jamie. You’ll not let her go astray. And be kind to everybody for my sake,’ Margaret said with a smile, which touched the very extremity of self-control, and had a certain flicker almost of delirium in it—‘I am fit for no more.’
Duringthe week that ensued various events happened in the parish which kept up the local excitement. The prophets, who up to this time had been in external subjection to the authorities, at the first mention of restriction had thrown off all bonds. Mild as was the attempted control it was more than they could bear, and no sooner had they thus emancipated themselves from all habitual restraint than their higher pretensions began to develop.
The intimation that Ailie was about to set out on a mission to the general world could not but be exciting information to the parish; and at the same time there was an arrival of pilgrims from that outer world to inquire into the marvel. Commissions of investigation had already come from the Presbytery of the district, and even from Edinburgh and Glasgow, the news having spread quickly at a moment of general religious excitement; but the inquirers from England, one of whom was soon discovered to be ‘an English minister,’ produced a more marked impression, and thrilled the Loch with indescribable pride.
Margaret was sinking day by day. She had made her last step on the grass, taken her last draught of the fresh mountain air out of doors. From day to day it seemed impossible that she should ever again totter from one room to the other; and yet she managed to do it, retaining her hold upon her domestic place with a tenacity quite unlike the feebleness of her hold upon life. Sometimes, indeed, she had to be carried to the sofa in the parlour, from which she could still gain a glimpse of the Loch, and feel herself one of the family; but she would not relinquish this last stronghold of existence. ‘It will be time enough to shut me up when I’m gone,’ she would say, smiling upon them; and the doctor’s orders had been that she should be humoured in everything. ‘Nothing can harm her now,’ he had said, with that mournful abandonment of precaution, whichshows the death of hope. And the parish—nay, ‘the whole Loch,’ held its breath and looked on.
As for Isabel it seemed to her that she lived in a dreadful dream. The vague terror that had been hanging over her so long had settled down, and could no longer be escaped; it seemed years to her since the time when she had believed it might not be—or at least hoped that it might have been delayed.
Perhaps it was because Jean Campbell, too, was in something of the same stupor of exhausted nature, produced by constant watching and want of sleep, that one visitor, whom they had guarded against for days, found his way to Margaret’s bedside. The children had been set to watch on the road, to warn the cottage if the very shadow of Mr. John fell upon the hill, and had repeatedly brought back news of him, which set the watchers on their guard. But, as it happens so often when such a watch goes on for days, there came a moment when the little scouts thought of something else, and when all other visitors were absent, and the road left open for the enemy. Jean had withdrawn to her kitchen while Margaret slept, or seemed to sleep—and had thrown herself, worn out, into the great arm-chair covered with checked linen, where she nodded by the fire. Isabel sat at the foot of the sofa, with her eyes on her sister. And those eyes, too, were veiled by the drooping eyelids, in the fatigue and awful tedium of the protracted watch. Thus the anxious household slumbered at its post, overtaken by weariness and security. How long the doze lasted none of them could tell, but when some faint movement of her sister’s made Isabel start from her insensibility, it froze the blood in her heart, and almost woke her to positive exertion, to see the man they all feared seated by the sofa on which Margaret lay. He had lifted the latch, and come in noiselessly, while they all slept in their exhaustion. There was still light enough to show his dark face, gazing intently upon the white vision on the sofa. All the hectic had gone from Margaret’s cheek. She was as pale as if the end had already come, and lay with her blue-veined eyelids ajar, as it were, the long lashes a little raised from the white cheeks, the pale lips parted with her painful breath. Mr. John sat by the side of the sofa, shadowing over her like a destroying angel. Had it been Death himself in person, the sight could scarcely have been more startling. His countenance was working in every line with suppressed but violent emotion, his lips were moving, his eyes fixed intently upon the face of the sleeper. He had stretched out one hand over Margaret’s couch, not touching her, like one who gavea benediction or enforced a command. Isabel sat and watched, paralysed by the sight. There seemed no power in her to stir or speak. And Margaret still slept, moving sometimes uneasily under that gaze, which seemed capable of penetrating the insensibility of death, but never unclosing her liquid, half-seen eyes, or giving any sign of consciousness. By degrees, half-audible words began to drop from the prophet’s lips.
‘Life, life!’ Isabel could hear him say. ‘My life for hers! My salvation for her life!’
The passion in him gradually became less controllable. It was with God he was struggling, with a vehemence of desire which left no room for reason or for reverence. After a while, he slid downwards upon his knees, always noiseless in the supreme urgency of his passion. He held his hand up over the couch, maintaining the painful attitude with a rigidity beyond all ordinary power.
‘I will not let Thee go, till Thou bless her—till Thou save her!’ Isabel heard him say.
All this appeared suddenly before her, awaking out of her dream. There was not a sound in the house, except the clock ticking through all with its monotonous, merciless beat, and Margaret’s irregular breathing, now louder, now lower, a fitful human accompaniment. At last, the power of self-control could go no further.
‘Rise, rise, woman beloved!’ he cried, hoarsely, springing to his feet. ‘I’ve won you out of the hands of Death!’
The harsh agony of the cry woke Margaret. He was standing between her and the faint light from the window, bending down over her from his great height with outstretched arms: his face invisible in the darkness which was made doubly dark by his shadow. Thus suddenly called back from her temporary oblivion, she woke with a little start. ‘Isabel!’ she said, instinctively. And then in a moment it became apparent to Margaret that another ordeal had come to her worse than the paroxysms of failing breath or palpitating heart in which Isabel could help her. With an instinctive thought for her sister, she raised herself slightly upon her pillows. ‘My dear, my dear, you’re not to blame,’ said Margaret, with a little moan. She had hoped to get out of the world without this trial, but now that it had come it must be borne.
‘She is not to blame,’ said Mr. John. ‘Nobody is to blame. I came stealing in like a thief in the night: they shut me out from you as if I would harm you—I that am ready to give my life for you. Margaret, arise! I’ve won you out of the hands of Death!’
‘Oh, if you would not waste this madness on me!’ said Margaret. ‘Isabel, let him stay. Death thinks no shame and feels no fear. I’m glad that I can speak to him before I go. John Diarmid, dinna drive me wild. This life is no so grand a gift that I should seek it out of your hands. God’s will is more to me than your will. Sit down by my death-bed; and oh, man, be silent, if ye have any heart! It’s for me to speak now.’
‘I will do what you will—whatever you will,’ he said: ‘Margaret! if you will but listen to the Lord’s voice and rise up and live! Can I stand by and see you die?’
A little impatient sigh burst from Margaret’s breast. ‘You stood by,’ she said, ‘once before, and took all the light and all the sweetness out of life. For once I will speak. I have been proud, but it’s not the time for pride now. O, John Diarmid, it is fit it should be your hand to call me back to life as you call it! I would never have upbraided you—no, not by a word. It was a thing settled you were never to come here. But now I will speak before I die.’
‘Speak!’ he cried, going down upon his knees with a crouch of submission in his great frame. ‘Say what you will. I am vile to all and vilest to you. You are as God to me, Margaret, Margaret! But take the life I have won for you and never see me more.’
‘The life you have won!’ said Margaret, with a tone which in any other voice would have been disdain. But her voice was like that of a dove, and had no notes of scorn in it. Yet soft as the approach to contempt was, the dying girl was remorseful of it. ‘I must not speak like this,’ she said; ‘and you must not speak to rouse the ill spirit in me, and me so near the pleasant heavens. Whisht! I canna think shame now, though Isabel is there to hear. John Diarmid, once I was as nigh loving you as now——’
‘You’re nigh hating me!’ he said, with a great sob breaking his voice.
‘No; as I’m nigh being free of all the bonds of this world,’ said Margaret. ‘I was little more than a bairn; I was like Bell. They said you meant me harm; but I never thought you meant me harm——’
As the pathetic voice went on John Diarmid bowed his head lower and lower till at last he sank prostrate on the floor by the side of the sofa. It was her last words that brought him to this abject self-humiliation. He knew better than she did. A groan burst out of the man’s labouring breast. Even Isabel—sitting in a trance at her sister’s feet, roused up out of her stupor, her cheeks burning with a wild flush of jealousy and shame, half-wild that Margaret had descended from her saintlypedestal to avow the emotions of earth, and furious to think that any man had shared her heart—yet felt an unwilling movement of pity for the prostrate sinner. Margaret only continued without any change.
‘I never thought you meant me harm,’ she said, once more smiting with the awful rod of her innocence the man at her feet. ‘But when I heard what you had been, and what you had done, the light died out of the world. I am not blaming you. It was God that gave me my death, and not man; but from that hour I had no heart to live. Why should a woman strive to live, and fight against all the unseen powers, when this world’s so sore-defiled, and not a spot that she can set her foot on,—no one that she can trust? For me I had no heart to struggle more.’
A certain note of plaintive self-consciousness had come into the steady voice, broken only by weakness, with which Margaret told her tale, as if it were a history so long past that all emotion had died out of it. And so it was. Her almost love had faded in her heart; but there still remained a sense of pity for the young forlorn creature whose eyes had been thus opened, and of whom Margaret had half-forgotten that it was herself.
For the moment in her abstraction, in her deadly calm, she was well-nigh cruel. She took no notice of the man who lay abject at her feet, with his face to the ground. Her great spiritual eyes in those pale circles which approaching death had hallowed out, gazed wistfully into the darkness. Perhaps it was the convulsive movement of the prostrate figure by her which roused her at last. Suddenly she stirred, and, putting out a white thin hand, laid it softly on his bowed head. ‘John Diarmid,’ she said, softly, ‘are you walking with God now?’
He seized her hand, raising his head from where he lay, and knelt upright by her, pressing it to his breast, which heaved violently as with sobs. What compunction was in his heart, what sudden knowledge of himself, what remorse, no one could say. It was dark, and they were to each other as ghosts in the gloom. Margaret could see his gestures, but nothing more; if, indeed, anything more could have been learnt from the bent head and hidden countenance. Her voice grew softer and softer when she broke the silence again.
‘I know you’re moved to the heart,’ she said. ‘I am not doubting younow. You are changed, and I see you’re changed. And if you would but tell me there were no more such thoughts in your heart, and that you were walking with God—then I would feel there were some prayers answered before I die.’
‘You have prayed for me, Margaret!’ he cried. The passionate man was subdued to a child. His great frame was shaken by sobs; his eyes were wet with tears. He had not another word to say; his passion, his inspiration, all the prophetic pretensions which clothed him, had vanished like so many cobwebs. He knelt by the purest love of his life with a heart broken and speechless. She dying, and he without power to save.
‘Aye!’ she said, laying her hand once more upon his head; and then there was silence broken only by the groan or sob that came from John Diarmid’s heart.
The next minute familiar sounds and sights broke in. Jean Campbell, with a candle in her hand, came pushing open the closed door. ‘Eh, you’re in the dark, like craws in the mist,’ she said, as she approached.
At the sound of her voice John Diarmid sprang to his feet, rising like a giant out of the darkness. He bent down his head suddenly over Margaret, pressed his motionless lips to her forehead, with a movement of despair, which was no kiss, and passing the astonished woman who held up her candle to look at him, rushed forth like the wind, letting the night and the chill air enter as he plunged forth.
How long Jean might have stood spell-bound by consternation, but for this sudden puff of cold air which blew about the flame of her candle, it is impossible to say; but she was roused instantly by fear of the cold for Margaret, and ran in haste to close the doors.
‘Weirdless loon!’ she cried, as she came back, ‘without so much sense as to think the cauld would harm her. Eh, Isabel, how could you let him in to vex her? It was a’ my fault dovering and sleeping in my chair. My lamb, ye’re weariet to death?’
‘Aye, very near to death,’ said Margaret, with a smile; ‘but there’s nobody to blame; and I’m glad I saw him at the last.’
‘So lang as he didna drive you distracted wi’ his prophecies and his miracles,’ said Jean, looking anxiously with wistful eyes from one to another. Isabel had risen at her stepmother’s entrance, and drying the tears from her cheeks, hastily began to arrange the coverings over her sister; she shrank from Jean’s look, feeling herself somehow to blame, and angry at the thought that had the other watcher been awake this trial would not have come to Margaret. But, as for Margaret herself, she made no effort to avoid Jean’s eye; she lay back on her pillows panting sometimes for breath, with a humid softness about her great shining eyes and a quivering smile on her lips. Very nearly tired to death; and yet ever patient, waiting till a little more should achieve the end.
WhenMr. John rushed from the door of the Glebe Cottage mad with grief and sorrow and a sense of impotence, it was not to return to his home or to enter upon any of his usual duties, even such as might have seemed akin to the passion and excitement in his mind. He went up the hill-side without knowing where he went, rushing into the clouds and rain which were sweeping across the invisible braes.
The dark waters of Loch Goil were glimmering just before him ere he arrested his steps; he had climbed and descended the hill without knowing how; he was drenched to the skin, beaten by the wind, wild, half crazed with the multitude of his thoughts; all his new-born sense of power, all his confidence in his changed condition, were gone. He was a man abandoned by hope, and at the same time a prophet forsaken of the Lord. It had been not quite six o’clock when he left the Glebe. It was nearly midnight now when he forced his way through the tough stalks of the heather, crushing them down with his feet, stumbling into the forests of whins, going wildly through the yellowing brackens. Wild creatures rushed out of their coverts as he crossed the braes; it was too dark to see any path, even had he cared to confine himself to it. All was silent and black when he drew near the first inhabited place, the little cluster of cottages above the Manse to which he directed his steps. It was there that Ailie Macfarlane, his co-adjutatrix and predecessor, lived with her father and mother. Not a light was visible in any window. The little congregation of souls, wrapt in the kind protecting darkness, slept and took no note of all the surrounding mysteries of the night. Mr. John went up to Ailie’s door and knocked, waking echoes which seemed to go over all the parish, and rousing the dogs at Lochhead out of the light sleep of their vigilance. It was some time before he had any reply. Then the lattice window, which was on a level with the door, was softly opened. It was Ailie herself who looked out, her fair locks braided about her head like a saint in a picture.
‘Who are ye? what do ye want?’ she said, with a certain anxiety in her voice. ‘Is it a summons to me too?’
Mr. John was too much pre-occupied to observe what she said, but he discerned the signs of some emotion, and took it for fear.
‘Fear me not,’ he said, ‘I’ve come, from wrestling withthe Lord upon the hill—and, Ailie, I have a message from Him to you. Fear me not.’
‘I’m fearing nothing,’ said the girl, with momentary surprise—for even had she not been protected by her exceptional character, to speak with ‘a friend’ from a chamber window, even in the middle of the night, was counted no sin on Loch Diarmid. ‘I’m fearing nothing,’ she repeated, steadily, ‘but my heart’s sore and my een are heavy. Say quick what you have to say.’
‘It must be said to-night,’ he said; ‘I speak not of my will, and I will not ask you what is yours. Ailie, the Lord has revealed to me that you and I must go forth together to His work, bound together like Christ and His Church. You cannot go alone for you’re young and weak. He has appointed me to you for a protector. He has said unto me, O man, fear not to take unto thee thy wife! Ailie, this word is to me and to thee. Prepare! I would go forth, if that were possible, as soon as it is day.’
Then there was a pause. The clouds parted, driven by the angry wind, and the sky lightened faintly with a pale gleam which showed the man’s worn face and wild aspect as he stood before the window.
‘Oh, no, no,’ she cried; ‘we must wait. There will be clearer light. If such a thing as this is to be, it will be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses. I wouldna trust to myself, my lane. Oh, no, no; we must wait for clearer light.’
‘Take heed that ye perish not from lack of faith,’ said Mr. John. ‘Take heed that you despise not the Lord’s message. Ailie Macfarlane, hear the Word of the Lord! and see ye sin not against the Holy Ghost.’
A shudder ran through Ailie’s sensitive frame. ‘No,’ she cried, ‘no, no, never that. I’m His handmaid to do His pleasure. But oh, there’s nought can be done this night. The night’s for rest and thought and prayer. It may be the Lord will show His will to me too. And there’s my father and my mother,’ cried Ailie with a little gush of tears.
‘Let the dead bury their dead,’ said her extraordinary suitor, in a voice which seemed to ring round the house like a groan. And then he added with a tone of authority which struck chill to Ailie’s heart: ‘Hitherto you have been a law to yourself, and no man has been set over you; but the wife must take the Lord’s will through her husband who is her head.’
Ailie fell down on her knees trembling, and held fast by the sill of the window.
‘I am no man’s wife,’ she cried; ‘and I’m feared and bewildered, and see naething clear. Oh, for the Lord’s sake, gang away from me for this night!’
Mr. John turned his eyes which had been fixed on the pale opening in the clouds to her face. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll go; the flesh can bear no more. Go on your knees to Him, and not to me. And He may make it clear to you if He thinks fit; but in light or in darkness I call on you to obey. Is His servant to stand still because there is no light?’
‘I’ll pray!’ cried Ailie, with a gasp. And he withdrew from the window, stumbling over the little flower-borders in the cottage-garden, and gazing vaguely up into the white break in the sky. His haggard, pale face fascinated her in its abstraction. She rose, and closed her window with nervous hands, still gazing at him; when suddenly another window opened—that of the attic over the cottage door.
‘Wha’s there?’ cried a voice. Instinctively Ailie shrank back, but yet kept her ear at the opening that she might hear. It was the voice of her mother, who had been roused by the conversation below.
‘Wha are ye, disturbing honest folk in the middle of the night, and what do you want here?’
‘It’s me,’ said Mr. John, raising his head listlessly. ‘I was sent to her with a word from the Lord.’
Old Janet Macfarlane uttered a hasty exclamation. ‘I’m meaning no reproach to you, Mr. John; but I wish your words would come in the day.’
Mr. John made no answer. He stepped over the paling once more, and paused at the door immediately under the old woman’s window. Fatigue was beginning to tell upon him: his passion was dying out. He had no longer any strength to defend himself. Perhaps Janet’s heart smote her as she saw his listless step; or perhaps the natural rural impulse of communicating information was her only motive. She paused a moment, searching in her mind something keen and sharp to say to him—but finding nothing, bent out from her window over the leafy, embowered porch.
‘Mr. John,’ she said, with solemnity; ‘nae doubt you’ve heard the news?’
‘What news?’
‘Margaret at the Glebe is wi’ her Saviour,’ said the old woman. ‘She died at ten o’clock. Good night.’
The noise of the window closing rang over all the silent Loch and silent heavens, and went echoing, echoing away into the hollows of the hills. It struck the man in his despair like the thunder of dissolving earth and Heaven.
Thedeath of Margaret Diarmid had been, as people say, sudden at the last. Whether the agitation of that visit had been too much for her, or if Nature at the end, having lingered so long, had succumbed in a moment to some unseen touch, it was impossible to tell. She was dead—that was all that could be said. Things had gone on as usual all the evening through in the dim parlour, where Jean came in from time to time to see that all was safe, and Isabel moved softly about at the appointed hours with her cordials and her medicines. Margaret had been lying, as her stepmother had left her, with her large, humid, wistful eyes fixed, taking less notice of everything around than usual, looking out, as it were, into an unseen world of her own. An intense quietness had fallen upon the house. The children had been sent early to bed; and Jenny Spence, who had volunteered to assist in the watch, was comfortably installed in the big elbow-chair by the fire in the kitchen. ‘We’re better without her,’ Jean had whispered to Isabel; ‘but it’s a real pleasure to her, and she’s a connection; and she’ll no disturb Margaret.’ Jean herself had taken up her position, wrapt in her cloak, just within the parlour door. It was usual for them, at an earlier hour than this, to remove their patient to bed. But Margaret had been so still that they had hesitated to disturb her. ‘By and by,’ she had said to them softly, as she lay there with her white face upturned, and her open eyes. She was not asleep; but so quiet, so smiling, breathing so calmly. Could it be that she had taken ‘a good turn?’ Isabel, seated at the foot of the sofa, her duties over for the moment, kept her watch, praying mechanically, dozing by moments, stupified by grief and weariness. Jean behind backs saw nothing of what was passing. But after a time the stillness became intolerable, and weighed upon her. Her first impulse was to steal out to the kitchen and rouse Jenny Spence, and console herself with a melancholy talk over the fire; and then she bethought herself that it would be cruel to leave Isabel in this atmosphere, which somehow seemed all at once so strangely chilled and silent. Listening intently, it seemed to her that she heard no breathing but her own. Margaret’s hardest paroxysms would have sounded natural and consoling in place of that awful stillness. Jean’s heart began to throb in her ears, and her eyes to dazzle. It was some time before she could move. When she at last summoned her powers and rousedherself, it was all clear to her in a moment. The strange silence, the sudden chill, had been death; but thus the long illness, which all the parish expected was to have a triumphant and victorious conclusion, ended softly in the silence, without sound of trumpet or demonstration of exceeding joy.
As for Isabel there was an interval, unfortunately for her a very short interval, in which she was conscious of nothing. Not that the simple, healthful girl, trained in stern Scotch self-restraint, found refuge in any swoon or fit of bodily unconsciousness. But fatigue had so worn and bewildered her, and benumbed all her faculties, that she was incapable of any fresh sensation. The kind women took her to her bed, and the young creature, all broken and worn, slept the heavy sleep of sorrow, that profound, joyless slumber which pain and suffering bring to young eyes. When she woke, it was not with any fresh pang: she had carried the sense of ‘what had happened’ with her throughout her sleep—but with still the same heavy, listless, benumbed sensations. Sometimes, when she started involuntarily at the thought that it was time for Margaret’s wine, or her soup, or her medicine, her heart thus sharply pricked would rouse up, and her eyes gain relief in the measureless tears of youth. But she did not come to herself for days, scarcely until the time of darkness was over, and the procession had gone out from the cottage doors, and her sister was carried away from her, while she herself remained behind. Then her life sprang again out of excess of pain.
It was about a week after the funeral when Jean came in, solemnly tapping at the parlour door, where Isabel sat alone. She was arrayed in her new black gown, and with her freshest cap, and had a certain air of gravity and importance about her. She came in softly and stood by Isabel, half-behind her as she sat at the table. ‘Isabel, my bonnie woman,’ she said, turning her homely voice to its softest cadence, ‘it’s time we were having a talk, you and me, about what we’re to do.’
‘What should we do?’ said Isabel; ‘but sit down and tell me what it is: it’s weary, weary to sit alone.’
‘My lamb!’ said Jean, furtively smoothing the girl’s soft hair. It was seldom she ventured on such a proof of sympathy, for Isabel was proud. But she did not sit down; she stood with some agitation, twisting the table-cover from the table, shifting from one foot to another. At last her burden came forth with a burst. ‘It’s best I should ken; it’s a’ yours now, Isabel; and you were never that fond of me and the poor bairns. I’m your father’s wife, and I’m no a lady born like you; but I’m one thatwould never thole to be where she wasna wanted. Whisht! whisht; I’m no misdoubting your kindness; for her sake I ken you would aye be kind; but if there was to be a change I would like best it should be now.’
‘Why should there be a change?’ said Isabel, weeping. ‘Oh, is there not change enough to please you? Would you like me to stay my lane in this still house and die? But I could not die—I would go wild; and, maybe, you would not care.’
‘As if I didna care for everything belonging to ye!’ cried Jean, once more timidly caressing her stepdaughter’s bent head. ‘If it was onlythat, I would be content to be your servant—as near your servant as would be becoming to the Captain’s widow,’ she added, after a momentary pause. ‘But your heart’s touched and tender the noo; and if, after, you should reflect on me for taking advantage of you, or anybody else should reflect——’
‘Who is there that has any right’ cried hasty Isabel, drying her tears with hot and trembling hand. ‘There’s but me now in all the world, and no one that can bid me go or come, or do this or that. Ah, me!’
‘It’s a grand thing to be free,’ said Jean, her voice faltering a little; ‘free o’ them you’re bound to by any bonds but what God has made. When it’s nature it’s different—or when it’s your free choice it’s different; but you and me, Isabel, are free to meet and free to part. I’m no saying but what it would be a sore heartbreak; but if ever there was to come a time when you would reflect——’
‘Oh, dinna speak,’ said Isabel; ‘if it’s your will to leave me, go, and let me take my chance. If I was to go out of my senses or die on the hill-side, what is that to other folk? There is none to care if I was mad or dead to-morrow. If you speak because you’re wearied of me and my silly ways——’
‘Oh, Isabel, my lamb!’ cried Jean, with tears, ‘I’m saying I would be your servant if that was a’. But you maun tell me your will plain if we’re to go or stay. A’s yours. If we live here, the bairns and me, it’s upon you; and that I canna do unless you say plain out—Bide; and let things be as they have aye been.’
‘Is there anything else I could say?’ cried Isabel; ‘maybe you’ve forgotten already what was said to you and me—yon night? But I will never forget. Nothing is changed but one thing. Oh, no, I am saying wrong—the heavens and the earth are changed and all’s different—all’s different!—but not between you and me. And I’ll mind about Jamie,’ she added, once more hotly and tremulously, drying her eyes. ‘He’s to be broughtup for a minister, if he has a desire to it. We’ll speak to Mr. Lothian, or Mr. Galbraith, and I’ll not forget.’
Jean shook her head softly behind her stepdaughter’s back.
‘I’m no speaking of Jamie now,’ she said; ‘afore he’s old enough you’ll have a man, Isabel, that may have other meanings. But I’m aye thankful to you for the thought. And a young lass is real solitary by herself. I’ll bide since you say sae; and weel content; but when the time comes that you’re married, my woman, we’ll speak of that no more.’
‘The time will never come,’ said Isabel, hastily. ‘I have had my share of life. I am not like a young lass now.’
‘My bonnie lamb!’ said Jean, with a tender smile, letting her hand rest on the downcast head. It was that last touch of self-pity which broke down Isabel’s reserve. She turned suddenly round, and throwing her arms round her stepmother wept and sobbed on her homely bosom. She clung to her as to her last support, and Jean received her in her motherly arms. Her heart had warmed to the wayward Isabel, all through her faulty youth with a love less reverent, but more familiar than that she had given to Margaret. And now a common grief united them as they had never been united before. She held the girl close, repeating over and over those soft names of homely kindness.
‘My lamb!’ she said, ‘my bonnie Bell! my bonnie woman!’ and bent down her head over her, not with the lavish caress of a lighter nature, but with a strong sustaining pressure. When the sobs grew fainter, and exhaustion mercifully dulled the pain, it was she who smoothed her hair, and dried her wet cheeks, and gave her such comfort as she could bear.
‘Come ben beside the bairns,’ Jean said, drying the tears from her own eyes, ‘and leave this room that is so full of a’ that’s passed. There’s a cheery fire, and the wee things’ faces are aye a comfort. That washerthought: and I’ll make you your cup of tea, and we’ll do our best to bear the burden for her sake.’
There was a cheery fire, as Jean had said, and Isabel was cold with that chill of grief which penetrates into the very heart. The blaze and the warmth gave her a little forlorn consolation; and so after awhile did the sound of voices other than her own, and the care and service that surrounded her.
Jean attended her to her room when it was time for rest, as she would have done had Isabel been her own child, and gave her one of those rare shy kisses, of which the homely Scotch matron was half-ashamed in herintense reticence and self-control. ‘Try and sleep, my lamb,’ she said, ‘I’ll come back and put out the candle.’ And then she returned to her kitchen, to shut her shutters, and put the ‘gathering coal’ upon the fire, and make all snug for the night. When she had ended her silent labours, Jean took her moment of indulgence also, sitting down to think in the elbow-chair, by the side of the dark heaped-up smouldering fire.
‘Na, na,’ she said to herself, ‘I maunna trust to that. If Margaret had set it apart out of her share—but I’m no reflecting upon Margaret. It was a’ the first wife’s siller, and it’s Isabel’s by right; and I dinna doubt her bit warm hasty heart. But if she were to marry that English lad, me and mine would be little to her after; and if she was to marry anybody else—even the minister—he would be for thinking of his ain first, and maybe a family coming. It would be real natural. Na, na! I maunna trust to Isabel; and, maybe, after a’ it’s best for the laddie,’ she said to herself, with a sigh. ‘If the root o’ the matter’s in him, he’ll fight his way to it; and if it’s no, he’ll never try; and when a’ ‘s said and done, maybe that’s the best.’
But it was with a sigh she rose from that moment of reflection and stole back to remove the candle, and saw with affectionate pleasure that Isabel, worn out, had already dropped to sleep. ‘The poor bairn!’ Jean said, in her tenderness, and clambered up to the attic beside her children, with that sense of being the protector and sole guardian of so much helplessness, which fills the heart of a solitary woman with such softness and such strength.
Thenext step in Isabel’s solitary new life was the visit of Miss Catherine, whose entrance Jean permitted a few days earlier than decorum properly allowed.
‘After a’, she’s a connection, and the poor bairn’s best support,’ she said, as she went, wiping her hands on her apron, to open the door to the visitor. ‘Oh, ay, Miss Catherine! come your ways ben; she’ll be glad of a kind word. She’s no suffered that much in her health—God be thankit! But whiles my heart breaks to see her in that weary parlour her lane, and nothing to wile her from her ain thoughts.’
‘I had not the courage to come sooner,’ said Miss Catherine. ‘But, Jean, we must not leave her to her own thoughts.’
There could be but one way of meeting for the two.Isabel stood up for an instant with a nervous attempt at composure, and then dropped weeping into her old friend’s extended arms: and there was first the inevitable attempt at consolation, tender words and encouragements. ‘It’s well with her—it’s better for her. We must not mourn, for her sake.’
‘And now tell me, my dear,’ said Miss Catherine, when poor Isabel had wept herself into quietness, ‘how you’ve settled with Jean? You are young, and it will be a strange life for you here by yourself. Is it settled that everything is to go on as it has been?’
‘Why should there be any change?’ said Isabel. ‘It is her house as long as it is mine. Is she not the nearest I have left?—and, oh, she’s kind! though I have never been good to her all my life.’
‘She is not a drop’s blood to you,’ said Miss Catherine, with some warmth. ‘Isabel, I’m not one to bid you run away from grief; it’s a vain thing to do; but you’re young, and you have a sufficiency, and why should you be burdened with the second family? I had nothing to say against it in the past. Jean was aye kind, poor woman. But I cannot bear to think of you staying here in this room after all that’s come and gone.’
Isabel made no answer. She took up her work with trembling fingers, and made an effort to go on with it, while the visitor, for her part, had enough to do to master the sob in her voice.
‘You are so young,’ she said; ‘you cannot know what you want, or what is best for you. I know a poor gentlewoman in Edinburgh, Isabel, that would be very kind to you. A change would be good, though you cannot think it now. Making and mending is grand work for the mother of a family, but for a young creature alone, it is not to be thought of as an occupation. And there are things you might learn that would fit you for your life to come. How can you tell what your life will be? Your blood, my dear, is as good by the mother’s side as mine; and if you saw a little of the world—You’re a proud thing, Isabel, you’ll not allow you want anything; but the change would do you good, and the novelty would divert your mind——’
‘As if I was asking to be diverted!’ said Isabel. ‘Oh! Miss Catherine, if it’s like that you think of me! I am seeking no change. My life, the best of it, is past. What have I to think about but how to be quiet and do my duty, and consider my latter end?’
‘Oh, bairn! that you should be such a bairn!’ said Miss Catherine; ‘if it were not for what you’ve gone through, I could find it in my heart to be angry. Twenty years after this you’ll not be so sure that your life ispast, nor think so much about your latter end. What is likely is that you have a long life before you; and by and by you’ll marry, as most women do. I don’t say now—you’re thinking of nothing of the kind now; but when due time has past, and you have shown the respect you ought—You may think me heartless to speak so, but I’m not heartless, Isabel.’
‘I cannot understand what you are saying,’ said Isabel. ‘Oh, let me be! I am at home, and among my ain folk. I neither want change nor diversion—nor to be married—nor a new life! If there is one thing I would like, it would be to work late and early and take care of the house. But I am too old to learn lessons now, and I am not old enough to be always thinking about myself.’
‘Perhaps it’s best for the present,’ said Miss Catherine, finally giving in, ‘though I always think when there are changes to be made it is well to make them at once. You think you can go on for ever like this, and you’ll find you are far wrong; but, for the present, my dear, let us talk of other things. Jean will be good to you, I don’t doubt. If I were not concerned for your mother’s daughter, Isabel, and anxious to see you free from all those common folk, I would not speak——’
‘She is very kind to me, and she’s the nearest friend I have now,’ said Isabel; ‘and if she was good enough for my father to marry——’
Miss Catherine shook her head.
‘You are aye your old self,’ she said, ‘trying to provoke me for all the sorrow in your heart. But we’ll say no more on that subject. I would tell you the news of the country-side, if I thought you would care; but if you would not care——’
‘Oh, I do!’ cried Isabel, with a violent, sudden blush. She was ashamed of herself for caring, and angry to think that the country-side should be anything to her in her desolation. ‘I was meaning,’ she continued, timidly, ‘if there’s any news about friends.’
‘Mr. Lothian has been ill, Isabel; that is why he has not been here.’
‘Has he not been here—I did not know,’ said Isabel, with profound and calm indifference. Miss Catherine gazed at her for a whole minute, without moving, her eyes fixed with a wonder beyond words on the inexperienced creature who could thus balk the most artful attempts to draw her into any path she did not choose herself.
‘My dear,’ she said, rising, ‘you do not know all the love that good man wastes on you. Would you have been as careless as that if I had spoken of the lad under his roof? As if the minister was not worth twenty of him! and you not to see it, you foolish, foolish Isabel!’
‘Miss Catherine,’ said Isabel, rising too, with fine youthful gravity and superiority, ‘is it right to speak like that to me, at such a time?’
These last words took away Miss Catherine’s breath. She was lost in amaze at the curious innocent dignity and cunning and utter unconsciousness of Isabel’s self-dependence. She felt herself rebuked by the girl who stood so pale before her, who was so resolute and superior and certain of what she said. Had the circumstances been different, she would have laughed at the naïve skill with which her attempts were baffled. But it was not a moment to laugh, as Isabel had said.
‘Well, well; you will not hear anything I have to say,’ she said, ‘but there may come a time when you will be glad of my counsel. And when that time comes it shall not be denied you. Come to the House and see me when you’re able, Isabel, for the sake of the past. You need not be afraid. I’ll keep silent and give you no advice.’
‘I will always be thankful for your advice,’ cried the unconscious girl, ‘more thankful than I can tell—for who have I to look to now? I would thank you, on my knees, if ye would always tell me what I ought to do.’
Miss Catherine could not restrain a smile; but Isabel’s earnestness and good faith shone out of her serious eyes.
‘If you bid me counsel you in the general, and then turn away from every single thing I say, how can I help you?’ she said, ‘But, my dear, I’ll not stay now—go out and take some exercise, and do not sit brooding here. Jean will take care of you, and the fresh air will do you good.’
‘I was thinking to take a turn—on the braes—where it’s quiet,’ faltered Isabel. Perhaps she was afraid to meet Miss Catherine’s eye; she swerved aside a little so as not to face her, and paused, and then sought refuge in tears, she could not have told why.
‘Eh, but these bairns are strange creatures,’ Miss Catherine said to herself as she left the cottage. ‘Me to think she would be too broken with her grief to mind what she did. But no! for all so young as she is, as fixed in her ways as if she knew the world from beginning to end like an A B C; going her own gait and thinking her own thoughts, and how to have her own way. And not a fortnight yet since my poor Margaret was laid beneath the sod. These creatures nowadays never know what sorrow means. They think of themselves whenwewould have broken our hearts. And me that was always so fond of that wilful Bell!’
Isabel had but scarce dried her tears, and composed herself as best she could to her solitary labour once more, when Jean stole in with anxious looks.
‘My lamb,’ she said, ‘there’s the minister coming up the hill. He’s been ill, poor man—and white and wan he looks as I never saw him look before. Will I let him in? It’s better now if you can bear to see him; and, Isabel, if you’re feared for his speaking, I will cry upon the bairns and get out the Book, and he’ll give us a word o’ prayer. I dinna ken what he may think, for he’s newfangled in his ways. But that was aye the practice on such an occasion, as long as I mind. Will I let him in?’
Isabel turned away with a hasty gesture of pain; but she was humbled and penitent, and the solitary parlour looked more solitary, more dreadful than ever to her broken and suffering mind.
‘I do not care who comes,’ she said, with petulance. ‘Let them all come. When they have once been here, and spied upon us how we bear it, maybe they will let us be, and come no more.’
‘Oh, Isabel!’ said Jean, ‘it’s no with that thought the minister comes. You know well what’s in his heart, though he might be your father—and a’ the parish kens.’
For the first time this suggestion was a kind of comfort to the poor girl. She had been feeling so ashamed, so wicked, that there was some balm to her in the thought that all the parish was aware with what feelings she was regarded by the first man in it, and the esteemed of all.
‘Let him come,’ she said, sitting down by the window, where she would have the Loch at least to turn to, away from the reproachful affection in Mr. Lothian’s eyes. ‘If they would but let me alone!’ she said to herself; but in her heart—the impatient, petulant, struggling heart, desired anything rather than to be left alone.
Mr. Lothian came in, looking, as Jean had said, white and wan, yet full of a hushed fever of agitation, with flushes of colour crossing his cheek, as he came up to her, and took into his her half-reluctant hands. Then Nature suddenly, as with a stroke, quenched out all the curiosity that had been in Isabel’s heart. The sight of him woke again the tears in their fountains. She could say nothing to him, but only weep helplessly with her head bowed down, almost choked by the convulsive sob which climbed into her throat. His heart was so melted with love and pity that he laid his hand on her head with half-paternal tenderness.
‘Poor child! poor child!’ he said, bending over her, holding the soft small hand which she no longer thought of withdrawing from him. The sight of her tears was almost more than he could bear.
He was still standing by her when she came to herself, and the first thing that roused Isabel was the instinctivehomely politeness which her humble breeding had taught her. As soon as her eyes were so clear of tears that she could see, she would have risen to find a seat for him.
‘Sit still, Isabel,’ he said, ‘I have not come to weary you to-day; I shall not stay. Only one moment, my dear, to tell you—but what can I tell you? you know everything I would say.’
Isabel could make no reply; but somehow on the very borders of that outbreak of her sorrow there came to her the sense that her curiosity was satisfied. The man’s voice, though he was so old, like her father, was eloquent and musical with love.
‘I could not come to you sooner,’ he said, ‘and I have not come now to trouble you with words. It is not the time to speak of what one might wish, or what one might dream. But, my dear, I want you not to forget that there is one heart not far off full of love for you. Not a word—not a word. Isabel, I am asking nothing, my dear. I am going away this minute, as soon as I’ve said what I have to say. Kindness you’ll have in plenty—but love is rare. I thought I would just come and tell you of mine.’
‘Oh, Mr. Lothian, I do not deserve it!’ sobbed poor Isabel.
‘And that there is not a trouble you have, nor a tear you shed, but I would fain bear it for you,’ said the minister; ‘and my thoughts never leave you in your sorrow night or day; that is all. My dear, when you think, you’ll understand. It is not to bribe you to give me anything back—it is but to be a comfort to you.’
‘I do not deserve it,’ Isabel repeated, not knowing what she said.
And then the good man sighed, and laid his hand once more tenderly, reverently, upon her drooping head.
‘I might be your father,’ he said; ‘but I love you. And farewell for this time, my dear. That was all I had to say.’
The next moment it was as a dream to Isabel that he had been there. She cast a timid look round her, and he was gone, and the very sound of his footsteps had already died away from the flags at the door.