Itwas some days after this before Isabel actually ventured out upon the braes. One afternoon, standing in the garden, seeing nobody near, a forlorn impulse seized her to visit the birch tree on the braes, which hadbeen so often their trysting-place. Looking up and looking down, the white roads seem to her to extend for miles on every side, without a single passenger upon them. Nobody, then, could criticise or blame her for that sick movement of her heart. Isabel went in softly, feeling her circumstances now too solemn to permit her to run out with a shawl round her as she had once done—and put on her bonnet. And then, with a thrill of excitement, took her way up the hill. Either its steepness or some strange expectation took away her breath. The braes were changed from what they had so lately been. The ferns were crumpled up by the first touch of frost, and tinged yellow. The heather bells were all dry and dead, with the colour and life gone out of them, like so manyimmortelles. And the turf was wet under Isabel’s feet. The great heather bushes caught her dress, and sprinkled her with showers of rain-drops. She was cold, and her heart sunk within her. Was it maidenly to come and look for him here when he did not seek her? Was it becoming her bereavement to be able now to think of him, to remember anything about the birch, and all the foolish words that had been said under it? She put her arm softly, almost with a sense of guilt, round its silvery stem. There were only young trees on the braes, and this little lady of the woods with its long locks waving, and its graceful, slender stem, was like Isabel. He had said so, moved by the sentiment which sometimes makes the dullest mind poetic. She thought of that as she put her arm round it, and leaned her cheek against the silvery bark. Moved by her touch, the branches dropped a little shower of rain over her. Were they tears? She wept, too, leaning upon her woodland likeness.
‘It is liker me now—far liker me now—for I’m alone! alone!’ said Isabel; and with a pang of exquisite anguish could not tell which she was mourning for—her dead Margaret or her lost love.
But tears will not flow continually, however full the heart may be. They had all dried out of her eyes after a few minutes, and she stood still leaning against the tree, gazing out once more upon that familiar landscape, and wondering if she was to see nothing for ever and ever but the still loch and the roads that stretched away so long and wistful up to the sky on one side, and away to the Clyde on the other, without a living creature upon them to break the stillness—when she heard behind her a rustle as of someone coming. She dared not turn her head to see whom it was, but the sound made her heart thrill and beat with a wild excitement she could not control.
Then, suddenly, an arm was put round her, and a voice sounded in her ear. She had known it must be so. A flood of satisfaction came into her heart. ‘I thought I was never to see him more!’ she said to herself without turning her face to him. But he had come at last, and her mind for the moment required no more.
‘It was a long time before I could make sure that this black figure in a bonnet was you,’ he said, as if they had parted an hour before; ‘I have been gazing and wondering for five minutes who it could be. I ought to have thought of the change of dress.’
Was this all he had to say to her after ‘what had happened?’ Isabel’s heart shrank, with a sense of sudden chill, within her breast.
‘I came out because my heart was sore,’ she faltered. ‘I cannot tell why; I thought I would like to see it again.’
‘Not to see me?’ said Stapylton, coming round where he could see her face.
‘If you had cared for that you might have come before,’ said Isabel, with a little movement of displeasure. How different it was from the conversation she had dreamed of!—the soft words, the tender pity, the assurances of his love.
‘Yes, among all those women that are constantly about you,’ he said, ‘your stepmother, and that old witch Miss Catherine—to see you coddled and kissed and mumbled over! No, Isabel; if I could have had you all to myself, as I have now——’
‘And you never thought. Maybe she wants me sitting there her lane? Oh, Horace! I would not have studied my own pleasure if you had been in trouble.’
‘Well, never mind,’ he said. ‘Of course I am not so good as you are; if I were to show myself so gentle, and patient, and unselfish, it would be taking yourrôle. But we must not quarrel now we have met. You are pale, my darling. They have been shutting you up indoors and preaching you to death.’
‘Do you think there is nothing else to make me pale?’ said Isabel, moved once more by a pang of disappointment.
‘Don’t let us speak of that. Why should we dwell on such gloomy subjects?’ said Stapylton. ‘Change of thought is as necessary as change of scene; and, besides, I have other things to tell you of. It is weeks now since I have been able to get near you. Don’t let us be unkind and miserable now that we have met at last.’
Isabel had no answer to make. She was stupified by his tone; and yet how could she, loving him as she did, tell herself that he was heartless? Her startled soulpaused and stood still for a moment, and then she said to herself that this must be the way folk thought in England, the custom of the bigger, greater world. No doubt it was only in an out-of-the-way corner like Loch Diarmid that there was time to dwell upon personal grief. She dried her eyes hastily with a furtive hand, and half-upbraided herself with self-indulgence. But she could not reply.
‘I am not very cheerful, either,’ he said. ‘I want you to comfort me, Isabel. I have heard from home since I saw you last, and I have no further excuse to make. I fear I shall have to go away.’
‘To go away!’ cried Isabel, feeling as if the sky had suddenly darkened, and all comfort had gone out of the earth.
‘It is very hard upon me,’ he said, ‘just when I might have had you a little more to myself. But I am not my own master, and the folks at home must be obeyed.’
What could she answer? So much in need of pity, and comfort, and soothing, as she was, so unprepared to encounter any new blow! She gave a little gasp as for breath, leaning again upon the birch-tree. And once more the chill tears from its long drooping branches came down upon them like a shower. Stapylton sprung aside with a little impatience.
‘Hallo!’ he said; ‘mind what you’re about!’ And then, after a pause, ‘Well, it appears you have nothing to say!’
‘What can I say?’ said poor Isabel, shivering with agitation and pain. ‘If you must go, Mr. Stapylton, it cannot matter what I think or what I say.’
‘I knew it would be like that,’ he cried; ‘I knew you would take it as an offence. But, Isabel, look here; I have been dangling after you for more than a year. You are quite willing I should hang about and wait for you here; and perhaps you would let me come down to the cottage and see you, for anything I can tell, now. But as that is all the satisfaction I have ever got, or am likely to get——’
‘What satisfaction would you have?’ said Isabel, under her breath.
‘What satisfaction would I have? that is a charming question to put to me after all that has passed between us. Just look here, Isabel; if it had not been for your ridiculous scruples, think what a different position I should have been in. I’d have written home a penitent letter, saying I was very sorry, and all that, and that I was married, and all about it. There would have been a flare-up, of course; but what could they have done? Whereas, now, what can a fellow say? I cannot moonon here for another six months, or another year, or perhaps more than that. Neither my people, nor anybody’s people, would listen to it for a moment. When I speak plainly you are affected; and yet it is all your own fault.’
‘If I look like that tohim, what must I look to other folk?’ Isabel said to herself. Her pride was not roused, but broken down. Even the thought of answering him was absent from her mind. She had to receive the expression of his will; but what could she reply to it? She had nothing to say.
‘So,’ he continued, after a pause. ‘I am to be left to make the best of it, I suppose. You have no answer to give me even now.’
‘You have asked me no question, Mr. Stapylton,’ said Isabel, faintly. ‘You have but found fault with me. It was never my meaning to keep you hanging on, as you say. What you asked me was impossible—then; and if I am aye to be reproached and blamed for what happens, maybe it is best that it should always be impossible. I would not be the one to keep you back—from your own folk—or waste your time—or——’
‘What more?’ said her lover, irritated. ‘Say something more! say you’ve been making game of me all the time. I can believe it. Perhaps that canting hypocrite at Ardnamore would please you better. I hear he was in the cottage not long ago; or the minister——’
Isabel’s heart swelled as if it would burst. She raised her drooping head with what remnants of pride she had left in the utter overthrow of all her strength.
‘I cannot tell,’ she said, with a gasp, ‘what right any man has to say such things to me.’ And she disengaged herself from the birch-tree which had been her prop and support—but softly still, poor child, not to throw upon him the rain with which it was laden—and made a step or two away. Then she paused, finding it hard work to stand alone, and harder work still to restrain the convulsive sobbing which struggled in her breast. ‘If we are to part,’ she said, softly, taking breath between the words, ‘you know best—I am not saying a word; but if we are to part, may not we part friends at least?’
And with a woeful smile she put out her hand to him. She was too weak for pride; she seemed to herself to be dying, too, like Margaret, and dying folk should be kind, she said in her heart. He was but a man, and perhaps knew no better; and she was too much crushed and wounded to be angry. The only anxious desire she had was to be done with this, and to get home to the fire, to feel some sensation of warmth in her once more; and then die.
‘I think you want to drive me mad,’ he said; and then he seized the proffered hand with sudden haste, and drew her almost roughly to him. ‘This is a woman’s way of doing things, I suppose,’ he said, ‘but not mine—crying; you seem to me to do nothing but cry. Look here, once for all, Isabel, you had a reason before, but you have none now. Will you come with me now?’
‘Where?’ she said, in a whisper, not having breath enough or heart enough either for resistance or utterance.
‘Where? what does it matter where? It might be here for anything I care; but all this ridiculous set would object, and there would be time lost, and the news would be sent home. Come with me now—come to-morrow. What does it matter? You have no invalid to keep you back. What! offended again? How is a plain man to understand all your fancies? If you like to be gloomy and cry I can’t help it, Isabel; but what is the good of dwelling on the past? You did all you could be expected to do, and more. Surely you may think of yourself now.’
‘It is you that does not understand,’ said Isabel, with a sudden movement of indignation, withdrawing from him. ‘What can I say that will make you understand?’
‘I don’t want to understand!’ he cried. ‘Come, Isabel, don’t keep me in pain. If you’ll meet me here to-morrow I’ll arrange everything to-night. We’ll go to Kilcranion and get the steamer there, and reach either Glasgow or Edinburgh in the evening. Isabel! no, you shan’t go away! You can leave a note for your stepmother. Surely, I am more to you than she is. You will make me happy, and make everything possible. It is best to write and tell them after it is done. We’ll go and see everything together; and you never were out of your parish before. Isabel, it will bring back the roses to your cheeks again.’
He held her hand, though she struggled away from him, and bent forward gazing into her face. Isabel’s pale cheeks grew crimson with a violent blush; all at once life and force and strength seemed to pour back into her heart with this wild temptation which shook her to the very depth of her being. The stream had sunk so low that this sudden tide swelled all her veins to bursting, and brought noises to her ears, the sound of awakening, confused hum and buzz of every pulse, of her breathing and her heart. Escape out of this grey atmosphere into the ideal light—out of this chill into the warmth of love—out of this stillness into movement and music and sunshine, and all the stir of common life. But again with equal suddenness a sense of the chill, the grey landscape, the falling night, the heavy eveningdew came back to her, quenching out the light and stilling the sounds. She uttered a heavy sigh, she clasped her hands together as if relinquishing all outside aid. ‘And Margaret not three weeks in her grave!’ That was all she could find to say.
‘What has that to do with it?’ said Stapylton, ‘you sacrificed yourself to her when she was living—and are you to make no use of your freedom now she is dead?Shecan’t feel itnow: what will it matter to her whether you are here or with me? You are free now; go where you like, it can’t affect her any more.’
He had taken her hand again, but she wrung it out of his almost with violence; a dull flush came over her of nervous passion. ‘You neither understand her nor me,’ she said, with a pang in her heart. ‘Oh, how dare you speak—how dare you speak?’ and in her anger she stamped her foot upon the yielding turf.
‘Now I’ll tell you what, Isabel,’ he said, ‘I am not to be trifled with any more. It must be made an end of one way or another. The steamer leaves Kilcranion at three——’
‘It shall be made an end of,’ cried Isabel, ‘when you can speak to me like that in my trouble—when you can speak ofherlike that—oh, say no more! It shows me you do not know what love means—not what it means. I bade you farewell, and you would not take it—but now I say, Go, Mr. Stapylton, go! You have said enough—oh, too much, too much! I cannot bear it. Free! and nothing to her! O man, man, have ye a heart within ye? and can you think I would be glad of that?’
‘I can’t speak your cant,’ cried Stapylton. ‘Isabel! this is the last attempt I will ever make——’
He followed her as he spoke, for she had turned from him, making her way towards the highroad. For a few minutes he went on with her, keeping close by her side, speaking rapidly.
‘This is the last time I will speak. The steamer leaves Kilcranion at three; I will be here waiting for you at two o’clock. I will take every precaution, and make every arrangement. Think it over, Isabel, you never made such an important decision. If you do not come to me at two to-morrow we may never meet more in our lives.’
She stopped and stood gazing at him as he came to this conclusion. For his part he had grown pale and breathless with excitement. He looked at her menacingly from beneath his lowering brows. ‘Never in our lives if not to-morrow!’ he repeated, looking intently in her eyes as if to look her down.
But Isabel was roused, too; she met his eyes withoutflinching, though every particle of colour had left her face.
‘You threaten me!’ she said, with unconscious scorn. ‘If it was me, I would go to the end of the earth for one I loved—not frown at her, and break her heart to do a thing that’s impossible. Oh, how could you ask me to do it? It will have to be never—never! if that is your last word——’
And even then poor Isabel’s maidenly soul was so faithful, so incapable of believing he could mean the cruel things he said, that her eyes grew wistful and woeful looking at him, for one final moment appealing still.
‘I will wait for you all the same,’ he said, with a half-laugh. ‘When you think it all over, you’ll change your mind. At two o’clock I will be here.’
For yet one more moment they stood confronting each other; he with a smile of affected calmness; she with a gaze that gradually clouded into despair. Then she turned with a little wave of her hand, and left him. He did not attempt to follow. He stood on the same spot watching her as she wound her way through the heather. Once or twice he moved a step in the same direction as if to go after her, but immediately stopped himself.
‘If I give in now all’s lost,’ he said to himself, trying to force his lips into a cheerless whistle. ‘She’ll have thought better of it before to-morrow,’ he said unconsciously aloud. After all, a sister is only a sister, a sort of secondary relationship in life. What girl (he thought) would lose a husband for the sake of a dead woman who could interfere with her comfort no more? ‘She’ll think better of it,’ he repeated to himself in his heart.
Isabelwent softly down the hill in a concentrated calm, such as only excitement knows. There was a vague, indescribable force in her; a flush of hysterical strength, an exaltation of feeling and bearing and step. Jamie had been sent out by his mother to look for her, and met her some hundred yards from the cottage, stopped short, amazed by her looks, ‘Oh! Isabel, what is it?’ he cried; but Isabel swept past him unaware of his presence. She went in through the parlour to the innermost retirement of her own room, and there sat down to think; but she was not capable of thought. She sat down with her bonnet and shawl still on by the side of the bed on which her sister had lain in the last silenceof death, and leaned her head against the chill pillow to still and calm herself.
It was thus that Jean found her half an hour later, when, having heard Jamie’s report of Isabel’s return, she went to seek her wayward charge. Jean’s first glance informed her that the crape on her stepdaughter’s dress was limp, and spoiled with the damp, and that her feet were wet.
‘Oh! Isabel, my bonnie woman, it’s no good for you. You’ve been in the kirkyard again,’ cried Jean putting her apron to her eyes. She could make nothing of the cry, ‘Oh! no, no, not there,’ that came from Isabel’s white lips. Where could she have been but at the grave? It was perhaps a little hard that she should deny it, as if Jean could not enter into her feelings; but no doubt it was natural. Jean took the forlorn creature into her motherly arms.
‘Come ben to the fire, my lamb,’ she said, ‘your crape’s damp and a’ ruined, and your feet are as wet as the moss itself. I canna have ye ill to break my heart. My darlin’, put off your bonnet and come ben to the fire. I’ll change your feet and make ye a cup of tea. Oh, Isabel! it’s an awfu’ loss and an awfu’ trial—but ye maun mind, it’s God’s will and canna be wrong.’
Isabel turned away from her with a cry of despair, which Jean misunderstanding set down but to the renewed vehemence of grief rekindled to its fullest by the melancholy visit which she supposed her stepdaughter to have just paid. When she got her at last into her own elbow-chair by the kitchen fire, and knelt before her chafing the girl’s little white feet in her rough but kindly hands, ‘Isabel, my bonnie woman, you must promise me no to go again,’ she said, surrounding her with kindly ministrations.
‘Oh, let me be!’ sobbed Isabel, ‘let me be;’ and sighing, Jean left her in her own especial sanctuary, by the warm light of the kitchen fire. Unawares her eyes closed, her hands, which had been strained together with a painful pressure, unclasped, her head fell softly back upon the blue and white covering of the high-backed chair. Jean was so moved by the sight when she returned into the kitchen, coming and going at her work, that she turned even little Mary, just coming home from school, out of the darkling place. ‘Can ye no see that Isabel’s sleeping?’ she said sharply to her own flesh and blood.
‘But, oh, what makes her sleep in the day?’ said Mary, following into the parlour with a frightened face, ‘Is she to die too like Margaret?’ and big tears sprang to the child’s eyes.
‘The Lord forbid!’ said Jean, ‘but, whisht now, and be as quiet as a mouse—she’s worn, and wearied, and grieved at her heart. When ane ‘s in sair trouble sleep is sweet.’
‘I wonder if she ay dreams of Margaret like me,’ said little Mary. ‘Eh, mother, Margaret comes and stands by my bed every night!’
‘Oh, bairn, whisht, and no break my heart!’ cried Jean, uneasily. ‘Ye were ay the one for dreams.’
‘But I’m no feared,’ said little Mary, ‘whiles she speaks, but I never can mind what she says. It’s just the same to me as if she was living. Then I used to see her a’ day, and now I see her a’ night—and she has ay light round like an angel out of Heaven.’
‘Oh, whisht, with your dreams!’ cried the mother with a tone of anger, which belied the sudden tremor in her heart. ‘Have ye nae lessons to learn like Jamie? He’s away on the braes, the poor callant! with his book.’
‘He’s making a whistle out of a rowan-tree branch,’ said Mary; ‘I cried upon him as I passed, but he wouldna come in, and he’ll cut his fingers, for it’s getting dark.’
‘Eh me, he’s an awfu’ laddie!’ said poor Jean, rushing to the door. What with her precocious daughter, and her backward son, and Isabel whose heart it was so hard to keep, she had, as she herself expressed it, ‘a bonnie handful.’ But fortunately the one anxiety kept the other in check, and uneasiness about the cutting of Jamie’s fingers dulled in her mind the painful impression of Mary’s dreams; and then night fell, and the children came in, and Isabel awoke to a sense of warmth and comfort. She did not even propose to retire into her dignity in the parlour, but stayed in the elbow-chair, and even smiled as she had scarcely done before. She was glad to take refuge among them—glad to avoid the inevitable encounter with her own thoughts; and indeed her mind had taken refuge in a kind of insensibility. She had felt so much that for the moment she could feel no more.
Thus it was that Isabel did not return to the events of the afternoon during the whole course of the night. The emotions that had been so strong in her seemed to have been somehow lulled to sleep. She made an ineffectual attempt to recall them when she went to her own room, but fatigue and sleep got the better of her. A curious sense of escape came over her. She had expected to be rent asunder with indignation, and that madness which devours the mind when we are wroth with those we love. A hundred terrible questions had seemed on the eve of sweeping down upon her like so many birds of prey to be resolved and settled in a moment. And yetnothing of the kind had happened: instead, a soft insensibility had crept over her mind. She was too weary for anything; and slept, like a tired child, quieted and composed and wrapped in physical warmth and consolation.
These were her feelings when she fell asleep. But Isabel awoke, in the middle of the night, as she thought, in the deep darkness and stillness, broad awake in a second, without any twilight interval between the deep blank of repose and the tremendous struggle of existence.
She turned from side to side in her weary bed, sometimes hoping that out of the gloom there might reveal itself a sudden figure, all blazing with awful brightness, to show her what was needful to be done—counting the steadfast, unbroken, terrible tickings of the clock, feeling the darkness affect her, a thing which weighed down her eyes and oppressed her soul. When the first shade of grey trembled into the dusk, it was to Isabel as a messenger from Heaven. Her heart bounded up with a sense of relief; and as the dawn grew, revealing in a mist the whitening hill-side, and the reflections in the Loch, she found it possible to sleep again and forget her troubles. She fell into a heavy slumber, which still lasted when Jean came softly into the room to rouse her.
‘I dinna like thae long sleeps,’ Jean said to herself, with a sudden pang: ‘Eh, if she should gang too, like Margret!’ and stood by the bedside reluctant to awake her, gazing at the sleeper’s pale face, at the unconscious knitting of her brows, and tremulous movements of her hand. She grew more and more anxious as the morning advanced, and Isabel, trained in the habit of early rising, never woke. The good woman stole repeatedly to her stepdaughter’s bedside, laying her hand softly on Isabel’s forehead, and touching the white arm which lay on the coverlet to discover whether she was feverish. When she opened her eyes at last, Jean was gazing at her with an anxiety which she did her best to dissimulate as soon as she perceived that Isabel was awake.
‘I thought you were never to wake mair,’ she said, with attempted playfulness. ‘Lazy thing! It’s ten o’clock in the day, and half the work of the house done. But, now you’re so late, bide a wee longer, and I’ll bring you your tea.’
‘But I am quite well,’ said Isabel, raising herself with a little start.
‘I canna think it, or you wouldna sleep like that,’ said Jean. ‘You, that were never lazy in the morning. You’ve gotten cauld on the braes.’
Jean did not know what meaning there could be in her words which brought that cloud on her stepdaughter’s face. She looked at her very anxiously, but could make nothing of it.
‘I shouldna have said a word of where ye were,’ she exclaimed, with sudden compunction. ‘It’s me that’s a thoughtless body, never minding. But we must submit to God’s will, my bonnie woman; and I’ll go, and bring ye your tea.’
‘This will never do,’ Jean said to herself, as she left the room. It will never do. She must have some change. I’ll go and speak to Miss Catherine about it this very day.’ And when she went back, with the tea on a little tray, the suggestion framed itself into speech. ‘What would ye say to going to Edinburgh, and seeing a’ the sights? But—eh! bless me, is the lassie daft?’ cried Jean, thunderstruck by the effect of her words.
‘I will not listen to you,’ said Isabel, with sudden passion. ‘Never! Go to Edinburgh! How dare ye put such things in my head? Go away, and play myself, and be happy—and my Margaret not three weeks in her grave!’
‘My bonnie lamb!’ said Jean, with streaming eyes. ‘To see you happy—or if no happy, a wee cheerful—taking some good of your life—Margret would have given half hers. Do you think she’s mair selfish, mair hard, no so thoughtful now?’
Isabel could but gasp at her with startled, wondering eyes. Was Jean, too, pleading for him? Was she taking his part consciously or unconsciously? She put away the food her stepmother had brought her, with nervous, trembling hands.
‘I cannot lie here,’ she said. ‘I am quite well. Let me get up, and then I will know what to do.’
‘Lie still, my dear,’ said Jean, anxiously. ‘You’ve been waking through the night, and greetin’ sore; and you’ve got cauld on the wet grass. Lie still this day, and rest.’
‘But I cannot rest,’ said Isabel. ‘I cannot breathe. My heart is like as if it were bound with an iron band. I want to rise, and to get the air.’
‘Nae air the day except the air from the window,’ said Jean. ‘I can be positive, too. Na, na; I have the charge of you, and decline’s in the family. You shanna cross the door this day.’
Isabel fell back on her pillow with the strangest sense of relief. She, who had never yielded to her stepmother in her life, felt a certain consolation in this exercise of authority.
‘It is not as if it was my own doing,’ she thought in herself, and kept still, satisfied for the moment with her relief from all responsibility. The manner in which shesubsided into sudden listlessness and quiet frightened Jean still more. Had it been anyone else, she might have accepted it as the result of natural weakness or weariness, but nothing of the kind had ever been seen before in wilful Isabel. Nor did it last long. When Jean returned, an hour later, her charge was again struggling with excitement.
‘I am going to get up,’ she said, with two brilliant spots of colour on her cheeks. ‘I feel as if I were in my grave here. I must get out to the fresh air!’
Jean’s answer was to draw away the curtain from the window. Then Isabel saw, looking out on the hill-side, the falling of the noiseless rain. It was no white violent blast with actual colour and solidity, but the fine impalpable dropping which penetrates through every covering, and which the experienced West Highlander looks at with hopeless eyes. ‘To gan out into that wet would be as much as your life is worth,’ said Jean, solemnly. ‘The braes are nae better than a shaking moss, and the roads are running like burns. It’s an awfu’ saft day. Ye may get up and sit by the fire, but across the door ye’ll no go, or else you’ll quarrel with me.’
This time it was with a kind of despair that Isabel listened. He would never think of it—he could not expect her, nor would he go himself on such a day. His departure would be put off, and with it the crisis, and time would be left to think. A little time to think, even an hour more she felt would be something gained. She had another moment of tranquility, gazing out from where she lay through the low window, upon the melancholy braes.
After a temporary lull, however, her fever returned. This time she rose and dressed herself hastily, putting on, in a half-dream, not her new ‘mourning,’ with the crape on it, but a thick winter dress, black enough to indicate any depths of sorrow. Always like a walker in a dream—that was the only explanation she could have given of her own feelings. Clothed for her journey, yet without any intention of taking the journey, she wandered drearily about her sister’s room. One o’clock, struck by the solemn eight-day clock, which gave a kind of mechanical soul to the house, knelled upon Isabel’s ear, as she held her white trembling hands over the fire. It shook her like a convulsion of nature. But one hour more—and all to be decided in that hour—and her mind no nearer the solution, scarcely so near as last night.
‘You’re looking real weakly, my dear,’ said Jean; ‘shaking like a leaf. I’m no sure you should have risen out of your bed. Take this shawl round you, and I’llgive you some broth to warm you. You’ve eaten nothing the whole day.’
‘I could not eat!’ said Isabel, wrapping round her with a shiver the soft warm shawl. Tick, tick, tick! Would nothing arrest these inexorable moments? As they went on her thoughts seemed to rise round her like a whirlwind sweeping about and about her bewildered soul; every beat brought nearer to her the last moment when her fate should still be in her own power. And yet she was like one paralysed, and could not move. The minutes pressed and trod upon each other’s heels, and yet were so slow in their confused procession, that it might have been an age instead of an hour. At last, while Isabel sat striving to break the spell which bound her, the door flew open and then closed violently after Jamie rushing in wet and muddy from school.
‘It’s no raining now!’ cried the boy as he dashed forward to the side of the fire. Isabel started as if a shot had struck her. Just then the clock gave its little whirr of warning that it was about to strike the hour. She sprang up to her feet with a sudden cry—then sank down again—her pale head falling back against the chair, her hands falling listless on its arms. Jean, rushing to her, believed for the first moment that Isabel was dead. She was as one dead, her eyes half-closed and ghastly; her colour completely gone; her very lips deserted of all colour. The struggle had been too much for her. She lay insensible in a dead faint before her stepmother’s affrighted eyes.
Stapyltonsought the trysting-place on the hill on the decisive day with all the excitement natural to the crisis, but with little fear of the result. He had taken none of the precautions of which he had spoken to Isabel. What need was there of precautions? she would wear a veil of course, and a cloak. The road to Kilcranion was little frequented, especially on such a day; and by the time Kilcranion was reached, they would be, to some extent, among strangers, not liable to recognition at every step as here. He made up for himself a small bag of necessaries, put the money he had just received to carry him home in his pocket, buttoned his greatcoat, and took his way through the drizzling rain to the hill-side.
He had loitered there for about half an hour watching for traces of Isabel’s approach, and gradually beginning to be angry, when the rain suddenly stopped,and the sky cleared ever so little. That was so far good. He put down his bag, and lighted a cigar to comfort himself as he waited. Below where he stood, just within sight, the thatched roof of the Glebe Cottage rose like some natural growth out of the heather. No doubt she must have waited for this moment; though why she should have waited, keeping him in the rain, he could not imagine. However it was a pardonable sin if she came now. This thought went through his mind just at the moment when Isabel, rising to go to him, fell back and fainted in her chair. He paced up and down the wet turf, and smoked his cigar, and looked for her, calculating in his own mind how long the weather would ‘keep up,’ and whether there might be time to reach Kilcranion before it came on to rain again. Another half-hour, it might be, was spent in these speculations; and then he took out his watch suddenly, and woke to the consciousness that he had been waiting for an hour on the moor, that the steamer must be gone from Kilcranion, and that the way of escape unobserved was closed to them for that night.
It would be difficult to describe the rage which rose in a moment in his mind. She, whom he thought so entirely subject to him, whom he had felt to be delivered over to him bound hand and foot when she was deprived of her sister—had Isabel rebelled against his influence? Had she cast him off? It did not seem possible. He would—but was that Isabel? It seemed to him he could hear sounds from the cottage; the noise of doors opening and shutting—a babble of tongues. Could they be detaining her by force? But then no one in the world had any right to detain her—she was absolutely free. Still there was some agitation about the Glebe. He snatched up his bag, not without a private imprecation upon Isabel for making him thus ridiculous, that he should have to drag it about from one place to another; and then he turned rapidly down the hill. Someone came out of the cottage as he got full in sight of it—someone whom he easily divined to be Mr. Lothian. ‘Confound him!’ said the young fellow; what was he doing there just at the moment when Stapylton’s fate was being decided? Could she have consulted him? Was it through the minister’s plotting that his purpose had thus been brought to nothing? The young man hurried down, carrying in his hand, and cursing the troublesome bag, which but for her—— it was a small matter, but it exasperated him more than a greater. He had half a mind to fling it at the cottage door, and order Jamie to carry it for him for sixpence, by way of driving the stepmother out of her senses. But surely there wassomething strange going on at the Glebe. Jenny Spence had just come out with another woman, and stood in audible colloquy with her at the door. ‘You’ll tell the doctor she’s come to hersel,’ said Jenny. ‘It lasted an hour, Jean thinks. But time looks awfu’ long when folk are feared, and maybe it wasna an hour. She’s come to hersel, and very quiet, and there’s nae such haste as we thought. But for a’ that, tell him he’s to come on here as soon as he can.’
‘And will I say what was the cause?’ said the messenger, while Stapylton listened eagerly.
‘He’s mair likely to tell us,’ said the other; ‘the first thing she asked was, What o’clock was it? And when she heard gave an awfu’ sigh, and syne lay as quiet as a wean—though what the clock had to do with it Gude kens. I hope it’s no her head; that would be worse of a’.’
‘But she’s ay been real healthy and strong. A body in trouble may faint, and yet no be that ill after a’.’
‘But ye see decline’s in the family,’ said Jenny Spence, and then they parted, the one returning to the house, the other speeding on her mission. The bag grew less oppressive in Stapylton’s hands. His clouded brow cleared a little. After all, she had not meant to leave him in the lurch. If she was ill that was a different matter. After a pause he went and knocked at the door, and asked how Miss Diarmid was?
‘If you’re meaning Isabel, she’s no that weel,’ said Jenny Spence; ‘she was out yesterday in the damp, and she’s gotten a cauld.’ This was all the information she would condescend upon to a stranger and a ‘young lad.’
‘But what did I hear you say about a faint?’ said Stapylton eagerly.
‘Lord!’ said Jenny, who, like most of the villagers, disliked the Englishman, ‘how can I tell what ye might hear me say? I say plenty whiles that I canna mind myself; but Isabel’s gotten the cauld. It’s natural at this time of the year.’
‘Cold? and nothing more?’ asked the young man.
‘Ane can never tell—it might turn into an influenza,’ said Jenny; ‘but that’s a’ the noo, for a’ that I can see.’
And then she closed the door upon him, with a certain malicious satisfaction. Stapylton was no favourite in the parish; perhaps because of a sneer which was always lurking behind the few civilities which he had ever been known to offer. Jenny had no confidence either in his friendship or his love.
‘Yon’s the lad that would beguile a young lass, but be dour as iron and steel to his wife as soon as she hadmarried him. I hope there’s naething amiss between him and Isabel,’ she said to Jean, when she described this visit; and Jean felt a little thrill go through her, as if this new event threw light on something, though she could scarcely tell what.
‘Do you think our Isabel would be thinking of any such nonsense at such a time!’ she said, indignantly. But still a sensation as of some discovery darted through her own heart.
Stapylton, however, shut out as he thus was from all approach to Isabel, was not to be so easily put off. He hastened down the road at his quickest pace, determined to find out, at least, from the minister what had happened. Mr. Lothian was standing at the door of the doctor’s house when the young man made up to him.
‘Is it you, Stapylton?’ he said, with an evident struggle to be friendly. ‘It has been a dreadful day.’
‘Not cheerful,’ said the young man; ‘but only, after all, “a wee saft,” as you say in these parts. You have not been consulting the doctor, I hope, for yourself?’
‘No,’ said Mr. Lothian, fixing his eyes upon his interrogator, and adding nothing to the syllable. Stapylton’s spirit of natural rivalry woke up at once.
‘I saw a messenger for the doctor coming from the Glebe,’ he said. ‘I hope I might be mistaken—or if there is anyone ill there, that it is only one of the children. Children are always ill.’
‘It is not one of the children,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘It is—Isabel.’ He uttered the name with a sigh. He was so anxious, that he was glad to speak, even to Stapylton, of the subject that lay nearest his heart.
‘What is the matter?’ said the young man, himself feeling somewhat breathless.
‘She fainted to-day,’ said the minister, ‘without any reason, so far as we know. She had been out yesterday, at her sister’s grave, and I fear she caught cold; but a fainting fit shows a state of weakness which—I cannot but be alarmed at it,’ he added, hurriedly, with a faltering voice.
‘So she said she had been at her sister’s grave!’—Stapylton thought within himself. He liked her all the better for having lied to keep their meeting secret. He had not thought she had so much spirit. And after all it would have been a wretched day for a journey. To-morrow would still leave time enough. He must send her a note somehow, to say so; and, well or ill, she must pluck up her forces and do it at last. He looked at the glass as he went to his room, and found that it was rising; and already it had ceased to rain. Dry clothes and a fine day would make all the difference. AndIsabel, who could no longer assume any superiority over him—who had been as sly about it as any ordinary girl—would have given herself to him by that time, and be altogether in his power. The young man whistled in sheer lightheartedness as he changed his dress. After this she could never mount her high horse, and show her superior sentiments, as of yore. The first thing he did when his toilet was accomplished was to write her a note. It was the first communication of the kind which had ever passed between them, but the fact did not excite him as it does most young lovers. Poor Mr. Lothian, on the eminence of his fifty years, would have written to Isabel with very different feelings; but Stapylton took it calmly, not being of an imaginative turn. His letter was as follows:—
‘Dearest Isabel,—I was in an awful state of mind when I found you did not turn up to-day at the usual spot. I felt furious I can assure you, and called you a jilt and a dozen other names. But I hear you’ve been ill, and I forgive you, my darling. Of course it never would have answered to set out in the rain on such a frightful day if you were ill. I got soaked to the skin waiting for you, which I hope you will be sorry to hear. But, Isabel, remember to-morrow is the last day. Go I must to-morrow. If you can’t pick yourself up and get well, and join me at the same place and the same hour, I shall go mad, I think, for I must go. My people are writing letters upon letters. There’s one waiting for me now, but I have not opened it, for they’re all pretty much the same thing over again. They’ve written to Mr. Lothian, and to Smeaton at the farm, for information as to what detains me; and I must not risk it any longer. But of course, when you know it’s so necessary, I can trust to your spirit to get well, and join me as I arranged. We’ll have a run into Edinburgh and do the business, and then I can write home. I don’t care much about seeing sights myself, but it will all be new to you, and you’ll enjoy it. So get well, my pet, as fast as ever you can, and remember to-morrow at the old place at two o’clock. I’ll have a trap waiting on the hill: but for Heaven’s sake don’t be late.‘You may think me joking, but I never was more serious in my life. That is my way, as you know. I can’t look solemn and use big words like you Scotch. But I mean it all the same. If you don’t love me enough to come to me to-morrow, I’ll take it for granted you don’t love me at all. I will go right away by myself, and I can’t hold out any hope to you that I will ever come back. Now don’t mistake me, or think I amthreatening you. I have waited long enough, and you must not make a fool of me any longer. If I am once driven away, the chances are I can never return to Loch Diarmid—or to you. Come then now. It is our only chance. I will wait for you to-morrow as I did to-day. I shall be there at half-past one, and I shall wait till a quarter after two. No longer. You must be punctual. It’s for you to decide if we are to be together for ever, or separated for ever. I can do no more. To-morrow at the old place, or most likely never in this world.‘Come, Isabel, my darling, come! Don’t fail me. If you do, I will never see you more.‘Yours, if you will have me,‘H. S.’
‘Dearest Isabel,—I was in an awful state of mind when I found you did not turn up to-day at the usual spot. I felt furious I can assure you, and called you a jilt and a dozen other names. But I hear you’ve been ill, and I forgive you, my darling. Of course it never would have answered to set out in the rain on such a frightful day if you were ill. I got soaked to the skin waiting for you, which I hope you will be sorry to hear. But, Isabel, remember to-morrow is the last day. Go I must to-morrow. If you can’t pick yourself up and get well, and join me at the same place and the same hour, I shall go mad, I think, for I must go. My people are writing letters upon letters. There’s one waiting for me now, but I have not opened it, for they’re all pretty much the same thing over again. They’ve written to Mr. Lothian, and to Smeaton at the farm, for information as to what detains me; and I must not risk it any longer. But of course, when you know it’s so necessary, I can trust to your spirit to get well, and join me as I arranged. We’ll have a run into Edinburgh and do the business, and then I can write home. I don’t care much about seeing sights myself, but it will all be new to you, and you’ll enjoy it. So get well, my pet, as fast as ever you can, and remember to-morrow at the old place at two o’clock. I’ll have a trap waiting on the hill: but for Heaven’s sake don’t be late.
‘You may think me joking, but I never was more serious in my life. That is my way, as you know. I can’t look solemn and use big words like you Scotch. But I mean it all the same. If you don’t love me enough to come to me to-morrow, I’ll take it for granted you don’t love me at all. I will go right away by myself, and I can’t hold out any hope to you that I will ever come back. Now don’t mistake me, or think I amthreatening you. I have waited long enough, and you must not make a fool of me any longer. If I am once driven away, the chances are I can never return to Loch Diarmid—or to you. Come then now. It is our only chance. I will wait for you to-morrow as I did to-day. I shall be there at half-past one, and I shall wait till a quarter after two. No longer. You must be punctual. It’s for you to decide if we are to be together for ever, or separated for ever. I can do no more. To-morrow at the old place, or most likely never in this world.
‘Come, Isabel, my darling, come! Don’t fail me. If you do, I will never see you more.
‘Yours, if you will have me,‘H. S.’
When he had finished this epistle he read it over with a little complacency. If anything would do it, surely this would do it; though, indeed, there was no reason to believe that Isabel required any special entreaty. As he thought it over, it occurred to him that probably she had fainted out of sheer aggravation and passion when she found she could not go to him; and that was easily comprehensible. When he had folded his note, and got up to find some wax to seal it (for envelopes were not common articles in those days), he found the letters Mr. Lothian had told him of on the table, and tore the first that came uppermost open, suddenly, holding still his love-letter in his hand. His face grew heavy as he read, and pale. He went back to his chair and hurried through it, and the other which accompanied it. They were written on the same day, and to the same purpose. His father was ill. One of the letters was from his sister, the other from the doctor.
‘Come for mamma’s sake,’ wrote the first. ‘Papa is fearfully angry, and threatens to change his will. For your own sake don’t waste a moment.’
‘Your father is dying,’ said the doctor. ‘There is not a moment to lose. He is clamouring for a lawyer. Everything that I can do to postpone this you may be sure I will. But come! you may yet be in time.’
Young Stapylton wiped the heavy moisture from his forehead and stared into the air as if he had been staring at himself. ‘Clamouring for a lawyer!’—‘threatening to change his will!’ Horace was not a devoted son, but such words as these penetrate the most callous heart. After the first shock he set himself to consider with a promptitude that did him credit. There was not a moment to lose. After all, it was just as well he had packed his bag. He would borrow the miller’s horse and the minister’s old gig, and there was still timeperhaps to get to Glasgow before the English mail should be gone. But there was not a moment to lose. It was only when he sprang up to prepare for immediate departure that he found the note to Isabel crushed in his hand, and bethought himself of her. He sat down again hastily and added a few words to it: and he was in the act of sealing it at Mr. Lothian’s writing-table when the minister came in. Even then a spark of malice crossed his mind. Here was the best messenger he could find to carry his love-letter—and it would be a Parthian arrow, a farewell blow at his adversary.
‘My father is ill,’ he said; ‘I must go instantly. There is just time to catch the coach for Glasgow if Andrew White will lend me his mare. I am going to ask him now.’
‘Going—instantly?’ said the minister, stupified, looking at the two letters on the table. Stapylton gathered them carefully up and nodded in reply.
‘I shall see you again,’ he said. ‘I must rush up now to the mill. I may have the gig, I suppose? But look here,’ he continued, coming back from the door. ‘There’s one good turn you can do me, if you will. If not I’ll send it by someone else; will you take this note for me to the Glebe when you go?’
The minister started slightly and coloured high, but he made a little ceremonious bow at the same time and held out his hand. ‘I will take it,’ he said gravely; and then, perhaps out of the softening of his heart towards the young fellow, who was thus torn away at such a moment, leaving him master of the field—for to be left master of the field is very softening and consolatory to the soul—he laid his hand upon Stapylton’s arm. ‘The doctors says it is but grief and agitation—you’ll be glad to hear it,’ he said.
‘Yes, yes,’ cried Stapylton, scarcely taking in the words; ‘and I may have the gig? There is not a moment to lose.’
Nextmorning Mr. Lothian went to the Glebe as early as he could permit himself to go, though his heart had been on the way for hours before he permitted his reluctant footsteps to follow. He found Isabel lying on the sofa in the parlour, in the very spot where Margaret had died, and naturally the association of ideas struck him profoundly. ‘Why have you laid her there?’ he said to Jean, turning back from the door. There went a chill to his heart as if he had seen the tragedy allacted over again, and heard that the end was already approaching.
Jean Campbell stared at him, only partially comprehending what he could mean. ‘Where else could I put her,’ she said, ‘unless it was ben in the kitchen with me? and the doctor says she’s to be kept quiet. And it’s mair cheerful there than in a bedroom, where she could see nobody.’
‘Cheerful!’ echoed the minister.
‘Eh aye real cheerful,’ said Jean, in whose mind perpetual use and wont had subdued the force of melancholy associations. ‘When I’ve put the sofa she can see the road, and the Loch, and the steamboat, which is real diverting—and I’m aye coming and going to keep her cheery myself. She’s no to call ill. It’s but the sorrow and the weakness and a’ her trouble. We’ve no need to be alarmed about her health, he says.’
Mr. Lothian, silenced by this matter of fact treatment of the subject, went into the parlour, feeling even his own apprehensions a little calmed down.
‘I am very glad to hear you are better,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes. I never was ill to speak of. I know I never was ill,’ said Isabel, turning away her head.
‘Then perhaps the rest and quiet is all you want?’ said the minister, not knowing in his agitation what to say. And then there was a pause. There were a hundred things which he had longed to say to her, but could not when the moment thus came. He felt as if some cruel necessity was upon him to think of Margaret—to remind her that Margaret had died just where she was lying—to beg her to change her attitude, and look, which made his heart sick with terror. He had to restrain himself with an effort from suggesting to her this strange topic. And perhaps the other things he was tempted to say would have been less palatable still. At last, after a perplexed and painful pause, he brought out of his pocket the letter of which he was the unwilling bearer.
‘I have a letter for you,’ he said, ‘it was left with me last night.’
‘A letter!’ said Isabel, growing pale, and then she turned it about in her hands, and looked at it. ‘It has no address.’
‘It was put up in such haste,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘Isabel, will you read it now, in case I can give you any explanation?—or shall I go away?’
‘It is from——’
‘Horace Stapylton. I gave my promise I would bring it—though against my will.’
Isabel gazed at him, for a moment growing pale.She held the letter helplessly in her hand. What could he mean? It had beenleftwith him last night. He could perhaps give some explanation. What could he mean? Her pulse began to beat again as it had not done since her faint. She made Mr. Lothian a little sign with her hand to stay, for he had risen, and stood quite apart from her in the centre of the room. Then with a hasty hand she tore open the letter. When the minister gave a stolen glance at her, he could see that her cheeks were growing more and more flushed and feverish. The colour on them was no passing glow of delight and modesty, but the burning red of excitement and sudden passion. She went over it all rapidly, and then she uttered a low cry. Mr. Lothian glanced at her, but, seeing that the cry was unconscious, betook himself again to the window with what calmness was possible. Isabel had come to the postscript. He did not look round again for what seemed to him an age. What roused him at last was the rustle of the paper falling to the ground, and turning round hastily, he found Isabel with her face buried in her hands in a passion of tears. This was hard to bear. He went back to his seat beside the sofa, and picking up the letter laid it gently on her lap; and then he touched her shoulder softly with a fatherly, caressing hand, and said, ‘My poor child! my poor child!’ in a voice that came out of the very depths of his heart.
Then Isabel uncovered hastily her passionate, tear-stained face.
‘It is not that!’ she cried—‘it is not that! Oh, I think shame! Am I one to be spoken to so?—is it my doing? I think my heart will break! Take it and read it, and tell me if it is my doing, before I die of shame.’
He could only gaze at her, wondering if her mind were unhinged; but hasty Isabel, all ablaze with passion and misery, could not stop to think. She took up the letter—her lover’s letter, and thrust it into his rival’s hand.
‘If it is my doing—oh, never speak to me again!’ she cried. Shame and anger, and disappointment and anguish, were all tearing her asunder. And she had no Margaret to go to, to relieve her. Someone must give her that support and solace which her heart demanded, or she felt she must die. She hung upon his looks as he read it, reading his expression.
‘Could it be my fault?’ she cried. ‘Oh, Mr. Lothian, was I such a light lass? Was it anything I did that made him write like that to me?’
‘No, Isabel,’ he said, with a blaze of rage in his eyes, taking her feverish hand. ‘No, Isabel. My dear,think no more of it. It is that he understands neither yours nor you.’
And then instinctively, in an instant, hasty Isabel felt the mistake she had made, and felt that she could not bear any criticisms upon her lover even now. She took back her letter as suddenly as she had given it, and folded it up with trembling hands.
‘He does not understand,’ said Mr. Lothian, altogether unconscious of this rapid revolution. ‘You speak a language he cannot comprehend. The women he knows are a different species. Isabel, I have never said a word against him——’
‘No,’ she cried, hurriedly. ‘No; I am always a fool, and never know what I am doing. No. Dinna say a word now.’
Then he stopped suddenly, the very words arrested on his lips, and gazed at her wondering, not knowing what she could mean.
‘You don’t understand me either,’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, not a word—not a word! You cannot judge him right; you never saw him like me. He was bewildered with the news; he never meant that.’
‘If I were to say the like, would you ever forgive me?’ said the minister, shaking his head. She answered only by weeping, a mode of reply which took all power of remonstrance or protestation away from the spectator. A hundred contradictory emotions were in Isabel’s tears. Shame and pain over the letter; shame still sharper, if not so deep, that she had offered it to the criticism of another; wrath against Stapylton; rage at herself; and a certain bitterness against her companion for not taking her lover’s part to her, for not contradicting her, and pleading his rival’s cause. She could not have spoken all this wild jumble of pain and passion; but she poured it all forth in tears.
It was the postscript which had specially excited her, and which ran as follows:—
‘I have just heard that my father is ill, and I must go. I would have waited till to-morrow even now, but I hear he might alter his will, which would never do. It is all your own fault. I was ready, waiting for you—as you know. What could a man do more? If you will come, and meet me somewhere on the Border, as soon as this business is settled, you will find me as ready then as I was to-day. No time to say a word more.’
Mr. Lothian once more left her side, and went back to the window in his perplexity.
‘I should not disturb you,’ he said, with his back to her. ‘I should go away. But it is grievous to me tosee your tears. I would give my very blood to save one tear falling from your eyes. And he would wring tears of blood out of your heart; and yet he is chosen, and I am rejected. What more can I have to say?’
‘Nothing! oh, nothing!’ cried Isabel. ‘Oh, will you not understand? I would like to hide myself in the depths of the earth. I was going to him yesterday, when I fainted. I have kept it a secret, and it was like a lie burning in my heart. Now I have told you; I would have gone with him if I had kept in life. What better am I than him? He is free to speak, for he sees I am no better. It is my fault, and not his. And now you know,’ cried the girl, clasping her passionate hands together, ‘and you may despise me! I let him tempt me; I could not bear the awfu’ quiet. I’ll cure you at least, if I shame myself. It was me that was to blame.’
‘But I am not cured. I’ll never be cured, my dear, my dear!’ cried the grey-haired man, coming back to her, with tears in his eyes, and taking her hands into his own. ‘It was your innocence, and your grief. Do you think I do not know of the struggle that was in your heart?’
She left her hands indifferently in his, not seeming to care for, nor scarcely to perceive, his emotion. She fixed her eyes vacantly upon the air, with great tears rising in them.
‘And Margaret knows it all,’ she said; two piteous tears, the very essence of her pain, dilated her eyes into two great globes, but did not fall. Self-abasement could go no further. Margaret, in Heaven, would not despise her sister. But what could she think of the variable, miserable creature who, fresh from her own death-bed, could be tempted by such a poor temptation, and think such thoughts as these?
Whileall this had been going on at the Glebe, a drama of a different kind was evolving itself among scenes of strange devotion, and plans as wild as enthusiast ever formed, at the other corner of the Loch. Mr. John’s madness had come to a height on the night of Margaret’s death. The sudden announcement of that event falling on him at a moment when he had already worked himself into a kind of frenzy, had brought to a climax this supreme crisis of his being. He went away from Ailie’s cottage, vaguely wandering across the gloomy moor to the Glebe, and throwing himself downthere on the wet heather, watched through the starless, solitary night within sight of the melancholy house which held his dead love.
The result of this terrible watch was an illness against which he fought with feverish passion, never resting nor stopping one of his ordinary occupations. He was in the churchyard on the day of Margaret’s funeral, shivering and burning, and scarcely able to sustain himself, but keeping up by force of will, grasping at the cold tombstones, stopping the melancholy train, as it dispersed, to hear ‘the word of the Lord.’
‘You have closed her up in her grave,’ he cried, his voice hoarse with sickness and passion; ‘but when He comes, think you, your green turf and your cold stones will hide His saint from giving Him a welcome.’
‘Come home! come home!’ said the minister, approaching the haggard prophet, with a compassion, in which there was some touch of fellow feeling, ‘you are too ill to be out of your bed, much less here.’
‘By God’s grace I will never yield to what you call illness,’ said Mr. John; ‘is it for me to rest and let them leave the place where they have laid her, with hearts like stones in their bosoms? Is she to have lived—and is she to die, in vain?’
‘Mr. John, this is worse than folly,’ said Mr. Lothian; ‘no one here will let Margaret’s dear name be made an occasion of strife. For her sake, go home and take thought, and rest.’
‘For her sake, I will rest no more till He comes, or till I die,’ cried the inspired madman: ‘but I shall not die, I will live and declare the works of the Lord.’
There were many of the wondering party thus accosted who believed that Mr. John had been betrayed by his grief into a new vice, the most common failing of the country-side. ‘He’s been drinking,’ they said among themselves: ‘puir fellow!—to make him forget.’ ‘Na, na, it’s no drink, it’s grief,’ said others. ‘And wha are ye that speak like them in Jerusalem,’ cried a third party, ’"they’re drunk with new wine,” when it was the Spirit of the Lord?’
And then, a few days later, it became known in the parish that he had bidden Ailie Macfarlane in the name of God to become his wife, and excitement rose very high on Loch Diarmid. Something in the passionate, haggard face, which looked like that of a man on the point of death, and yet was to be seen more than ever at kirk and market, awed the common mind and threw a certain light of reality upon those desperate and tragic motives which had led him to such a proposal.
‘He’s lost Margret for this world; and now he thinks to force the Lord to come afore His ain time and get her back,’ said Jenny Spence.
‘And Ailie—poor thing!—is to be his tool that he’ll work with. I see his meaning—a’ his meaning, as clear as daylight. He’s out o’ his wits about Margret Diarmid; and he’s ta’en to the drink for consolation,’ said another gossip, ‘and he hasna strength to stand it. It’ll be his death, and that you’ll see.’
Poor Ailie, however, on her side, was of a very different mind. When ‘the word of the Lord’ had burst upon her on that night of Margaret’s death, her very heart had failed in dismay and consternation. She had implicitly believed all that had been revealed to herself of her own mission, and was ready to set out at any moment without staff or scrip, with all the simplicity of a child. But her faith failed her when Mr. John’s strange proposal fell on her ear. ‘Is this a time for marrying or giving in marriage?’ she asked, with something like indignation, when, with infinitely greater vehemence, he renewed his commands to her as the handmaid of the Lord. ‘Is not the time of His appearing near? and are we to be burdened with earthly ties and earthly troubles when the Lord comes to His ain work? Oh, man! I’m no made to be ony man’s helpmeet. There are plenty round you that are better for that; it’s my meat and my drink to serve God. I couldna think of the flesh to please my husband, but of the Spirit to please the Lord.’
‘And yet you contradict His Spirit and refuse His message,’ said Mr. John, ‘which I brought to you out of the darkness of the night—out of a mind rent and torn with pain, not lightly, or with common thoughts, but from His presence. Will you please Him by rejecting His word?’
‘But it might be a lying spirit,’ said Ailie. ‘It might be to tempt us—as if you and me had need of alliance in the flesh.’
‘We have need of alliance for the work,’ he said, with his great, heavy, passionate eyes fixed upon her. ‘Men have gone before, but never man and woman. The Lord has said to me, Go in to the prophetess. Fear not to take unto thee thy wife. If you disobey, the sin be upon your head.’
‘But it has never been revealed to me,’ cried Ailie, her cheeks crimsoning with shame, and whitening with terror. ‘When there have been messages concerning this life, they have been revealed to them that were to profit, and no to another. And in the mouth of two or three is every testimony to be established. If the word comes to me I’ll no resist the Lord.’
‘The head of the woman is her husband,’ said Mr. John, loftily, ‘it is the sign of God’s will towards you. If you are to be given to me, your instructions, your directions, must come through my hands. It is to me it is revealed, for I am the head. Listen to the Lord’s voice. Want of faith has laid one head low that should have shone above us all. Will you let it overcome you now that have triumphed in your time? Ailie, beware! The blasphemy that cannot be pardoned, and the sin that may not be forgiven, is the sin against the Holy Ghost.’
‘But I canna see it! I canna see it!’ cried poor Ailie, bursting into tears. Her dignity seemed to have deserted her, and all her spiritual gifts. She kept indoors, shut up in her room, spending her time in feverish prayers and divinations from the Bible. ‘I will do what the Lord wills,’ she said to herself and others twenty times in a day; but when any text which seemed to favour Mr. John’s cause caught her eye on opening ‘the Book,’ she would shut it again hastily, and try again, without any acknowledgment. All her partizans, and indeed the entire parish, took an interest in the question which no previous features in the movement had elicited to such an extent. The matter was discussed everywhere, involving as it did the interest of a personal romance along with the intense charm of the religious excitement, and calling forth a hundred different opinions. There were some who thought that Ailie—‘set her up!’—had won what she aimed at in making herself so conspicuous, and that her reluctance was pretence. And there were some who, without going so far, still felt that the promotion of a gentleman’s hand thus offered to her, was enough to make the prophetess forget her calling. Miss Catherine, who was of a sceptical mind, and had never given in to Ailie’s pretensions, was so much moved by her kinsman’s madness, that it almost broke down the barrier which had divided them since the time when Mr. John’s evil ways had finally closed her doors against him. She even hesitated at the church-door whether she would not pause and accost him, and see what reason could do to turn him from his fatal intention; but was deterred by the haggard look, the watery bloodshot eyes, the parched and feverish lips, which struck her like a revelation. ‘I understand it all now,’ she said, so much agitated by the supposed discovery, that she went in tremulous to the Manse, to recover herself. ‘It is not a common failing among us Diarmids of the old stock—but that accounts for everything. And as for arguing with a man in that state——’
‘You mistake,’ said the minister; ‘indeed you mistake.’
Miss Catherine shook her head. ‘Well I know thesigns of it,’ she said; ‘it is not a failing of the race, but when it comes it is all the worse for that. The unhappy lad! One would think that the words of Scripture came true, and that such a man was delivered over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.’
‘He has been wrong, no doubt; but not in that way,’ said Mr. Lothian. ‘It is grief—despair if you like; and all this excitement, and agitation, and sickness, which he will not give in to—but not what you suppose.’
Once more Miss Catherine shook her head. ‘He is but a distant cousin, thank God,’ she said to herself. But yet he was related nearly enough to throw upon the house of Lochhead a certain share of the responsibility. ‘I am glad his poor mother is safe in her grave,’ she added; ‘ye preach, and ye preach, you ministers, but ye never will persuade the young what a weary wilderness this world is, nor the old that there’s anything but tribulation and sorrow in it. Will ye marry them when all is done and said?’
This question was asked so abruptly, that Mr. Lothian was startled. ‘Marry whom?’ he asked.
‘Those I am speaking of: John Diarmid and that lass. Is it a thing you can bless, you that are an honest man, and know your duty, and have some experience in this world?’
‘My dear Miss Catherine,’ said the minister, ‘you have too much experience yourself not to know that if they’ve made up their minds it will make little difference what I do or what I think. I have no right to say they are not to marry if they please.’
‘No; I wish you had,’ said Miss Catherine, rising: ‘and I wish there was some kind of a real government, or some control, that men should not be left to make fools of themselves and put shame upon an old name whenever they please.’
‘She is not his equal,’ said Mr. Lothian, ‘but there is no shame.’
Miss Catherine marched out of the Manse gates strenuously shaking her head. ‘A lass that has preached and prayed and ranted in a public place!’ she said, with a mixture of lofty indignation and contempt, shaking out her great shawl and rustling her silk gown, so that the minister felt himself buried and lost in their shadow. And she continued to shake her head as she went majestically alone down the slope and took her way home through the village.
When the minister was left by himself at his own gate a sudden impulse seized him to interfere in this delicate matter; or perhaps not to interfere—but at least to exercise that privilege of curiosity or interest which aclergyman, like a woman, is permitted to feel. He went up the brae towards the little line of cottages where Ailie lived, with kindness in his heart to the visionary girl, notwithstanding all her recent denunciations of his lukewarmness and interference with his business. Half way up, he met Mr. John coming down in his rapid, excited, breathless way. The two men paused and came to a stop opposite to each other, without for the first moment any attempt to speak. Mr. Lothian was half alarmed when he saw the ravages which so short a time had wrought on the enthusiast’s face. He himself looked young and ruddy beside John Diarmid, who must have been at least a dozen years his junior. There were deep lines under his eyes and about his haggard mouth; his cheeks were hollow, his eyes seemed increased in size as well as in fire; and a beard, a wonder in those days, the only symptom by which he had betrayed the languor of the fever which had been consuming him, covered the lower part of his face. This beard had been visible at church that morning for the first time to the general public, and the parish had involuntarily looked with distrust upon its prophet when they saw that symptom of eccentricity on his chin. But Mr. Lothian was not so easily shocked. Nevertheless, it was Mr. John who was the first to speak.