* * * * *Half a mile down the river there is a ferry boat which at infrequent intervals pushes a flat duck's bill across Dee Water. It is wide enough to take a loaded cart of hay, and long enough to accommodate two young horses tail to tail and yet leave room for the statutory flourishing of heels.Bess MacTaggart could take it across with any load upon it you pleased, pushing easily upon an iron lever. They use a wheel now, but it was much prettier in the old days when all for a penny you could watch Bess lift the toothed lever with a sharp movement of her shapely arm, wet and dripping from the chain, as it slowly dredged itself up from the river bed.It was half-past four when, in reply to repeated hails, the boat left the Dullarg shore with a company of three men on board, and in addition the sort of person who is called a "single lady."Two of the men stood together at one end of the ferry-boat, and after Bess had bidden one of them sharply to "get out of her road," she called him "Drows" to make it up, and asked him if he were going over to the lamb sale at Nether Airds."If it's the Lord's wull!" Drows replied, with solemnity.Both he and his companion had commodious, clean-shaven "horse" faces, with an abundance of gray hair standing out in a straggling semi-circular aureole underneath the chin. Cameronian was stamped upon their faces with broad strong simplicity. The blue bonnet, already looking old-world among the universal "felts" common to most adult manhood—the deep serious eyes, as it were withdrawn under the penthouse of bushy brows, and looking upon all things (even lamb sales) as fleeting and transitory—the long upper lip and the mouth tightly compressed—these marked out John Allanson of Drows and Matthew Carment of Craigs as pillars of that Kirk which alone of all the fragments of Presbytery is senior to the Established Church of Scotland.On the other side of the boat and somewhat apart stood Dr. Hector Stuart, gazing gloomily at the black water as it rippled and clappered under the broad lip of the ferry-boat. A proud man, a Highland gentleman of old family, was the minister of Dullarg. He kept his head erect, and for any notice he had taken of the Cameronian elders, they might just as well not have been on the boat at all. And in their turn the elders of the Cameronian Kirk compressed their lips more firmly and their eyes seemed deeper set in their heads when their glances fell on this pillar of Erastianism. For nowhere is the racial antipathy of north and south so strong as in Galloway. There, and there alone, the memory of the Highland Host has never died out, and every autumn when the hills glow red with heather from horizon to horizon verge, the story is told to Galloway childhood of how Lag and Clavers wasted the heritage of the Lord, and how from Ailsa to Solway all the west of Scotland is "flowered with the blood of the Martyrs."The thin nervous woman kept close to the minister's elbow."I tell you I saw her cross the water, Hector," she was saying as Dr. Stuart looked ahead, scanning keenly the low sandy shores they were nearing."The boat is gone and she has not returned. It is a thing not proper for a young lady and a minister's daughter to be so long absent from home!""My daughter has been too well brought up to do aught that is improper!" said Dr. Stuart, with grave sententious dignity. "You need not pursue the subject, Mary!"There was just enough likeness between them to stamp the pair as brother and sister. As the boat touched the edge of the sharply sloping shingle bank, the hinged gang-plank tilted itself up at a new angle. The passengers paid their pennies to Bess MacTaggart and stepped sedately on shore. The boat-house stands in a water-girt peninsula, the Ken being on one side broad and quiet, the Black Water on the other, sulky and turbulent. So that for half a mile there was but one road for this curiously assorted pair of pairs.And as they approached them the woods of Airds laughed even more mockingly, with a ripple of tossing birch plumes like a woman when she is merry in the night and dares not laugh aloud. And the beeches responded with a dryish cackle that had something of irony in it. Listen and you will hear how it was the next time a beech-tree shakes out his leaves to dry the dew off them.The two elders came to a quick turn of the road. There was a stile just beyond. A moment before a young man had overleaped it, and now he was holding up his hands encouragingly to a girl who smiled down upon him from above. It was a difficult stile. The dyke top was shaky. Two of the bottom steps; were missing altogether. All who have once been young know the kind of stile—verily, a place of infinite danger to the unwary.So at least thought Elspeth Stuart, as for a long moment she stood daintying her skirts about her ankles on the perilous copestone, and drawing her breath a little short at the sight of the steep descent into the road.The elders also stood still, and behind them the other pair came slowly up. And surely some wicked tricksome Puck laughed unseen among the beech leaves.Elspeth Stuart had taken the young man's hand now. He was lifting her down. There—it was done. And—yes, you are right—something else happened—just what would have happened to you and me, twenty, thirty, or is it forty years ago?Then with a clash and a rustle the beeches told the tale to the birches over all the wooded slopes of the hill of Airds.* * * * *"Elspeth!""Elspeth Stuart!""Maister Syme!"The names came from four pairs of horrified lips as the parties to the above mentioned transaction fell swiftly asunder, with sudden stricken horror on their faces. The first cry came shrill and keen, and was accompanied by an out-throwing of feminine hands. The second fell sternly from the mouth of one who was at once a parent and a minister of the Establishment outraged in his tenderest feelings. But indubitably the elders had it. For one thing, they were two to one, and as they said for the second time with yet deeper gravity "Maister Syme!" it appeared at once that they, and only they, were able adequately to deal with the unprecedented situation. But the others did what they could.Mistress Mary Stuart, the minister's maiden sister, flew forward with an eager cry, the "scraich" of a desperate hen when she is on the wrong side of the fence and sees the "daich" disappearing down a hundred hungry throats.She clutched her niece by the arm."Come away this moment!" she cried, "do you know who this young man is?"But Elspeth did not answer. She was looking at her father, Dr. Stuart, whose eyes were bent upon the young man. Very stern they were, the fierce sudden darkness of Celtic anger in them. But the young Cameronian minister knew that he had far worse to face than that, and met the frown of paternal severity with shame indeed mantling on his cheek and neck, but yet with a certain quiet of determination firming his heart within him."Sir," he said, "that of which you have been witness was no more than an accident—the fault of impulse and young blood. But I own I was carried away. I ask the young lady's pardon and yours. I should have spoken to you first, but now I will delay no longer. Sir, I love your daughter!"Then came for the first time a slight smile upon the pale face of his fellow-culprit. She said in her heart, "Ah, Allan, if ye had spoken first to my father, feint a kiss would ye ever have gotten from Elspeth Stuart!"But at the manful words of the young Cameronian the face of her father grew only the more stern, the two elders watching and biding their time by the roadside.They knew that it would come before long.At last after a long silence Dr. Stuart spoke."Sir," he said grimly, "I do not bandy words with a stranger upon the public highway. I myself have nothing to say to you. I forbid you ever again to speak to my daughter. Elspeth, follow me!"And with no more than this he turned and stalked away. But his daughter also had the high Highland blood in her veins. She shook off with one large motion of her arm the stringy clutch of her aunt's fingers."Heed you not, Allan," she said, speaking very clearly, so that all might hear, "when ye want her, Elspeth Stuart will come the long road and the straight road to speak a word with you."It was a bold avowal to make, and a moment before the girl had not meant to say anything of the kind. But they had taken the wrong way with her."Oh, unmaidenly—most unmaidenly!" cried her aunt, "come away—ye are mad this day, Elspeth Stuart—he has but a hunder a year of stipend, and may lose that ony day!"But Elspeth did not answer. She was holding out her hand to Allan Syme. He bent quickly and kissed it. This young man had had a mother who taught him gracious ways, not at all in keeping with the staid manners of a son of the covenants.* * * * *"And now, sir," said John Allanson of Drows, turning grimly upon his minister, who stood watching Elspeth's girlish figure disappear round the curve of the green-edged track, "what have you to say to us?"Then Allan Syme's pulses leaped quick and light, for he knew that of a surety the time of his visitation was at hand. Yet his heart did not fail within him. At the last it was glad and high. "For after all" (he smiled as he thought it), "after all—well, they cannottakethat from me.""Sir," said Matthew Carment, in a louder tone, "heard ye the quastion that your ruling elder hath pitten till ye?""John and Matthew," said the young man, gently, "ye are my elders, and I will not answer you as I did Dr. Stuart.""The priest of Midian!" said Matthew Carment."The forswearer of covenants!" said John Allanson."But I will speak with you as those who have been unto me as Aaron and Hur for the upholding of mine hands——""Say, rather," said John Allanson, sternly, "as Phineas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest who thrust through the Midianitish woman in sight of all the congregation of Israel, as they stood weeping before the door of the tabernacle!""So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel," quoted Matthew Carment, gravely, finishing his friend's sentence.Allan Syme winced. The words had been his Sunday's text."I tell you, gentlemen," he said quickly, "since God gave Eve to Adam there has not been on earth a sweeter, truer maid than this. You have heard me declare my love for her. Well, I love her more than I dare trust my tongue to utter!""And how about your love for the Covenants? And for the Faithful Remnant of the persecuted Kirk of the Martyrs?" said Drows, with a certain dreary persistence that wore on Allan Syme like prolonged toothache.Then Matthew Carment, who, though slower than the ruling elder, but was not less sure, gave in his contribution."'Like unto Eve,' said ye? A true word—verily, a most true word! For did not we with our own eyes see ye with her partake of the forbidden fruit? But there is a difference—youreyes, young man, have not yet been opened!"Allan Syme began to grow angry."I am a free agent," he said fiercely. "I am not a child under bonds. You are not my tutors and governors by any law, human or divine. Nor am I answerable to you whom I shall woo, or whom I shall wed!""Ye are answerable to God and the Kirk!" cried the two with one voice.And to this Matthew Carment again added his say. The three were now walking slowly in the direction of the lamb sale."Sir, I mind how ye well described the so-called ministers of the establishment—'locusts on the face of our land,' these were your words, 'instruments of inefficiency, the plague spot upon the nation, the very scorn of Reformation, and a scandal to Religion!' Ye said well, minister; and the spawn of Belial is like unto Belial!"Allan Syme was now angry exceedingly."God be my judge," he cried, "she whom I love is more Christian than the whole pack of you. Never has she spoken an ill word of any, ever since I have known her!""And wherefore should she?" said John Allanson of Drows, as dispassionately as a clerk reading an indictment. "Hath she not been clothed in fine linen and fared sumptuously every day? Hath she not eaten of the fine flour and the honey and the oil? Hath she not been adorned with broidered work and shod with badger skin, and, even as her sisters Aholah and Aholibah of old, hath not power been given unto her to lead even the hearts of the elect captive?"Then Allan Syme broke forth furiously."Your tongues are evil!" he said, "ye are not fit to take her name on your lips. She is to me as the mother of our Lord—yes, as Mary, the wife of Joseph, the carpenter!""And indeed I never thocht sae muckle o' that yin either," said Matthew of Craigs, "the Papishes make ower great a to-do about her for my liking!""Matthew Carment and John Allanson, I bid you hearken to me," cried the young minister."Aye, Allan Syme, we will hearken!" they answered, fronting him eye to eye."God judge between you and me," he said. "He hath said that for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife. Now, I know well that if ye like, you two can take from me my kirk and all my living. But I have spoken, and I will adhere. I have promised, and I will keep. Take this my parting message. Do your duty as it is revealed to you. I will go forth freely and willingly. Naked I came among you—naked will I go. The hearts of my people are dearer to me than life. Ye can twine them from me if you will. Ye can out me from my kirk, send me forth of my manse—cast me upon the world as a man disgraced. But, as I am a sinner answerable to God, there are two things you cannot do, ye cannot make me break my plighted word nor make me other than proud of the love I have won from God's fairest creature upon earth."And with these words he turned on his heel and strode straight uphill away from them in the direction of his distant home.The two men stood looking after him. Drows stroked his shaggy fringe of beard. Matthew Carment put his hand to his eyes and gazed under it as if he had been looking into the sunset. There was a long silence. At last the two turned and looked at each other."Weel, what think ye?" said Drows, ruling elder and natural leader in debate.There was a still longer pause, for Matthew Carment was a man slow by nature and slower by habit."He's a fine lad!" he said at last.Drows broke a twig elaborately from the hedge and chewed the ends."So I was thinkin'!" he answered."I had it in my mind at the time he was speakin'," began Matthew, and then hesitated."Aye, what was in your mind?""I was thinkin' on the days when I courted Jean!""Aye, man!"There was another long silence.It was Draws who broke it this time, and he said, "I—I was thinkin' too, Mathy! Aye, man, I was thinkin'!""Aboot Marget?" queried Matthew Carment."Na, no aboot Marget!"They were silent again. The ruling elder settled to another green sprig of hedge-thorn. It seemed palatable. He got on well with it."Man," he said at last, "do ye ken, Mathy—when he turned on us like yon, I was kind o' prood o' him. My heart burned within me. It was maybe no verra like a minister o' the Kirk. But, oh man, it was awesome human!""Then I judge we'll say nae mair aboot it!" said Matthew Carment, turning towards the farm where the lamb sale was by this time well under weigh. "Hoo mony are ye thinkin' o' biddin' for the day, Drows?"THE SUIT OF BOTTLE GREENAt the Manse of Dullarg things did not go over well. Dr. Stuart, being by nature a quick, passionate, and imperious Celt, had first of all ordered his daughter to promise never again to hold any communication with the young Cameronian minister of Cairn Edward. It was thus that he himself had been taught to understand family discipline. He was the head of the clan, as his father had been before him. He claimed to be Providence to all within his gates. His hand of correction was not withheld from his boys, Frank and Sandy, until the day they ran away from home to escape him. He could not well adopt this plan to the present case, but when Elspeth refused point blank to give any promise, her father promptly convoyed his daughter to her own room and locked her up there. She would stay where she was till she changed her mind. Her aunt would take up her meals, and he himself would undertake to inform her as to her duties and responsibilities at suitable intervals. There was not the least doubt in the mind of Dr. Stuart as to the result of such a course of treatment. Had he not willed it? That was surely enough.But his sister was not so sure, though she did not dare to say so to the Doctor more than once."She is a very headstrong girl, Murdo," she said, tremulously, as she gathered Elspeth's scanty breakfast on a tray next morning, "it might drive her to some rash act!""Nonsense," retorted her brother, sharply, "did not our father do exactly the same to you, to keep you from marrying young Campbell of Luib?"Mary Stuart's wintry-apple face twitched and flushed."Yes—yes," she fluttered, with a quaver in her voice, as if deprecating further allusion to herself, "but Elspeth is not like me, Murdo. She has more of your spirit.""Let me hear no more of the matter," said her brother, turning away, "Iwish it, and besides, I have my sermon to write."But when the maiden aunt knocked at the door and entered with Elspeth's breakfast, she was astonished to find the girl sitting by the window dressed exactly as she had been on the previous evening. Her face was very pale, but her lips were compressed and her eyes dry."Elspeth," she said uncertainly, her woman's intuition in a moment detecting that which a man might not have discovered at all, "you have not had off your clothes all night. You have never been to bed!""No, Aunt Mary!""But what will the Doctor say—think of your father——""I do not care what he will say. Let him come and compel me if he can. He can thrash me as he does Frank.""But—oh, Elspeth—Elspeth, dear," the old lady trembled so much that she just managed to lay the tray down on the untouched bed opposite the window, "what will God say?""'Like as a father pitieth his children,' isn't that what it says?" The words came out of the depths of the bitterness of that young heart, "well, if that be true, God will say nothing; for if He is like my father, He will not care!"The old lady sat down on an old rocking-chair which Elspeth liked to keep in the window to sit in and read, half because it had been her mother's, and half (for Elspeth was not usually a sentimental young woman) because it was comfortable.She put her hands to her face and sobbed into them. Then for the first time Elspeth looked at her. Hitherto she had been staring straight out at the window. So she had seen the day pass and the night come. So she had seen and not seen, heard and not heard the shadow of night sweep across the broad river, the stars come out, the cue owls mew as they flashed past silent as insects on the wing, and last of all, the rooks clamour upwards from the tall trees at break of day.Now, however, she watched her aunt weeping with that curious sense of detachment which comes to the young along with a first great sorrow."Why shouldsheweep?" Elspeth was asking herself, "she had nothing to cry for. There can be no sorrow in the world like my sorrow and shame—andhis, that is, if he really cares. Perhaps he does not care. They say in books that men often pretend. But no—he at least never could do that. He is too true, too simple, too direct—and he loves me!"So she watched her aunt rock to and fro and sob without any pity in her heart, but only with a growing wonderment—much as a condemned man might look at a companion who was complaining of toothache. The long vigil of the night had made the girl's heart numb and dead within her. At twenty sorrow and joy alike arrive in superlatives.Then quite suddenly a spasm of pity of a curious sort came to Elspeth Stuart. After all, it was worth while to love.Hewas suffering too. Aunt Mary had no one to love her—to suffer with her. Poor Aunt Mary! So she went quickly across and laid her hand on the thin shoulder. It felt angular even through the dress. The sobs shook it."Do not cry, auntie," she said, softly and kindly. "I am sorry I vexed you. I did not know."The old lady looked up at her niece. Elspeth started at the sight of a tear stealing down a wrinkle. Tears on young faces are in place. They can be kissed away, but this seemed wrong somehow.She patted the thin cheek which had already begun to take on the dry satiny feel of age, which is so different from the roseleaf bloom of youth."Then you will obey your father?"The words came tremulously. The pale lips "wickered." The tear had trickled thus far now, but Aunt Mary did not know it. It is only youth that tastes its own tears. And generally rather likes the flavour.Elspeth did not stop petting her aunt. She stroked the soft hair, thinning now and silvering. Then she smiled a little."No," she said, "I willnotobey my father, Aunt Mary. I am no child to be put in the corner. I am a woman, and know what I want."Yet it was only during the past night watches that she had known it for certain. But yesterday her desire to see Allan Syme had been no more than a little ache deep down in her heart. Now it had become all her life. So fertile a soil wherein to grow love is injudicious opposition."But at any rate you will take your breakfast?""To please you I will try, aunt!"Aunt Mary plucked up heart at once. This was better. She had made a beginning. The rest would follow.When she went downstairs her brother came out of his study to get the key of his daughter's room. She told him how that Elspeth had never gone to bed, and had barely picked at her breakfast.Dr. Stuart made no remark. He turned and went into his study again to work at his sermon. He too thought that all went well. He held that belief which causes so much misery in the world, that woman's will must always bend before man's.So it does—provided the man is the right man.* * * * *On the third day of her confinement Elspeth Stuart wrote a letter. It began without ceremony, and ended without signature:"You told me that you loved me. Tell it me again—on paper. I am very unhappy. My father keeps me locked up to make me promise never to speak to you or write to you. I do not mind this, except that I cannot go to Lowe's Seat. But I must be assured that you continue to love me. I know you do, but all the same I want to be told it. If you address, 'Care of the Widow Barr, at the Village of Crosspatrick,' Frank will bring it safely."It was a simple epistle, without lofty aspirations or wise words. But it was a loving letter, and admirably adapted to prove satisfactory to its recipient. And had Allan Syme known what was on its way to him he would have lifted up his heart. He was completing his pastoral visitation, and with a sort of fixed despair awaiting the next meeting of Session. For neither his ruling elder nor yet that slow-spoken veteran, Matthew Carment, had passed a word more to him concerning the vision they had seen upon the fringes of the Airds woods, on the day that had proved such a day of doom to his sweetheart and himself.* * * * *Frank Stuart, keenly sympathetic with Elspeth's sufferings though notably contemptuous of their cause, willingly performed what was required of him. Being as yet untouched by love, he thought Elspeth extremely silly. He had no interest ministers. If Elspeth had fallen in love with a soldier now—he meant to be a sailor himself, but a soldier was at least somebody in the scheme of things. Of course, his father was a minister—but then people must have fathers. This was different. However, it was not his business: girls were all silly.And on this broad principle Master Frank took his stand. With equal breadth of view he conveyed the letter to the "Weedow's" at Crosspatrick, en route for the Cameronian manse at Cairn Edward.But before he set out, he must have his grumble. He was beneath the window of his sister's room at the time. His father had been under observation all the morning, and was now safely off on his visitations. By arrangement with Aunt Mary, Elspeth was allowed the run of the whole upper story of the Dullarg Manse during Dr. Stuart's daily absences. So, on parole, she came to this little window in the gable end, where Frank and she could commune without fear of foreign observation."What for could ye no have promised my father onything—and then no done it!"The suggestion betrayed Master Frank's own plan of campaign, and renders more excusable the Doctor's frequent appeal to the argument of the hazel.* * * * *After this there ensued for Elspeth a long and weary time. Every day Frank, detaching himself from the untrustworthy Sandy, slid off down the waterside to Crosspatrick. Every day he returned empty-handed and contemptuous.This it was to love a minister, and one who was not even a "regular." Why had not Elspeth, if she must fall in love, chosen a sailor?In those days there was no regular postal delivery on the remoter country districts. The mails came in an amateurish sort of way by coach to Cairn Edward, and thereafter distributed themselves, as it were, automatically. When the postage was paid, the authorities had no more care in the matter. Yet there was a kind of system in the thing, too.It was understood that any one being in Cairn Edward on business should "give a look in" at the Post Office, and if there were any letters for his neighbourhood, and he happened to have in his pocket the necessary spare "siller" at the moment, he would pay the postage and bring them to the "Weedow Barr's" shop in the village of Crosspatrick.It may be observed that there were elements of uncertainty inseparable from such an arrangement. And these told hard on our poor prisoner of fate during these great endless midsummer days. She pined and grew pale, like a woodland bird shut suddenly in a close cage at that season when mate begins to call to mate through all the copses of birch and alder."He does not love me—oh, he cannot love me!" she moaned. But again, as she thought of the stile on the way to Lowe's Seat—"But he does love me!" she said.Then, sudden as a falling star, Fear fell on that green summer world. There came a weird sough through all the valley, a crying of folk to each other across level holms, shrill answerings of herd to herd on the utmost hills. The scourge of God had come again! The Cholera—the Cholera! Dread word, which we in these times have almost forgot the thrill of in our flesh. Mysteriously and inevitably the curse swept on. It was at Leith at Glasgow—at Dumfries—at Cairn Edward. It was coming! coming! coming! Nearer, nearer ever nearer!And men at the long scythe, sweeping the lush meadow hay aside with that most prideful of all rustic gestures, fell suddenly chill and shuddered to their marrows. The sweat of endeavour dried on them, and left them chill, as if the night wind had stricken them. Women with child swarfed with fear at their own door cheeks, and there was a crying within long ere the posset-cup could be made ready. Neighbour looked with sudden suspicion at neighbour, and men at friendly talk upon the leas manoeuvred to get to windward of each other.Death was coming—had come! And in his study, grim and unmoved, Dr. Murdo Stuart sat preparing his Sabbath's sermon on the text, "Therefore ... because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!"But in the shut chamber above Elspeth waited and watched, the hope that is deferred making her young heart sicker and ever sicker. Still she had not heard. No answering word had reached her, and it was now the second week. He did not love her—he could not.But still!They had told her nothing, and, indeed, during that first time of fear and uncertainty, they knew nothing for certain, away up by themselves in the wide wild moor parish of Dullarg. There were no market days in Cairn Edward any more. So much the farmers knew. The men of the landward parishes set guards with loaded guns upon every outgoing road. There was no local authority in those days, and men in such cases had to look to themselves. The infected place, be it city, town, or village, farm-steading or cottage, was completely and bitterly isolated. None might come out or go in. Provisions, indeed, were left in a convenient spot; but secretly and by night. And the bearer shot away again, bent half to the ground with eagerness, fear, and speed, a cloth to his mouth, for the very wind that passed over him was Death. It was not so much a disease as a certain Fate. Whoso was smitten was taken. In fact, to all that rustic world it was the Visitation of Very God.In the main street of Cairn Edward grass grew; yet the place was not unpopulous. With the revival of trade and industry during the later years of the great war a cotton mill had been erected in a side street. The houses of the work folk were strung out from it. Then parallel with this there was a more ancient main street of low beetle-browed houses, many of them entering by a step down off the uneven causeway. At the upper end, near the Cross, were some better-class houses, some of them of two stories, a change-house or two, and down on the damp marshy land towards the loch, the cluster of huts which had formed the original nucleus of the village—now fallen into disrepute and disrepair, and nominated, from the nationality of many of its inhabitants, "Little Dublin."In ten days a third of the inhabitants of this suburb had died. There was but one minister within the strait bounds of the straggling village. The parish church and manse lay two miles away out on a braeface overlooking yellowing widths of corn-land. And the minister thereof abode in his breaches, every day giving God thank that he was not shut up within those distant white streets, from which, day by day, the housewifely reek rose in fewer and fewer columns.But Allan Syme was within, and could not pause to marry or to give in marriage, to preach or to pray, so full of his Master's business was he. For he must nurse and succour by day and bury by night, week day and Holy Day. He it was who upheld the dying head. He swathed the corpse while it was yet warm. He tolled the death-bell in the steeple. He harnessed the horse to the rude farm-cart. Sometimes all alone he dug the grave in the soft marshy flow, and laid the dead in the brown peat-mould. For it was no time to stand upon trifles this second time that the Scourge of God had come to Cairn Edward.To the outer limit of the cordon of watchers came the carriers and the farmers, the country lairds' servants, and less frequently the bien well-stomached meal millers. In silence they deposited their goods, for the most part with no niggard hand. In silence they took the fumigated pound notes, smelling of sulphur, or the silver coin of the realm, with the crumbles of quick-lime still sticking to the milling of the edges.So across a kind of neutral zone, fearful country and infected town stood glowering at each other like embattled enemies, musket laid ready in the crook of elbow.And when one mad with the Fear tried to cross, he was hunted like a wild beast, or shot at like a rabbit running for its burrow. And the townsmen did in like manner. For ill as it might fare with them, there was deadlier yet to fear. In Cairn Edward they had the White Cholera, as it was called. The Black was at Dumfries—so, at least, the tale ran.And as he went about his work, Allan Syme called upon his God, and thought of Elspeth. But her letter never reached him, and he knew nothing of her vigils. The day before he might have known the Fear fell, and the door was shut.* * * * *It was on Saturday afternoon that the tidings came to Elspeth Stuart, lonely watcher and loving heart. It was her brother Sandy who brought them. He knew nothing of Elspeth's matters, being young and by nature unworthy of trust. He had been down to Crosspatrick on some errand, and now, having arrived back within hailing distance, he was retailing his experiences to his brother Frank."I got yon letter back frae the Weedow—an', as I wasna gangin' hame, I gied it to my faither.""What letter?"Elspeth could hear the sudden angry alarm in Frank's voice; but she herself had no premonition of danger."The letter ye took doon to Crosspatrick for Elspeth ten days syne. Ye'll catch it, my man!"The girl's heart sank, and then leapt again within her.Her father had her letter—he would read it. It was plainly addressed in her handwriting to Allan Syme. What should she do?But wait—there was something else. With a quick back-spang came the countering joy."But then he has never got my letter. He knows nothing of my unhappiness. He has not forgotten me. He loves me still. What care I for aught else but that?"There came up from the courtyard a sound of blows, and then Sandy's wail."I'll tell my faither on ye, that I will. How was I to ken aboot Elspeth's letter? And they say the minister-man it was wrote to is dead, at ony rate!"Elspeth heard unbelievingly. Dead—Allan dead! And she not know. Absurd! It was only one of Sandy's lies to irritate his brother because he had been thrashed. She knew Sandy. Nevertheless she threw up the window. Sandy was again at his parable."They buried twenty-five yesterday in the moss. The minister was there wi' the last coffin, and fell senseless across it. He never spoke again. He is to be buried the morn if they can get the coffin made!"Then, so soon as she was convinced that Sandy was not inventing, and that he had only repeated the gossip of the village, a kind of cold calmness took hold of Elspeth. She called Frank in to her, and when he came, lo! his face was far whiter than hers.She made him tell her all they had kept from her—of the dread plague that had fallen so sudden and swift upon the townlet to which Allan had carried her heart. Then she thought awhile fiercely, not wavering in her purpose, but only trying this way and that, like one who thrusts with his staff for the safest passage over a dangerous bog. Frank watched her keenly, but could make nothing of her intent. At last she spoke:"Go and get me the key of your box.""What do ye want with the key of my box?" queried her brother, astonished."Never heed that," said Elspeth, clipping her words imperiously, as, in seasons of stress, she had a way of doing; "do as I bid you!"And being accustomed to such obediences, and albeit sorry for her, Frank went out, only remarking ominously that he would have a job, for that Aunt Mary carried it on her bunch.He came back in exactly ten minutes, and threw the key on the floor."Easier than I expected," he said, triumphantly; "the old buzzer was asleep!""Give me the key," said Elspeth, still in a brown study by the window.But this was too much for Frank."Pick it up for yourself, Els," he said, "and mind you are to swear you found it on the floor!"Frank knew very well that if one is going to lie back and forth (as he intended to do when questioned), it is well to be prepared with occasional little scraps of truth. They cheer one up so.Elspeth took the key, and hid it in her pocket."Now you can go," she said, and sat down on the bed, staring out at the broad river quietly slipping by."Well, you might at least have said 'thank you——'" began Frank. But catching the expression of her face, he suddenly desisted, and went out without another word.* * * * *No, Allan Syme was not dead. But he staggered home that night certainly more dead than alive. All day long he had moved in an atmosphere of the most appalling pestilence. The reek of mortality seemed to solidify in his nostrils, and his heart for the first time fainted within him.He knew that there would be no welcome for him in the dark and lonely manse; no meal, no comfort, no living voice; not so much as a dog to lick his hand. His housekeeper, a mere hireling, had fled at the first alarm.It was dusk as he thrust the key into the latch, as he did so staggering against the lintel from sheer weariness. He stood a little while in the passage, shuddering with the oncomings of mortal sickness. Then with flint, steel, and laborious tinder box he coaxed a light for the solitary taper on the hall table. This done, he turned aside into the little sitting-room on the right hand, where he kept his divinity books.A slight figure came forward to meet him, with upturned face and clasped petitionary hands. The action was a girl's, but the dress and figure were those of a boy. Upon the threshold the minister stopped dead. He thought that this was the first symptom of delirium—he had seen it in so many, and had watched for it in himself.But the lad still came forward, and laid a hand on his arm. He wore a suit of bottle green with silver buttons, a world too wide for his slim form. Knee breeches and buckled shoes completed his attire. Allan Syme stared wide-eyed, uncomprehending, his hand pressed to his aching brow in the effort to see truly."You are not dead. Thank God!" said the boy, in a voice that took him by the throat."Who—who are you?" The words came dry and gasping from the minister's parched lips."I am Elspeth—do you not know me?""Elspeth—Elspeth—why did you come here—and thus?""They told me you were dead—and my father locked me up! And—what chance had a girl to pass the guards? They fired at me—see!"And lifting a wet curl from her brow, she showed a wound."Elspeth—Elspeth—what is all this? What have they done to you?""Nothing—nothing—it is but a scratch. The man almost missed me altogether.""Beloved, what have you done with your hair?""I cut it off, that I might the better deceive them!""Elspeth—you must go back! This is no place for you!""I will not go back home. I will die first!""But, Elspeth, think if any one saw you—what would they say?""That I came to help you—to nurse you! I do not care what they would say.""My dear—my dear, you cannot bide here. I would to God you could; but you cannot. I must think how to get you away. I must think—I must think!"The minister, sick unto death, stood with his hand still pressed to his brow. At sight of him, and because, after all she had gone through for him, he had given her neither welcome nor kiss, a swift spasm of anger flashed up into Elspeth's eyes."You are ashamed of me, Allan Syme—let me go. I will never see you more. You do not love me! I will not trouble you. Open the door!""God knows I love you better than my soul!" said Allan; "but let me think. Father in heaven—I cannot think! My brain runs round."He gave a slight lurch like a felled ox, and swayed forward.Instantly, as a lamp that the wind blows out, all the anger went out of Elspeth Stuart's eyes. She caught Allan in her strong young arms and laid him on the worn couch, displacing with a sweep of her hand a whole score of volumes as she laid him down.He lay a moment stiff and still. Then a spasm of pain contorted his features. He opened his eyes, and looked into his sweetheart's eyes. Then, with the swift astonishing clearness of the mortally stricken, he saw what must be done."Allan, Allan, what is the matter—what shall I do for you?" she mourned over him."Do this," answered the minister. "Take the cloak out of that cupboard there. I have never worn it. Go straight to John Allanson. He is my Ruling Elder. He bides at his daughter's house close by the cotton mill. Tell him all, and bid him come to me.""The dreadful man who was so angry—that day at Lowe's Seat!" she objected, not fearing for herself, but for him."He is not a dreadful man. Do as I bid you, childie; I am sick, but I judge not unto death!""But you may die before I return!""Do as I bid you, Elspeth," said the minister, waving her away; "not a hundred choleras can deprive me of one minute God has appointed mine!"She bent over quickly, and kissed him on lips and brow."There—and there! Now if you die, I will die too. Remember that! And I do not care now. I will go!"Saying this, she rushed from the room.
* * * * *
Half a mile down the river there is a ferry boat which at infrequent intervals pushes a flat duck's bill across Dee Water. It is wide enough to take a loaded cart of hay, and long enough to accommodate two young horses tail to tail and yet leave room for the statutory flourishing of heels.
Bess MacTaggart could take it across with any load upon it you pleased, pushing easily upon an iron lever. They use a wheel now, but it was much prettier in the old days when all for a penny you could watch Bess lift the toothed lever with a sharp movement of her shapely arm, wet and dripping from the chain, as it slowly dredged itself up from the river bed.
It was half-past four when, in reply to repeated hails, the boat left the Dullarg shore with a company of three men on board, and in addition the sort of person who is called a "single lady."
Two of the men stood together at one end of the ferry-boat, and after Bess had bidden one of them sharply to "get out of her road," she called him "Drows" to make it up, and asked him if he were going over to the lamb sale at Nether Airds.
"If it's the Lord's wull!" Drows replied, with solemnity.
Both he and his companion had commodious, clean-shaven "horse" faces, with an abundance of gray hair standing out in a straggling semi-circular aureole underneath the chin. Cameronian was stamped upon their faces with broad strong simplicity. The blue bonnet, already looking old-world among the universal "felts" common to most adult manhood—the deep serious eyes, as it were withdrawn under the penthouse of bushy brows, and looking upon all things (even lamb sales) as fleeting and transitory—the long upper lip and the mouth tightly compressed—these marked out John Allanson of Drows and Matthew Carment of Craigs as pillars of that Kirk which alone of all the fragments of Presbytery is senior to the Established Church of Scotland.
On the other side of the boat and somewhat apart stood Dr. Hector Stuart, gazing gloomily at the black water as it rippled and clappered under the broad lip of the ferry-boat. A proud man, a Highland gentleman of old family, was the minister of Dullarg. He kept his head erect, and for any notice he had taken of the Cameronian elders, they might just as well not have been on the boat at all. And in their turn the elders of the Cameronian Kirk compressed their lips more firmly and their eyes seemed deeper set in their heads when their glances fell on this pillar of Erastianism. For nowhere is the racial antipathy of north and south so strong as in Galloway. There, and there alone, the memory of the Highland Host has never died out, and every autumn when the hills glow red with heather from horizon to horizon verge, the story is told to Galloway childhood of how Lag and Clavers wasted the heritage of the Lord, and how from Ailsa to Solway all the west of Scotland is "flowered with the blood of the Martyrs."
The thin nervous woman kept close to the minister's elbow.
"I tell you I saw her cross the water, Hector," she was saying as Dr. Stuart looked ahead, scanning keenly the low sandy shores they were nearing.
"The boat is gone and she has not returned. It is a thing not proper for a young lady and a minister's daughter to be so long absent from home!"
"My daughter has been too well brought up to do aught that is improper!" said Dr. Stuart, with grave sententious dignity. "You need not pursue the subject, Mary!"
There was just enough likeness between them to stamp the pair as brother and sister. As the boat touched the edge of the sharply sloping shingle bank, the hinged gang-plank tilted itself up at a new angle. The passengers paid their pennies to Bess MacTaggart and stepped sedately on shore. The boat-house stands in a water-girt peninsula, the Ken being on one side broad and quiet, the Black Water on the other, sulky and turbulent. So that for half a mile there was but one road for this curiously assorted pair of pairs.
And as they approached them the woods of Airds laughed even more mockingly, with a ripple of tossing birch plumes like a woman when she is merry in the night and dares not laugh aloud. And the beeches responded with a dryish cackle that had something of irony in it. Listen and you will hear how it was the next time a beech-tree shakes out his leaves to dry the dew off them.
The two elders came to a quick turn of the road. There was a stile just beyond. A moment before a young man had overleaped it, and now he was holding up his hands encouragingly to a girl who smiled down upon him from above. It was a difficult stile. The dyke top was shaky. Two of the bottom steps; were missing altogether. All who have once been young know the kind of stile—verily, a place of infinite danger to the unwary.
So at least thought Elspeth Stuart, as for a long moment she stood daintying her skirts about her ankles on the perilous copestone, and drawing her breath a little short at the sight of the steep descent into the road.
The elders also stood still, and behind them the other pair came slowly up. And surely some wicked tricksome Puck laughed unseen among the beech leaves.
Elspeth Stuart had taken the young man's hand now. He was lifting her down. There—it was done. And—yes, you are right—something else happened—just what would have happened to you and me, twenty, thirty, or is it forty years ago?
Then with a clash and a rustle the beeches told the tale to the birches over all the wooded slopes of the hill of Airds.
* * * * *
"Elspeth!"
"Elspeth Stuart!"
"Maister Syme!"
The names came from four pairs of horrified lips as the parties to the above mentioned transaction fell swiftly asunder, with sudden stricken horror on their faces. The first cry came shrill and keen, and was accompanied by an out-throwing of feminine hands. The second fell sternly from the mouth of one who was at once a parent and a minister of the Establishment outraged in his tenderest feelings. But indubitably the elders had it. For one thing, they were two to one, and as they said for the second time with yet deeper gravity "Maister Syme!" it appeared at once that they, and only they, were able adequately to deal with the unprecedented situation. But the others did what they could.
Mistress Mary Stuart, the minister's maiden sister, flew forward with an eager cry, the "scraich" of a desperate hen when she is on the wrong side of the fence and sees the "daich" disappearing down a hundred hungry throats.
She clutched her niece by the arm.
"Come away this moment!" she cried, "do you know who this young man is?"
But Elspeth did not answer. She was looking at her father, Dr. Stuart, whose eyes were bent upon the young man. Very stern they were, the fierce sudden darkness of Celtic anger in them. But the young Cameronian minister knew that he had far worse to face than that, and met the frown of paternal severity with shame indeed mantling on his cheek and neck, but yet with a certain quiet of determination firming his heart within him.
"Sir," he said, "that of which you have been witness was no more than an accident—the fault of impulse and young blood. But I own I was carried away. I ask the young lady's pardon and yours. I should have spoken to you first, but now I will delay no longer. Sir, I love your daughter!"
Then came for the first time a slight smile upon the pale face of his fellow-culprit. She said in her heart, "Ah, Allan, if ye had spoken first to my father, feint a kiss would ye ever have gotten from Elspeth Stuart!"
But at the manful words of the young Cameronian the face of her father grew only the more stern, the two elders watching and biding their time by the roadside.
They knew that it would come before long.
At last after a long silence Dr. Stuart spoke.
"Sir," he said grimly, "I do not bandy words with a stranger upon the public highway. I myself have nothing to say to you. I forbid you ever again to speak to my daughter. Elspeth, follow me!"
And with no more than this he turned and stalked away. But his daughter also had the high Highland blood in her veins. She shook off with one large motion of her arm the stringy clutch of her aunt's fingers.
"Heed you not, Allan," she said, speaking very clearly, so that all might hear, "when ye want her, Elspeth Stuart will come the long road and the straight road to speak a word with you."
It was a bold avowal to make, and a moment before the girl had not meant to say anything of the kind. But they had taken the wrong way with her.
"Oh, unmaidenly—most unmaidenly!" cried her aunt, "come away—ye are mad this day, Elspeth Stuart—he has but a hunder a year of stipend, and may lose that ony day!"
But Elspeth did not answer. She was holding out her hand to Allan Syme. He bent quickly and kissed it. This young man had had a mother who taught him gracious ways, not at all in keeping with the staid manners of a son of the covenants.
* * * * *
"And now, sir," said John Allanson of Drows, turning grimly upon his minister, who stood watching Elspeth's girlish figure disappear round the curve of the green-edged track, "what have you to say to us?"
Then Allan Syme's pulses leaped quick and light, for he knew that of a surety the time of his visitation was at hand. Yet his heart did not fail within him. At the last it was glad and high. "For after all" (he smiled as he thought it), "after all—well, they cannottakethat from me."
"Sir," said Matthew Carment, in a louder tone, "heard ye the quastion that your ruling elder hath pitten till ye?"
"John and Matthew," said the young man, gently, "ye are my elders, and I will not answer you as I did Dr. Stuart."
"The priest of Midian!" said Matthew Carment.
"The forswearer of covenants!" said John Allanson.
"But I will speak with you as those who have been unto me as Aaron and Hur for the upholding of mine hands——"
"Say, rather," said John Allanson, sternly, "as Phineas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest who thrust through the Midianitish woman in sight of all the congregation of Israel, as they stood weeping before the door of the tabernacle!"
"So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel," quoted Matthew Carment, gravely, finishing his friend's sentence.
Allan Syme winced. The words had been his Sunday's text.
"I tell you, gentlemen," he said quickly, "since God gave Eve to Adam there has not been on earth a sweeter, truer maid than this. You have heard me declare my love for her. Well, I love her more than I dare trust my tongue to utter!"
"And how about your love for the Covenants? And for the Faithful Remnant of the persecuted Kirk of the Martyrs?" said Drows, with a certain dreary persistence that wore on Allan Syme like prolonged toothache.
Then Matthew Carment, who, though slower than the ruling elder, but was not less sure, gave in his contribution.
"'Like unto Eve,' said ye? A true word—verily, a most true word! For did not we with our own eyes see ye with her partake of the forbidden fruit? But there is a difference—youreyes, young man, have not yet been opened!"
Allan Syme began to grow angry.
"I am a free agent," he said fiercely. "I am not a child under bonds. You are not my tutors and governors by any law, human or divine. Nor am I answerable to you whom I shall woo, or whom I shall wed!"
"Ye are answerable to God and the Kirk!" cried the two with one voice.
And to this Matthew Carment again added his say. The three were now walking slowly in the direction of the lamb sale.
"Sir, I mind how ye well described the so-called ministers of the establishment—'locusts on the face of our land,' these were your words, 'instruments of inefficiency, the plague spot upon the nation, the very scorn of Reformation, and a scandal to Religion!' Ye said well, minister; and the spawn of Belial is like unto Belial!"
Allan Syme was now angry exceedingly.
"God be my judge," he cried, "she whom I love is more Christian than the whole pack of you. Never has she spoken an ill word of any, ever since I have known her!"
"And wherefore should she?" said John Allanson of Drows, as dispassionately as a clerk reading an indictment. "Hath she not been clothed in fine linen and fared sumptuously every day? Hath she not eaten of the fine flour and the honey and the oil? Hath she not been adorned with broidered work and shod with badger skin, and, even as her sisters Aholah and Aholibah of old, hath not power been given unto her to lead even the hearts of the elect captive?"
Then Allan Syme broke forth furiously.
"Your tongues are evil!" he said, "ye are not fit to take her name on your lips. She is to me as the mother of our Lord—yes, as Mary, the wife of Joseph, the carpenter!"
"And indeed I never thocht sae muckle o' that yin either," said Matthew of Craigs, "the Papishes make ower great a to-do about her for my liking!"
"Matthew Carment and John Allanson, I bid you hearken to me," cried the young minister.
"Aye, Allan Syme, we will hearken!" they answered, fronting him eye to eye.
"God judge between you and me," he said. "He hath said that for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife. Now, I know well that if ye like, you two can take from me my kirk and all my living. But I have spoken, and I will adhere. I have promised, and I will keep. Take this my parting message. Do your duty as it is revealed to you. I will go forth freely and willingly. Naked I came among you—naked will I go. The hearts of my people are dearer to me than life. Ye can twine them from me if you will. Ye can out me from my kirk, send me forth of my manse—cast me upon the world as a man disgraced. But, as I am a sinner answerable to God, there are two things you cannot do, ye cannot make me break my plighted word nor make me other than proud of the love I have won from God's fairest creature upon earth."
And with these words he turned on his heel and strode straight uphill away from them in the direction of his distant home.
The two men stood looking after him. Drows stroked his shaggy fringe of beard. Matthew Carment put his hand to his eyes and gazed under it as if he had been looking into the sunset. There was a long silence. At last the two turned and looked at each other.
"Weel, what think ye?" said Drows, ruling elder and natural leader in debate.
There was a still longer pause, for Matthew Carment was a man slow by nature and slower by habit.
"He's a fine lad!" he said at last.
Drows broke a twig elaborately from the hedge and chewed the ends.
"So I was thinkin'!" he answered.
"I had it in my mind at the time he was speakin'," began Matthew, and then hesitated.
"Aye, what was in your mind?"
"I was thinkin' on the days when I courted Jean!"
"Aye, man!"
There was another long silence.
It was Draws who broke it this time, and he said, "I—I was thinkin' too, Mathy! Aye, man, I was thinkin'!"
"Aboot Marget?" queried Matthew Carment.
"Na, no aboot Marget!"
They were silent again. The ruling elder settled to another green sprig of hedge-thorn. It seemed palatable. He got on well with it.
"Man," he said at last, "do ye ken, Mathy—when he turned on us like yon, I was kind o' prood o' him. My heart burned within me. It was maybe no verra like a minister o' the Kirk. But, oh man, it was awesome human!"
"Then I judge we'll say nae mair aboot it!" said Matthew Carment, turning towards the farm where the lamb sale was by this time well under weigh. "Hoo mony are ye thinkin' o' biddin' for the day, Drows?"
THE SUIT OF BOTTLE GREEN
At the Manse of Dullarg things did not go over well. Dr. Stuart, being by nature a quick, passionate, and imperious Celt, had first of all ordered his daughter to promise never again to hold any communication with the young Cameronian minister of Cairn Edward. It was thus that he himself had been taught to understand family discipline. He was the head of the clan, as his father had been before him. He claimed to be Providence to all within his gates. His hand of correction was not withheld from his boys, Frank and Sandy, until the day they ran away from home to escape him. He could not well adopt this plan to the present case, but when Elspeth refused point blank to give any promise, her father promptly convoyed his daughter to her own room and locked her up there. She would stay where she was till she changed her mind. Her aunt would take up her meals, and he himself would undertake to inform her as to her duties and responsibilities at suitable intervals. There was not the least doubt in the mind of Dr. Stuart as to the result of such a course of treatment. Had he not willed it? That was surely enough.
But his sister was not so sure, though she did not dare to say so to the Doctor more than once.
"She is a very headstrong girl, Murdo," she said, tremulously, as she gathered Elspeth's scanty breakfast on a tray next morning, "it might drive her to some rash act!"
"Nonsense," retorted her brother, sharply, "did not our father do exactly the same to you, to keep you from marrying young Campbell of Luib?"
Mary Stuart's wintry-apple face twitched and flushed.
"Yes—yes," she fluttered, with a quaver in her voice, as if deprecating further allusion to herself, "but Elspeth is not like me, Murdo. She has more of your spirit."
"Let me hear no more of the matter," said her brother, turning away, "Iwish it, and besides, I have my sermon to write."
But when the maiden aunt knocked at the door and entered with Elspeth's breakfast, she was astonished to find the girl sitting by the window dressed exactly as she had been on the previous evening. Her face was very pale, but her lips were compressed and her eyes dry.
"Elspeth," she said uncertainly, her woman's intuition in a moment detecting that which a man might not have discovered at all, "you have not had off your clothes all night. You have never been to bed!"
"No, Aunt Mary!"
"But what will the Doctor say—think of your father——"
"I do not care what he will say. Let him come and compel me if he can. He can thrash me as he does Frank."
"But—oh, Elspeth—Elspeth, dear," the old lady trembled so much that she just managed to lay the tray down on the untouched bed opposite the window, "what will God say?"
"'Like as a father pitieth his children,' isn't that what it says?" The words came out of the depths of the bitterness of that young heart, "well, if that be true, God will say nothing; for if He is like my father, He will not care!"
The old lady sat down on an old rocking-chair which Elspeth liked to keep in the window to sit in and read, half because it had been her mother's, and half (for Elspeth was not usually a sentimental young woman) because it was comfortable.
She put her hands to her face and sobbed into them. Then for the first time Elspeth looked at her. Hitherto she had been staring straight out at the window. So she had seen the day pass and the night come. So she had seen and not seen, heard and not heard the shadow of night sweep across the broad river, the stars come out, the cue owls mew as they flashed past silent as insects on the wing, and last of all, the rooks clamour upwards from the tall trees at break of day.
Now, however, she watched her aunt weeping with that curious sense of detachment which comes to the young along with a first great sorrow.
"Why shouldsheweep?" Elspeth was asking herself, "she had nothing to cry for. There can be no sorrow in the world like my sorrow and shame—andhis, that is, if he really cares. Perhaps he does not care. They say in books that men often pretend. But no—he at least never could do that. He is too true, too simple, too direct—and he loves me!"
So she watched her aunt rock to and fro and sob without any pity in her heart, but only with a growing wonderment—much as a condemned man might look at a companion who was complaining of toothache. The long vigil of the night had made the girl's heart numb and dead within her. At twenty sorrow and joy alike arrive in superlatives.
Then quite suddenly a spasm of pity of a curious sort came to Elspeth Stuart. After all, it was worth while to love.Hewas suffering too. Aunt Mary had no one to love her—to suffer with her. Poor Aunt Mary! So she went quickly across and laid her hand on the thin shoulder. It felt angular even through the dress. The sobs shook it.
"Do not cry, auntie," she said, softly and kindly. "I am sorry I vexed you. I did not know."
The old lady looked up at her niece. Elspeth started at the sight of a tear stealing down a wrinkle. Tears on young faces are in place. They can be kissed away, but this seemed wrong somehow.
She patted the thin cheek which had already begun to take on the dry satiny feel of age, which is so different from the roseleaf bloom of youth.
"Then you will obey your father?"
The words came tremulously. The pale lips "wickered." The tear had trickled thus far now, but Aunt Mary did not know it. It is only youth that tastes its own tears. And generally rather likes the flavour.
Elspeth did not stop petting her aunt. She stroked the soft hair, thinning now and silvering. Then she smiled a little.
"No," she said, "I willnotobey my father, Aunt Mary. I am no child to be put in the corner. I am a woman, and know what I want."
Yet it was only during the past night watches that she had known it for certain. But yesterday her desire to see Allan Syme had been no more than a little ache deep down in her heart. Now it had become all her life. So fertile a soil wherein to grow love is injudicious opposition.
"But at any rate you will take your breakfast?"
"To please you I will try, aunt!"
Aunt Mary plucked up heart at once. This was better. She had made a beginning. The rest would follow.
When she went downstairs her brother came out of his study to get the key of his daughter's room. She told him how that Elspeth had never gone to bed, and had barely picked at her breakfast.
Dr. Stuart made no remark. He turned and went into his study again to work at his sermon. He too thought that all went well. He held that belief which causes so much misery in the world, that woman's will must always bend before man's.
So it does—provided the man is the right man.
* * * * *
On the third day of her confinement Elspeth Stuart wrote a letter. It began without ceremony, and ended without signature:
"You told me that you loved me. Tell it me again—on paper. I am very unhappy. My father keeps me locked up to make me promise never to speak to you or write to you. I do not mind this, except that I cannot go to Lowe's Seat. But I must be assured that you continue to love me. I know you do, but all the same I want to be told it. If you address, 'Care of the Widow Barr, at the Village of Crosspatrick,' Frank will bring it safely."
It was a simple epistle, without lofty aspirations or wise words. But it was a loving letter, and admirably adapted to prove satisfactory to its recipient. And had Allan Syme known what was on its way to him he would have lifted up his heart. He was completing his pastoral visitation, and with a sort of fixed despair awaiting the next meeting of Session. For neither his ruling elder nor yet that slow-spoken veteran, Matthew Carment, had passed a word more to him concerning the vision they had seen upon the fringes of the Airds woods, on the day that had proved such a day of doom to his sweetheart and himself.
* * * * *
Frank Stuart, keenly sympathetic with Elspeth's sufferings though notably contemptuous of their cause, willingly performed what was required of him. Being as yet untouched by love, he thought Elspeth extremely silly. He had no interest ministers. If Elspeth had fallen in love with a soldier now—he meant to be a sailor himself, but a soldier was at least somebody in the scheme of things. Of course, his father was a minister—but then people must have fathers. This was different. However, it was not his business: girls were all silly.
And on this broad principle Master Frank took his stand. With equal breadth of view he conveyed the letter to the "Weedow's" at Crosspatrick, en route for the Cameronian manse at Cairn Edward.
But before he set out, he must have his grumble. He was beneath the window of his sister's room at the time. His father had been under observation all the morning, and was now safely off on his visitations. By arrangement with Aunt Mary, Elspeth was allowed the run of the whole upper story of the Dullarg Manse during Dr. Stuart's daily absences. So, on parole, she came to this little window in the gable end, where Frank and she could commune without fear of foreign observation.
"What for could ye no have promised my father onything—and then no done it!"
The suggestion betrayed Master Frank's own plan of campaign, and renders more excusable the Doctor's frequent appeal to the argument of the hazel.
* * * * *
After this there ensued for Elspeth a long and weary time. Every day Frank, detaching himself from the untrustworthy Sandy, slid off down the waterside to Crosspatrick. Every day he returned empty-handed and contemptuous.
This it was to love a minister, and one who was not even a "regular." Why had not Elspeth, if she must fall in love, chosen a sailor?
In those days there was no regular postal delivery on the remoter country districts. The mails came in an amateurish sort of way by coach to Cairn Edward, and thereafter distributed themselves, as it were, automatically. When the postage was paid, the authorities had no more care in the matter. Yet there was a kind of system in the thing, too.
It was understood that any one being in Cairn Edward on business should "give a look in" at the Post Office, and if there were any letters for his neighbourhood, and he happened to have in his pocket the necessary spare "siller" at the moment, he would pay the postage and bring them to the "Weedow Barr's" shop in the village of Crosspatrick.
It may be observed that there were elements of uncertainty inseparable from such an arrangement. And these told hard on our poor prisoner of fate during these great endless midsummer days. She pined and grew pale, like a woodland bird shut suddenly in a close cage at that season when mate begins to call to mate through all the copses of birch and alder.
"He does not love me—oh, he cannot love me!" she moaned. But again, as she thought of the stile on the way to Lowe's Seat—"But he does love me!" she said.
Then, sudden as a falling star, Fear fell on that green summer world. There came a weird sough through all the valley, a crying of folk to each other across level holms, shrill answerings of herd to herd on the utmost hills. The scourge of God had come again! The Cholera—the Cholera! Dread word, which we in these times have almost forgot the thrill of in our flesh. Mysteriously and inevitably the curse swept on. It was at Leith at Glasgow—at Dumfries—at Cairn Edward. It was coming! coming! coming! Nearer, nearer ever nearer!
And men at the long scythe, sweeping the lush meadow hay aside with that most prideful of all rustic gestures, fell suddenly chill and shuddered to their marrows. The sweat of endeavour dried on them, and left them chill, as if the night wind had stricken them. Women with child swarfed with fear at their own door cheeks, and there was a crying within long ere the posset-cup could be made ready. Neighbour looked with sudden suspicion at neighbour, and men at friendly talk upon the leas manoeuvred to get to windward of each other.
Death was coming—had come! And in his study, grim and unmoved, Dr. Murdo Stuart sat preparing his Sabbath's sermon on the text, "Therefore ... because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!"
But in the shut chamber above Elspeth waited and watched, the hope that is deferred making her young heart sicker and ever sicker. Still she had not heard. No answering word had reached her, and it was now the second week. He did not love her—he could not.
But still!
They had told her nothing, and, indeed, during that first time of fear and uncertainty, they knew nothing for certain, away up by themselves in the wide wild moor parish of Dullarg. There were no market days in Cairn Edward any more. So much the farmers knew. The men of the landward parishes set guards with loaded guns upon every outgoing road. There was no local authority in those days, and men in such cases had to look to themselves. The infected place, be it city, town, or village, farm-steading or cottage, was completely and bitterly isolated. None might come out or go in. Provisions, indeed, were left in a convenient spot; but secretly and by night. And the bearer shot away again, bent half to the ground with eagerness, fear, and speed, a cloth to his mouth, for the very wind that passed over him was Death. It was not so much a disease as a certain Fate. Whoso was smitten was taken. In fact, to all that rustic world it was the Visitation of Very God.
In the main street of Cairn Edward grass grew; yet the place was not unpopulous. With the revival of trade and industry during the later years of the great war a cotton mill had been erected in a side street. The houses of the work folk were strung out from it. Then parallel with this there was a more ancient main street of low beetle-browed houses, many of them entering by a step down off the uneven causeway. At the upper end, near the Cross, were some better-class houses, some of them of two stories, a change-house or two, and down on the damp marshy land towards the loch, the cluster of huts which had formed the original nucleus of the village—now fallen into disrepute and disrepair, and nominated, from the nationality of many of its inhabitants, "Little Dublin."
In ten days a third of the inhabitants of this suburb had died. There was but one minister within the strait bounds of the straggling village. The parish church and manse lay two miles away out on a braeface overlooking yellowing widths of corn-land. And the minister thereof abode in his breaches, every day giving God thank that he was not shut up within those distant white streets, from which, day by day, the housewifely reek rose in fewer and fewer columns.
But Allan Syme was within, and could not pause to marry or to give in marriage, to preach or to pray, so full of his Master's business was he. For he must nurse and succour by day and bury by night, week day and Holy Day. He it was who upheld the dying head. He swathed the corpse while it was yet warm. He tolled the death-bell in the steeple. He harnessed the horse to the rude farm-cart. Sometimes all alone he dug the grave in the soft marshy flow, and laid the dead in the brown peat-mould. For it was no time to stand upon trifles this second time that the Scourge of God had come to Cairn Edward.
To the outer limit of the cordon of watchers came the carriers and the farmers, the country lairds' servants, and less frequently the bien well-stomached meal millers. In silence they deposited their goods, for the most part with no niggard hand. In silence they took the fumigated pound notes, smelling of sulphur, or the silver coin of the realm, with the crumbles of quick-lime still sticking to the milling of the edges.
So across a kind of neutral zone, fearful country and infected town stood glowering at each other like embattled enemies, musket laid ready in the crook of elbow.
And when one mad with the Fear tried to cross, he was hunted like a wild beast, or shot at like a rabbit running for its burrow. And the townsmen did in like manner. For ill as it might fare with them, there was deadlier yet to fear. In Cairn Edward they had the White Cholera, as it was called. The Black was at Dumfries—so, at least, the tale ran.
And as he went about his work, Allan Syme called upon his God, and thought of Elspeth. But her letter never reached him, and he knew nothing of her vigils. The day before he might have known the Fear fell, and the door was shut.
* * * * *
It was on Saturday afternoon that the tidings came to Elspeth Stuart, lonely watcher and loving heart. It was her brother Sandy who brought them. He knew nothing of Elspeth's matters, being young and by nature unworthy of trust. He had been down to Crosspatrick on some errand, and now, having arrived back within hailing distance, he was retailing his experiences to his brother Frank.
"I got yon letter back frae the Weedow—an', as I wasna gangin' hame, I gied it to my faither."
"What letter?"
Elspeth could hear the sudden angry alarm in Frank's voice; but she herself had no premonition of danger.
"The letter ye took doon to Crosspatrick for Elspeth ten days syne. Ye'll catch it, my man!"
The girl's heart sank, and then leapt again within her.
Her father had her letter—he would read it. It was plainly addressed in her handwriting to Allan Syme. What should she do?
But wait—there was something else. With a quick back-spang came the countering joy.
"But then he has never got my letter. He knows nothing of my unhappiness. He has not forgotten me. He loves me still. What care I for aught else but that?"
There came up from the courtyard a sound of blows, and then Sandy's wail.
"I'll tell my faither on ye, that I will. How was I to ken aboot Elspeth's letter? And they say the minister-man it was wrote to is dead, at ony rate!"
Elspeth heard unbelievingly. Dead—Allan dead! And she not know. Absurd! It was only one of Sandy's lies to irritate his brother because he had been thrashed. She knew Sandy. Nevertheless she threw up the window. Sandy was again at his parable.
"They buried twenty-five yesterday in the moss. The minister was there wi' the last coffin, and fell senseless across it. He never spoke again. He is to be buried the morn if they can get the coffin made!"
Then, so soon as she was convinced that Sandy was not inventing, and that he had only repeated the gossip of the village, a kind of cold calmness took hold of Elspeth. She called Frank in to her, and when he came, lo! his face was far whiter than hers.
She made him tell her all they had kept from her—of the dread plague that had fallen so sudden and swift upon the townlet to which Allan had carried her heart. Then she thought awhile fiercely, not wavering in her purpose, but only trying this way and that, like one who thrusts with his staff for the safest passage over a dangerous bog. Frank watched her keenly, but could make nothing of her intent. At last she spoke:
"Go and get me the key of your box."
"What do ye want with the key of my box?" queried her brother, astonished.
"Never heed that," said Elspeth, clipping her words imperiously, as, in seasons of stress, she had a way of doing; "do as I bid you!"
And being accustomed to such obediences, and albeit sorry for her, Frank went out, only remarking ominously that he would have a job, for that Aunt Mary carried it on her bunch.
He came back in exactly ten minutes, and threw the key on the floor.
"Easier than I expected," he said, triumphantly; "the old buzzer was asleep!"
"Give me the key," said Elspeth, still in a brown study by the window.
But this was too much for Frank.
"Pick it up for yourself, Els," he said, "and mind you are to swear you found it on the floor!"
Frank knew very well that if one is going to lie back and forth (as he intended to do when questioned), it is well to be prepared with occasional little scraps of truth. They cheer one up so.
Elspeth took the key, and hid it in her pocket.
"Now you can go," she said, and sat down on the bed, staring out at the broad river quietly slipping by.
"Well, you might at least have said 'thank you——'" began Frank. But catching the expression of her face, he suddenly desisted, and went out without another word.
* * * * *
No, Allan Syme was not dead. But he staggered home that night certainly more dead than alive. All day long he had moved in an atmosphere of the most appalling pestilence. The reek of mortality seemed to solidify in his nostrils, and his heart for the first time fainted within him.
He knew that there would be no welcome for him in the dark and lonely manse; no meal, no comfort, no living voice; not so much as a dog to lick his hand. His housekeeper, a mere hireling, had fled at the first alarm.
It was dusk as he thrust the key into the latch, as he did so staggering against the lintel from sheer weariness. He stood a little while in the passage, shuddering with the oncomings of mortal sickness. Then with flint, steel, and laborious tinder box he coaxed a light for the solitary taper on the hall table. This done, he turned aside into the little sitting-room on the right hand, where he kept his divinity books.
A slight figure came forward to meet him, with upturned face and clasped petitionary hands. The action was a girl's, but the dress and figure were those of a boy. Upon the threshold the minister stopped dead. He thought that this was the first symptom of delirium—he had seen it in so many, and had watched for it in himself.
But the lad still came forward, and laid a hand on his arm. He wore a suit of bottle green with silver buttons, a world too wide for his slim form. Knee breeches and buckled shoes completed his attire. Allan Syme stared wide-eyed, uncomprehending, his hand pressed to his aching brow in the effort to see truly.
"You are not dead. Thank God!" said the boy, in a voice that took him by the throat.
"Who—who are you?" The words came dry and gasping from the minister's parched lips.
"I am Elspeth—do you not know me?"
"Elspeth—Elspeth—why did you come here—and thus?"
"They told me you were dead—and my father locked me up! And—what chance had a girl to pass the guards? They fired at me—see!"
And lifting a wet curl from her brow, she showed a wound.
"Elspeth—Elspeth—what is all this? What have they done to you?"
"Nothing—nothing—it is but a scratch. The man almost missed me altogether."
"Beloved, what have you done with your hair?"
"I cut it off, that I might the better deceive them!"
"Elspeth—you must go back! This is no place for you!"
"I will not go back home. I will die first!"
"But, Elspeth, think if any one saw you—what would they say?"
"That I came to help you—to nurse you! I do not care what they would say."
"My dear—my dear, you cannot bide here. I would to God you could; but you cannot. I must think how to get you away. I must think—I must think!"
The minister, sick unto death, stood with his hand still pressed to his brow. At sight of him, and because, after all she had gone through for him, he had given her neither welcome nor kiss, a swift spasm of anger flashed up into Elspeth's eyes.
"You are ashamed of me, Allan Syme—let me go. I will never see you more. You do not love me! I will not trouble you. Open the door!"
"God knows I love you better than my soul!" said Allan; "but let me think. Father in heaven—I cannot think! My brain runs round."
He gave a slight lurch like a felled ox, and swayed forward.
Instantly, as a lamp that the wind blows out, all the anger went out of Elspeth Stuart's eyes. She caught Allan in her strong young arms and laid him on the worn couch, displacing with a sweep of her hand a whole score of volumes as she laid him down.
He lay a moment stiff and still. Then a spasm of pain contorted his features. He opened his eyes, and looked into his sweetheart's eyes. Then, with the swift astonishing clearness of the mortally stricken, he saw what must be done.
"Allan, Allan, what is the matter—what shall I do for you?" she mourned over him.
"Do this," answered the minister. "Take the cloak out of that cupboard there. I have never worn it. Go straight to John Allanson. He is my Ruling Elder. He bides at his daughter's house close by the cotton mill. Tell him all, and bid him come to me."
"The dreadful man who was so angry—that day at Lowe's Seat!" she objected, not fearing for herself, but for him.
"He is not a dreadful man. Do as I bid you, childie; I am sick, but I judge not unto death!"
"But you may die before I return!"
"Do as I bid you, Elspeth," said the minister, waving her away; "not a hundred choleras can deprive me of one minute God has appointed mine!"
She bent over quickly, and kissed him on lips and brow.
"There—and there! Now if you die, I will die too. Remember that! And I do not care now. I will go!"
Saying this, she rushed from the room.