Chapter Twenty Four.

Chapter Twenty Four.Another Home.“Weel! weel! If the marriage is wi’ auld Mr Dawson’s free consent, then the Ethiopian can change his skin, and that would be makin’ the Bible out nae true. It’s little ye ken! He’s nae a man to change like that.”It was Mrs Cairnie who spoke, sitting at her daughter’s door, with her crutch at her side. Young Mrs Saugster was sitting inside with her baby on her lap, and her mother-in-law and Maggie, busy with her seam, were with her.“But Mr Dawson went to the marriage himself, and he wouldna ha’e gone but o’ his ain free will,” said Maggie as no one else answered.“There’s nae sayin’. Young George has the tow in his ain hand. It’s as he says now, I doubt, about maist things.”“But he could hardly have wished the auld man to go against his will. And indeed Mr Dawson gets the credit o’ makin’ the marriage himsel’, though that’s likely going beyond the truth,” said old Mrs Saugster. “But what I wonder at is Mrs Calderwood. She is a quait woman, but she is as stiff in her way, and as proud as ever Mr Dawson was; and though she said little at the time, she carried a sair heart and angry, for many a day after she lost her Elsie.”“Folk change,” said her daughter-in-law. “Ay. And it’s wonderfu’ what folk can outlive.”“Mrs Calderwood!” repeated Mrs Cairnie. “What about her! It’s a grand marriage for the like o’ her dochter, no’ to say that she has gotten her triumph ower auld George at last. It’s weel to be her.”“It is all like a tale in a book. Somebody should make a ballad about it,” said Maggie. “It’s no’ often that we see a thing comin’ to the right end, as this ha’e done.”“The end hasna come yet,” said Mrs Cairnie. “And it’s no’ that richt for some folk. Look at young Miss Jean. She has her ain thoughts, and they are no’ o’ the pleasantest, or her lace doesna tell the truth. And why didna she go to the marriage wi’ the lave?”“Oh! it wasna as if it had been a fine wedding. It was to be very quiet. And Miss Dawson has Mrs Manners’ boys at Saughleas. She couldna weel leave them, nor her aunt.”“Weel, maybe no’. But it canna please her to think o’ leaving Saughleas, and letting Marion Calderwood reign in her stead. It’ll come to that, though it seems the young folk are goin’ to the High-street in the mean time.”“Weel, Miss Dawson may be in a home o’ her ain by that time,” said old Mrs Saugster. “And whether or no’, she’s no’ the first sister in the countryside who has had to give way before a brother’s wife.”“Mother! Mrs Cairnie! to say such like things about Miss Dawson! Ye ken little about her, if ye think she would grudge to do what is right.”Maggie, red and angry, looked from one to the other as if she would have liked to say more. Her mother laughed. She knew Maggie’s admiration for young Miss Jean of old, but Mrs Cairnie said sourly,—“It’s weel seen that ye belong to the rising generation. In my day lassies werena in the way o’ takin’ the words out o’ their mother’s mouth, to say naething o’ folk four times their age. As for young Miss Jean, she’s liker ither folk than ye think.”“Whisht, mother. See yonder is Miss Dawson coming down the street.”“Ay, she’ll be on her way to the house in the High-street, though why I should be bidden whisht at the sight o’ her, I dinna ken. And there’s one thing sure. Naebody has seen auld George on his way to the house yet. That doesna look as gin he were weel pleased.”“Eh, woman! Ha’e ye forgotten? It was there he took Mary Keith a bride. Let him be ever so weel pleased, it will give him a sair heart to go there again.”There was a slight pause in preparation for Miss Dawson’s greeting, but before she came near them, she was joined by her father and both passed on with only a word.“He’s hame again. And I canna say I think he looks ower weel pleased,” said Mrs Cairnie.“It is of Mary Keith he is thinking,” said her friend. “He has a feelin’ heart for a’ sae down as he looks. I doubt he has an ill half hour before him.”In the mean time Jean and her father had reached the gate which opened into the garden of the High-street house. It was a large and well-built house, higher and with wider windows than most of the houses in Portie, and on the whole it was a suitable place of abode for a young man of George’s means and station. There was only a strip of green between it and the street, but behind it was a large walled garden into which Mr Dawson had never been since he left it for Saughleas long ago. Indeed he had hardly seen the house since the death of his wife. He never came to the town over the fields as the young people were in the way of doing, and he always turned into the High-street from the turnpike road at a lower point than this.“Papa,” said Jean, arresting her hand which held the old-fashioned knocker of the door, “well go home to-night and come over in the morning. You are tired.”“No, no. We’ll get it ower to-night,” said her father in a voice which he made gruff in trying to make it steady.Jean followed the servant into the kitchen and lingered there a while, and Mr Dawson went alone into the once familiar rooms, and not a word of sorrow or sympathy was spoken between them, though the daughter’s heart ached for the pain which she knew was throbbing at the heart of her father. He was looking from the window over the garden to the sea, and he did not turn as Jean came in, so she did not speak, but went here and there giving a touch to the things over the arrangement of which she had spent time and taken pleasure during the last few weeks.“You must have made yourself busy this while, Jean,” said her father coming forward at last. “And I must say you have done well. It is all that can be desired, I would think. There are some things coming from London, however.”“Does it not look nice? George had his say about it all. I only helped. I think Marion will be pleased.”“But they should have been guided by me, and come straight to Saughleas. That would have been the best way.”“I’m no’ so sure. I think it was natural and right that George should wish to be the head of his own house. No, papa. You are master at Saughleas and ought to be, and I am mistress. Oh! yes, we would both have given up willingly enough, but then neither George nor Marion would have willingly taken our places. But never mind, papa. It will all come in time, and sooner than you think. And I like to think of George bringing his bride to the very house where you brought mamma.”It was a rare thing for Jean to speak her mother’s name to her father. It came now with a smile, but with a rush of tears also, which surprised herself quite as much as they surprised her father, and she turned away to hide them. It was her father’s loss she was thinking of rather than her own.“Ay, my lassie! May they be as blessed here as we were,” said her father.And so the first look of his once happy home was gotten over with no more tender words between them, and they went slowly home together, through the fields this time.Many things had wrought toward the change which Mrs Cairnie and other folk as well saw in Mr Dawson about this time. The new life which George was making honourable among his fellow townsmen, the firm stand he took on the side of right in all matters where his influence could be brought to bear, the light hold that wealth, or the winning of it for its own sake, had ever had upon him, had all by slow degrees told on the old man’s opinions and feelings. But as to his wish for his son’s marriage with Marion Calderwood, it was Marion herself who had brought that about.He had noticed her, and had liked her frank, fearless ways before she left Portie, and the sight-seeing together in London, and more still, the few quiet days which she had spent with Miss Jean at Saughleas, won him quite. It was going beyond the truth, as Mrs Saugster had said, to declare that the old man had made the marriage, though it is doubtful whether it would have come about so soon, or whether it would have come about at all, if it had not been for a question or two that he had put to his sister as he sat once in the gloaming in her house.Then there was a softly spoken word or two between Miss Jean and her nephew, and then George went straight to his father.“Father, I am going to ask Marion Calderwood to be my wife, if you will give your consent.”It would not have been like Mr Dawson if he had shown at the first word the pleasure with which he heard it.“You are of age now, George, and your ain man. I have no right to hinder you.”“Father,” said George, after a moment’s silence, “I shall think you have not forgiven the past, if you say the like of that.”The old man’s hand was raised to shade his eyes; he could not quite trust his face to hide his feelings now, but he said in a voice which he tried to make indifferent,—“I suppose it is to be her or nobody. Is that what you would say to me?”George made no answer to this.“I shall never ask her without your full and free consent.”Mr Dawson’s hand fell and he turned sharply upon him. “And what about her feelings, if that is to be the way?”“I have never given her a word or a look that a brother might not give to a sister. But I cannot but hope—” added George with a sudden light in his eye, and a rush of boyish colour to his face. “And I thought you liked Marion, father?”“Like her?” said his father rising. “George, man, go in God’s name and bring her home. She shall be to me like my own daughter. And the sooner the better.”So George went to London and won his bride—“too easily,” her mother said. Indeed George had more trouble to win the mother than the daughter. It was to the mother he went first.As for her, unless she could blot out altogether the remembrance of the sorrow and the hard thoughts of all the past, how could she consent to give her child to him?“And would it not be well to blot them out?” said George.“Ay, if it could be done. But as for me—I canna forget my Elsie—”“And do I forget Elsie? when Marion looks at me with Elsie’s eyes and speaks to me with her voice, and—”“And will that content my Marion, think ye? George, Marion is not just what her sister was. She is of a deeper nature, and is a stronger woman in every way. She is worthy of being loved for her own sake, and nothing less would content her, though she might think it for a while. And oh! George, I cannot bear the thought of having her free heart and her happy life disturbed. To think that she must go through all that!” said the widow with a sigh.“Dear mother,” said George—it was not the first time he had called her so—and he took her unwilling hand between his own as he spoke, “she shall not be disturbed, unless you give me leave to speak; I will go away again without a word. I will not even see her for a while. I cannot promise to give up the thought of her altogether, but I will go away now.”But Mrs Calderwood said,—“No, George. You must see her since you are here, though you must not speak to her of this. She is no longer a child, and I fear I did an unwise thing in trying to keep you out of her sight so long. It kept you in her mind all the more—not you, but a lad of her own fancy with your name. Miss Jean ay said it would be far better to let things take their course, and so it might have been.”“And do you mean that you kept us from meeting of your own will?”“Dinna look at me in that way, George. What could I do? You were both young, and she ay made a hero of you. And there was your father. And I wouldna have my bairn’s heart troubled. Not that I mean that she cares for you, as she ought not—”“Dear mother, let me ask her.”Mrs Calderwood made a sudden impatient movement. She loved the young man dearly. And her own son, who to her proud thought was “a man among men,” was scarcely dearer. He was a son in all but the name. She loved him, and she believed in him; and even to herself, as she looked at his face, it seemed a foolish and a wrong thing to send him away.But then it had always been in her thought that these two must never come together in this way, because of her dead Elsie, and because of the hard old man’s angry scorn, which, though she had forgiven him, she could not forget. She could not change easily. It was not her nature. And she could not bear that her Marion’s heart should be disturbed from its maiden peace. She moved about the room uncertain what she ought to say or do, and utterly impatient of her own hesitation. When she sat down again George came and stood before her.“Mrs Calderwood, my father gave me God speed, and bade me bring her home.”“Oh! your father,” cried Mrs Calderwood with sudden anger. “Your father has ay gotten his ain will for good or for ill, all his life long. And now to think—”“His last words were—‘She shall be to me as my own daughter.’”Mrs Calderwood turned her face away.“He loves her dearly,” said George softly.Still she did not speak.“And, mother,—turn your face to me,—I love her dearly.”She turned then, and at the sight of his moved face her eyes overflowed with tears.“Oh! George! you are very dear to me, but my Marion is all I have—”What more she might have said, he never knew, for the door opened, and Marion came softly in with a letter in her hand. Her mother rose, but she did not move away from George, as was her first impulse, nor did she try to hide her tears. It would have been no use, for they were falling like rain over her face. Marion stood still at the door, looking at them with wonder and a little fear.George went to her, and taking her hand led her to her mother. He was very pale and his lips trembled as he said,—“Mother, will you let me speak to her now?”What she might have answered she could not tell. She dropped into her seat with a little cry, and in a moment Marion was kneeling before her, and then so was George; and, of course, there was only one way in which it could end.Mrs Calderwood said afterwards that Marion had let herself be too easily won. Marion laughed when she said this.“I think, mother, I was won long before that day,” said she.But at the moment the mother could only give her consent. In a little, when George had taken his wife, that was to be, to the other end of the room, Mrs Calderwood picked up the letter which Marion had let fall, and opened it mechanically, letting her eye fall on the written words while her thoughts were elsewhere. But before she had read many words she uttered an exclamation and hastily went out of the room.Herpride was to be spared at any rate. Nobody had supposed thatshewould be too easily won. The letter was from Mr Dawson; and by rights she ought to have had it before George came, for it was to bespeak her good word for him that he had written.It was just, “Let by-ganes be by-ganes. Give your daughter to my son, and she shall be welcomed among us with all the love and honour of which she is worthy—and more cannot be said than that.”Mrs Calderwood read it and read it again, and her wonder grew. Changed! Surely if ever a man was changed, George Dawson must be to write to her such a letter as that. But when she showed it to her daughter, Marion was only surprised at her amazement. All these kind words did not seem strange to her. She had never heard any but kind words from him.“I began to think he liked me when I was staying with Mrs Manners, and I was sure of it at Saughleas—only afterwards—and even then—” said Marion not very coherently. But she did not explain her meaning more clearly.“The sooner the better,” Mr Dawson had said, and George said the same, and so did Jean in a few sweet words that came in a day or two, and so did her aunt. Mrs Manners reminded her husband that she had told him of Marion’s conquest of her father on that first day of her visit to them last year, and also that she had foreseen this happy ending. So with all belonging to George so ready to welcome her child among them, and George himself so dear, what could Mrs Calderwood do but be glad also, and give her up with a good grace?It was not so difficult a matter after all, she found when she had thus determined. And by and by she forgave her daughter for having been too easily won. And the visionary jealousy which had risen within her at the memory of her lost child vanished, though in her heart she doubted whether her poor dead Elsie had ever won such love as George had now to give her sister.So the marriage day was set. It was not very soon, George thought, but the time was not unreasonably long, and it was hastened a little at the last. Captain Calderwood came home from his second voyage in his own ship sooner than was expected, and his stay was to be shorter than usual. The wedding was to be a very quiet one, and it could be hastened without interfering seriously with preparations. Marion had set her heart on her brother’s being with her, and it was so arranged, and all things went well.All things but one. At the very last there came from Jean a letter with many good reasons why she could not come with her father and brother, and with many sweet words of love to the girl “whom she would have chosen from all the world to be her sister.” But Mr Dawson was there, intent on doing honour to the occasion, and Mr and Mrs Manners and Captain Saugster of the “John Seaton,” and of all people in the world, Sir Percy Harefield! who did not, it is to be supposed, come without an invitation, but who possibly suggested to Mr Dawson that he would like to receive one.And all went well. There was no large party and no regular speech-making. The bridegroom said nothing, Captain Calderwood said only, “If he could have chosen a brother out of all the world, he would have chosen no other;” and Mr Dawson remembered the words of Jean’s letter to Marion, which she had shown him before she sent it away. Mr Dawson said a few words, but he was not so happy, because he could not help again expressing a wish that “by-ganes might be by-ganes,” which Mrs Calderwood thought he might have omitted on that day at least.It came to an end, and the bride and bridegroom went away, and Mr Dawson and Sir Percy Harefield went with Captain Calderwood to see his ship, and they were all very friendly together; so friendly that Sir Percy had thoughts of turning his back on London and the prospective delights of the moors, and taking the voyage with Captain Calderwood to see what the other side of the world was like.“And what thought ye o’ Willie himself?” asked Miss Jean, when Mr Dawson was telling her all this, after he had been at home a day or two. “Is he likely to be such a man as his father was?”“There’s mair o’ him than ever there would ha’e been o’ his father, if he had been spared, poor man. He is much thought of by his employers. I thought him stiff at first. But he thawed out and was cordial and kindly after a little. He would have made the Englishman very welcome to go with him, if he had keepit in the same mind till he sailed. But I doubt, as Jean once said o’ him, he would have found him a heavy handfu’ ere a’ was done. I ken no greater misfortune that can befall a man than to have nothing to do in the world.”“He has his soldiering?”“No, he hasna even that now, and he is unfortunate in caring little for the occupations that seem to pass the time for folk o’ his class. He is coming north again, he says, and I dare say we’ll get a sight o’ him.”“He was ay an idle man, even when he was a poor man.”“Yes. But I ay think he might have been made something of, if the right woman would have taken him in hand.”Miss Jean could not agree with him.“And whether or no’, he needna come north to find her,” said she.“No, I suppose not, but it is a pity.”“George, man! I canna but wonder to hear you,” said his sister gravely.“Weel, he has a kind heart, and I canna but be sorry for him. And he is a perfect gentleman.”“Being sorry for him is one thing, and being willing to give him our best is another,” said Miss Jean, with a sharpness that made her brother smile. “But I’m no’ feared—”Miss Jean paused. She was not quite sure that she had nothing to fear. To her it seemed that the Englishman had been wonderfully constant—“for the like o’ him”—and she was not quite so sure of Jean as she used to be.One day while her father was away, they had been speaking of Mr Dawson’s wish that George should take his bride to Saughleas. Jean had said the best way to settle it would be for her to go away to a house of her own and then George could not refuse to take Marion to Saughleas.“Weel,” said her aunt, “I dare say that might be brought about, if you could bring your mind to it.”“I’ll bide a wee,” said Jean laughing, but her face grew grave enough in a minute or two.“I have ay thought myself of some use to my father and George, but now George is away, and even my father would be content with Marion in my place.”“That is scarcely the most cheerful way to look at it, or the wisest. And it’s no’ like you, Jean, my dear.”“Are you thinking that I am jealous of Marion, Aunt Jean? No, it is not that I love her dearly, and I am glad for George, and for my father, since he is pleased. But are you sure that it gaveyouno pang to give up your brother to Mary Keith?”Miss Jean smiled, and shook her head.“I was growing an old woman even at that time. No, though she was almost a stranger to me, I was only glad for George. They loved one another.”“And besides you were an independent woman, with a life and work of your own, and content.”“Jean, my dear,” said her aunt, laying down her work and folding her hands on her lap, as was her way when she had something serious to say, “unless ye are keeping something in your heart that ye have never told to me, and there be a reason for it, I would hardly say that you are looking at things with your usual sense and cheerfulness. Do you think that your father has less need o’ you now than he has ay had? And do you think it is because o’ you that George is so set on taking his wife to the High-street? I see no great change that has come to you or your work, and though it is like giving up your brother in a sense, yet you are glad to do it. What has happened to you, my dear? Would it ease your heart to tell it to me?”Jean had changed colour many times while her aunt was speaking, and now she sat with her eyes turned away to the sea, as if she were considering whether it would be well to speak. Miss Jean kept silence. She needed no words to tell her the girl’s trouble. She had guessed the cause of the weariness and restlessness that Jean could not hide from her, though she could keep a cheerful face before the rest of her world. But she thought it possible that after so long a silence it might do her heart good to speak, if it were only a word, and so she waited silently. But on the whole she was not sorry when Jean rose and took her hat in her hand to go.“No, Auntie Jean, I have nothing to tell you, positively nothing. I am ‘ower weel off,’ as Tibbie Cairnie says. That is what ails me, I dare say.”“You’ll ha’e May and her bairns through the summer, and plenty to do, and there is nothing better than that to put away—”“Discontent,” said Jean, as her aunt hesitated for a word. “My dear, ye should ha’e gone with your father and George. It would ha’e done you good.”“Well, perhaps it might. But it is too late now. Did I tell you that May wrote that Sir Percy Harefield was at the wedding?”“No, ye didna tell me.”“May thinks he asked my father to invite him, and my father seems to be as much taken up with him as ever. He is coming north again, she says.”“And has his new tide changed him any, and his new possessions, does your sister say?”“He has grown fat—more portly, May calls it,” said Jean laughing. “She says he is going to Parliament.”“He’ll do little ill there, it’s likely.”“And as little good, ye think, auntie. It will keep him out of mischief, as he used to say. And after all, I dare say he will do as well as most of them. He is a gentleman anyway, and that is ay something.”And then she went away, and while Miss Jean mused on the cause of Jean’s discontent, she could not forget what she called the Englishman’s constancy, and she heartily wished that something might happen to keep him from coming north for a while.“And I canna help thinking that if Jean had gone to her brother’s marriage, something might have happened to set her heart at rest.”But that was not Jean’s thought. She had not said until the last moment that she was not going, partly because she wished to avoid discussion, and partly because of something else. The many good reasons by which she had succeeded in convincing her father that it was best for her to stay at home, were none of them the reason why she did not go. That could be told to no one. It was only with pain and something like a sense of shame—though she told herself angrily that there was no cause for shame—that she acknowledged to herself the reason.“I care for him still, though he has forgotten me. I ay cared for him. And he loved me once, I know well. But if he loved me still, he would come and tell me. I could not go and meet him now—and his mother’s eyes would be on me—and yet, oh! how I long to see his face after all these years!”After all these years she might well say. For since May’s marriage day, when her heart fell low as Marion told her that her brother had gone away, she had never seen him. He had come north once with George when she was away from home, and he had been in England more than once while she was visiting his sister, but he had never come to see her.It had hurt her, but she had comforted herself, saying it was because of her father or perhaps also because of his own mother that he did not come. But since Marion was coming home to them, that could be no reason now if he cared, and almost up to the last moment she had waited, hoping that he might come. And then she told herself it was impossible that she should go to meet him, caring for him still.“And the best thing I can do now is to put it all out of my mind forever.”If she only could have done so, and she did her best to try. May came home with her father; and she and her pretty boys and her baby daughter were with them all the summer. And by and by George brought home his wife, and it was a gay and busy time with them all.May, who saw most things that were passing, noticed that in some ways her sister was different from what she used to be. She was not the leader in all the gay doings, but left the young visitors at the house to amuse themselves in their own way. She was intent on household matters, as was right, and she took more time to herself in the quiet of her own room than she used to do. But she was merry enough with the children, and indeed gave much of her leisure to them, going about in the house and the garden with baby Mary in her arms, and the little brothers following in their train for many a pleasant hour.George brought his wife home to the High-street. Even Mr Dawson after a while acknowledged that they had been wise to secure for themselves the quiet of a house of their own. Not that they began in these first days by living to themselves. There was enough to do. There were gay doings in many homes in honour of the bride, and the honour intended was generally accepted none the less gratefully or gracefully, that the gay doings could have been happily dispensed with by them both.They had pleasures and occupations of another kind also, for Marion was too well-known to the poor folk of Portie to make her coming among them as young Mrs Dawson an intrusion or a trouble. So the young husband and wife went in and out together, “the very sicht o’ them,” as even Mrs Cairnie owned, “doing a body gude as they passed.”And on the comings and goings of these happy young people, on the honour paid them, on their kindly words and deeds, and heartsome ways with rich and poor, with old friends and new, Mr Dawson looked and pondered with a constant, silent delight which few besides the two Jeans saw or suspected. Even they could not but wonder sometimes at the unceasing interest he found in them and their doings at home and abroad.He wondered at it himself sometimes. It was like a new sweet spring of life to him to see them, and to hear about them, and to know that all things went well with them; and though few out of his own household could have seen any change in him, it was clear in many ways to those who saw him in his own house day by day.“God leads His ain by many ways to Himself,” thought Miss Jean in her solitary musings over it all. “They that think they ken a’ the secrets o’ nature tell us that the flowing waters and the changing seasons, bringing whiles the frost and whiles the sunshine, have made from the rocks that look so unchangeable, much o’ the soil out of which comes bread to us all. And who kens but God’s gender dealings, coming after sore trouble, may prepare his heart for the richer springing o’ the good seed, till it bring forth a hundred-fold to His honour and glory. I ay kenned that the Lord had a richt hold o’ him through all, and that He would show him His face at last. Blessed be His name?”“It whiles does folk gude to get their ain way about things, though that’s no’ the belief o’ gude folk generally, and nae in the Bible, as they would gar us believe,” said Mrs Cairnie, who never kept her opinions to herself if she could get any one to listen to them. “George Dawson is growing an auld failed man—and nae won’er considerin’ how lang he has been toilin’ and moilin’, gi’ein’ himsel’ neither nicht’s rest nor day’s ease. But auld and failed though he be, there’s a satisfied look on his face that naebody has seen there since the days he used to come in to the kirk wi’ his wife and a’ his bairns followin’ after him,—langer ago than ye’ll mind, Maggie, my woman. And for that matter naebody saw it then. It was satisfaction o’ anither kind that he had in those days, I’m thinkin’.”“But, grannie,” said Maggie Saugster, giving her the name that the old woman liked best, though she would not acknowledge it, “is it about young Mr and Mrs Dawson you are thinkin’, or is it about May and her bairns? Because I mind ye once said to my mother and me that you doubted the old man wasna weel pleased when Mr George brought Marion Calderwood home.”“Oh! ay. Ye’re gude at mindin’ things that’s nae speired at you whiles. He’s gotten his will about mair things than that of late, and what I say is, that it has done him gude, as trouble never did.”“Maybe his satisfaction comes from giving up his ain will, rather than from getting it. I ken the look ye mean, mother,” said her daughter gently.“Weel, it may be. A thing seems to ha’e taken a turn sin’ I was young. But it’s nae the look his face used to wear when man or woman countered him in the old days.”“Ay. But it would be different when the Lord took him in hand.”“The Lord has been lang about it, if it’s only the day that He’s takin’ him in hand. But what I’m sayin’ is this, that it does folk gude to get their ain will about things whiles, and I only wish that the Lord would try it on me, and set me strong on my ain twa feet again,” said Mrs Cairnie, taking up her crutch with a sigh.“Or satisfy you with His will instead. That would do as well, mother.”“Weel, weel! That’s your way o’ it, and if I’m allowed to tak’ the wrang gait, it winna be for want o’ tellin’,” said the old woman, moving slowly down to the corner of the street which was almost the length of her tether now. The eyes of the others followed her pitifully.“She’s nae that sharp now—nae that soon angered, I mean,” said Maggie, with some hesitation, meaning to say something kind, but not quite sure how far her sister-in-law might accept her sympathy.“No,” said the other after a pause. “And I whiles think that the Lord is getting His will o’ her too, though she hardly kens it hersel’ yet.”“Ay. As Miss Jean says, the Lord has many ways,” said Maggie reverently.

“Weel! weel! If the marriage is wi’ auld Mr Dawson’s free consent, then the Ethiopian can change his skin, and that would be makin’ the Bible out nae true. It’s little ye ken! He’s nae a man to change like that.”

It was Mrs Cairnie who spoke, sitting at her daughter’s door, with her crutch at her side. Young Mrs Saugster was sitting inside with her baby on her lap, and her mother-in-law and Maggie, busy with her seam, were with her.

“But Mr Dawson went to the marriage himself, and he wouldna ha’e gone but o’ his ain free will,” said Maggie as no one else answered.

“There’s nae sayin’. Young George has the tow in his ain hand. It’s as he says now, I doubt, about maist things.”

“But he could hardly have wished the auld man to go against his will. And indeed Mr Dawson gets the credit o’ makin’ the marriage himsel’, though that’s likely going beyond the truth,” said old Mrs Saugster. “But what I wonder at is Mrs Calderwood. She is a quait woman, but she is as stiff in her way, and as proud as ever Mr Dawson was; and though she said little at the time, she carried a sair heart and angry, for many a day after she lost her Elsie.”

“Folk change,” said her daughter-in-law. “Ay. And it’s wonderfu’ what folk can outlive.”

“Mrs Calderwood!” repeated Mrs Cairnie. “What about her! It’s a grand marriage for the like o’ her dochter, no’ to say that she has gotten her triumph ower auld George at last. It’s weel to be her.”

“It is all like a tale in a book. Somebody should make a ballad about it,” said Maggie. “It’s no’ often that we see a thing comin’ to the right end, as this ha’e done.”

“The end hasna come yet,” said Mrs Cairnie. “And it’s no’ that richt for some folk. Look at young Miss Jean. She has her ain thoughts, and they are no’ o’ the pleasantest, or her lace doesna tell the truth. And why didna she go to the marriage wi’ the lave?”

“Oh! it wasna as if it had been a fine wedding. It was to be very quiet. And Miss Dawson has Mrs Manners’ boys at Saughleas. She couldna weel leave them, nor her aunt.”

“Weel, maybe no’. But it canna please her to think o’ leaving Saughleas, and letting Marion Calderwood reign in her stead. It’ll come to that, though it seems the young folk are goin’ to the High-street in the mean time.”

“Weel, Miss Dawson may be in a home o’ her ain by that time,” said old Mrs Saugster. “And whether or no’, she’s no’ the first sister in the countryside who has had to give way before a brother’s wife.”

“Mother! Mrs Cairnie! to say such like things about Miss Dawson! Ye ken little about her, if ye think she would grudge to do what is right.”

Maggie, red and angry, looked from one to the other as if she would have liked to say more. Her mother laughed. She knew Maggie’s admiration for young Miss Jean of old, but Mrs Cairnie said sourly,—

“It’s weel seen that ye belong to the rising generation. In my day lassies werena in the way o’ takin’ the words out o’ their mother’s mouth, to say naething o’ folk four times their age. As for young Miss Jean, she’s liker ither folk than ye think.”

“Whisht, mother. See yonder is Miss Dawson coming down the street.”

“Ay, she’ll be on her way to the house in the High-street, though why I should be bidden whisht at the sight o’ her, I dinna ken. And there’s one thing sure. Naebody has seen auld George on his way to the house yet. That doesna look as gin he were weel pleased.”

“Eh, woman! Ha’e ye forgotten? It was there he took Mary Keith a bride. Let him be ever so weel pleased, it will give him a sair heart to go there again.”

There was a slight pause in preparation for Miss Dawson’s greeting, but before she came near them, she was joined by her father and both passed on with only a word.

“He’s hame again. And I canna say I think he looks ower weel pleased,” said Mrs Cairnie.

“It is of Mary Keith he is thinking,” said her friend. “He has a feelin’ heart for a’ sae down as he looks. I doubt he has an ill half hour before him.”

In the mean time Jean and her father had reached the gate which opened into the garden of the High-street house. It was a large and well-built house, higher and with wider windows than most of the houses in Portie, and on the whole it was a suitable place of abode for a young man of George’s means and station. There was only a strip of green between it and the street, but behind it was a large walled garden into which Mr Dawson had never been since he left it for Saughleas long ago. Indeed he had hardly seen the house since the death of his wife. He never came to the town over the fields as the young people were in the way of doing, and he always turned into the High-street from the turnpike road at a lower point than this.

“Papa,” said Jean, arresting her hand which held the old-fashioned knocker of the door, “well go home to-night and come over in the morning. You are tired.”

“No, no. We’ll get it ower to-night,” said her father in a voice which he made gruff in trying to make it steady.

Jean followed the servant into the kitchen and lingered there a while, and Mr Dawson went alone into the once familiar rooms, and not a word of sorrow or sympathy was spoken between them, though the daughter’s heart ached for the pain which she knew was throbbing at the heart of her father. He was looking from the window over the garden to the sea, and he did not turn as Jean came in, so she did not speak, but went here and there giving a touch to the things over the arrangement of which she had spent time and taken pleasure during the last few weeks.

“You must have made yourself busy this while, Jean,” said her father coming forward at last. “And I must say you have done well. It is all that can be desired, I would think. There are some things coming from London, however.”

“Does it not look nice? George had his say about it all. I only helped. I think Marion will be pleased.”

“But they should have been guided by me, and come straight to Saughleas. That would have been the best way.”

“I’m no’ so sure. I think it was natural and right that George should wish to be the head of his own house. No, papa. You are master at Saughleas and ought to be, and I am mistress. Oh! yes, we would both have given up willingly enough, but then neither George nor Marion would have willingly taken our places. But never mind, papa. It will all come in time, and sooner than you think. And I like to think of George bringing his bride to the very house where you brought mamma.”

It was a rare thing for Jean to speak her mother’s name to her father. It came now with a smile, but with a rush of tears also, which surprised herself quite as much as they surprised her father, and she turned away to hide them. It was her father’s loss she was thinking of rather than her own.

“Ay, my lassie! May they be as blessed here as we were,” said her father.

And so the first look of his once happy home was gotten over with no more tender words between them, and they went slowly home together, through the fields this time.

Many things had wrought toward the change which Mrs Cairnie and other folk as well saw in Mr Dawson about this time. The new life which George was making honourable among his fellow townsmen, the firm stand he took on the side of right in all matters where his influence could be brought to bear, the light hold that wealth, or the winning of it for its own sake, had ever had upon him, had all by slow degrees told on the old man’s opinions and feelings. But as to his wish for his son’s marriage with Marion Calderwood, it was Marion herself who had brought that about.

He had noticed her, and had liked her frank, fearless ways before she left Portie, and the sight-seeing together in London, and more still, the few quiet days which she had spent with Miss Jean at Saughleas, won him quite. It was going beyond the truth, as Mrs Saugster had said, to declare that the old man had made the marriage, though it is doubtful whether it would have come about so soon, or whether it would have come about at all, if it had not been for a question or two that he had put to his sister as he sat once in the gloaming in her house.

Then there was a softly spoken word or two between Miss Jean and her nephew, and then George went straight to his father.

“Father, I am going to ask Marion Calderwood to be my wife, if you will give your consent.”

It would not have been like Mr Dawson if he had shown at the first word the pleasure with which he heard it.

“You are of age now, George, and your ain man. I have no right to hinder you.”

“Father,” said George, after a moment’s silence, “I shall think you have not forgiven the past, if you say the like of that.”

The old man’s hand was raised to shade his eyes; he could not quite trust his face to hide his feelings now, but he said in a voice which he tried to make indifferent,—

“I suppose it is to be her or nobody. Is that what you would say to me?”

George made no answer to this.

“I shall never ask her without your full and free consent.”

Mr Dawson’s hand fell and he turned sharply upon him. “And what about her feelings, if that is to be the way?”

“I have never given her a word or a look that a brother might not give to a sister. But I cannot but hope—” added George with a sudden light in his eye, and a rush of boyish colour to his face. “And I thought you liked Marion, father?”

“Like her?” said his father rising. “George, man, go in God’s name and bring her home. She shall be to me like my own daughter. And the sooner the better.”

So George went to London and won his bride—“too easily,” her mother said. Indeed George had more trouble to win the mother than the daughter. It was to the mother he went first.

As for her, unless she could blot out altogether the remembrance of the sorrow and the hard thoughts of all the past, how could she consent to give her child to him?

“And would it not be well to blot them out?” said George.

“Ay, if it could be done. But as for me—I canna forget my Elsie—”

“And do I forget Elsie? when Marion looks at me with Elsie’s eyes and speaks to me with her voice, and—”

“And will that content my Marion, think ye? George, Marion is not just what her sister was. She is of a deeper nature, and is a stronger woman in every way. She is worthy of being loved for her own sake, and nothing less would content her, though she might think it for a while. And oh! George, I cannot bear the thought of having her free heart and her happy life disturbed. To think that she must go through all that!” said the widow with a sigh.

“Dear mother,” said George—it was not the first time he had called her so—and he took her unwilling hand between his own as he spoke, “she shall not be disturbed, unless you give me leave to speak; I will go away again without a word. I will not even see her for a while. I cannot promise to give up the thought of her altogether, but I will go away now.”

But Mrs Calderwood said,—

“No, George. You must see her since you are here, though you must not speak to her of this. She is no longer a child, and I fear I did an unwise thing in trying to keep you out of her sight so long. It kept you in her mind all the more—not you, but a lad of her own fancy with your name. Miss Jean ay said it would be far better to let things take their course, and so it might have been.”

“And do you mean that you kept us from meeting of your own will?”

“Dinna look at me in that way, George. What could I do? You were both young, and she ay made a hero of you. And there was your father. And I wouldna have my bairn’s heart troubled. Not that I mean that she cares for you, as she ought not—”

“Dear mother, let me ask her.”

Mrs Calderwood made a sudden impatient movement. She loved the young man dearly. And her own son, who to her proud thought was “a man among men,” was scarcely dearer. He was a son in all but the name. She loved him, and she believed in him; and even to herself, as she looked at his face, it seemed a foolish and a wrong thing to send him away.

But then it had always been in her thought that these two must never come together in this way, because of her dead Elsie, and because of the hard old man’s angry scorn, which, though she had forgiven him, she could not forget. She could not change easily. It was not her nature. And she could not bear that her Marion’s heart should be disturbed from its maiden peace. She moved about the room uncertain what she ought to say or do, and utterly impatient of her own hesitation. When she sat down again George came and stood before her.

“Mrs Calderwood, my father gave me God speed, and bade me bring her home.”

“Oh! your father,” cried Mrs Calderwood with sudden anger. “Your father has ay gotten his ain will for good or for ill, all his life long. And now to think—”

“His last words were—‘She shall be to me as my own daughter.’”

Mrs Calderwood turned her face away.

“He loves her dearly,” said George softly.

Still she did not speak.

“And, mother,—turn your face to me,—I love her dearly.”

She turned then, and at the sight of his moved face her eyes overflowed with tears.

“Oh! George! you are very dear to me, but my Marion is all I have—”

What more she might have said, he never knew, for the door opened, and Marion came softly in with a letter in her hand. Her mother rose, but she did not move away from George, as was her first impulse, nor did she try to hide her tears. It would have been no use, for they were falling like rain over her face. Marion stood still at the door, looking at them with wonder and a little fear.

George went to her, and taking her hand led her to her mother. He was very pale and his lips trembled as he said,—

“Mother, will you let me speak to her now?”

What she might have answered she could not tell. She dropped into her seat with a little cry, and in a moment Marion was kneeling before her, and then so was George; and, of course, there was only one way in which it could end.

Mrs Calderwood said afterwards that Marion had let herself be too easily won. Marion laughed when she said this.

“I think, mother, I was won long before that day,” said she.

But at the moment the mother could only give her consent. In a little, when George had taken his wife, that was to be, to the other end of the room, Mrs Calderwood picked up the letter which Marion had let fall, and opened it mechanically, letting her eye fall on the written words while her thoughts were elsewhere. But before she had read many words she uttered an exclamation and hastily went out of the room.

Herpride was to be spared at any rate. Nobody had supposed thatshewould be too easily won. The letter was from Mr Dawson; and by rights she ought to have had it before George came, for it was to bespeak her good word for him that he had written.

It was just, “Let by-ganes be by-ganes. Give your daughter to my son, and she shall be welcomed among us with all the love and honour of which she is worthy—and more cannot be said than that.”

Mrs Calderwood read it and read it again, and her wonder grew. Changed! Surely if ever a man was changed, George Dawson must be to write to her such a letter as that. But when she showed it to her daughter, Marion was only surprised at her amazement. All these kind words did not seem strange to her. She had never heard any but kind words from him.

“I began to think he liked me when I was staying with Mrs Manners, and I was sure of it at Saughleas—only afterwards—and even then—” said Marion not very coherently. But she did not explain her meaning more clearly.

“The sooner the better,” Mr Dawson had said, and George said the same, and so did Jean in a few sweet words that came in a day or two, and so did her aunt. Mrs Manners reminded her husband that she had told him of Marion’s conquest of her father on that first day of her visit to them last year, and also that she had foreseen this happy ending. So with all belonging to George so ready to welcome her child among them, and George himself so dear, what could Mrs Calderwood do but be glad also, and give her up with a good grace?

It was not so difficult a matter after all, she found when she had thus determined. And by and by she forgave her daughter for having been too easily won. And the visionary jealousy which had risen within her at the memory of her lost child vanished, though in her heart she doubted whether her poor dead Elsie had ever won such love as George had now to give her sister.

So the marriage day was set. It was not very soon, George thought, but the time was not unreasonably long, and it was hastened a little at the last. Captain Calderwood came home from his second voyage in his own ship sooner than was expected, and his stay was to be shorter than usual. The wedding was to be a very quiet one, and it could be hastened without interfering seriously with preparations. Marion had set her heart on her brother’s being with her, and it was so arranged, and all things went well.

All things but one. At the very last there came from Jean a letter with many good reasons why she could not come with her father and brother, and with many sweet words of love to the girl “whom she would have chosen from all the world to be her sister.” But Mr Dawson was there, intent on doing honour to the occasion, and Mr and Mrs Manners and Captain Saugster of the “John Seaton,” and of all people in the world, Sir Percy Harefield! who did not, it is to be supposed, come without an invitation, but who possibly suggested to Mr Dawson that he would like to receive one.

And all went well. There was no large party and no regular speech-making. The bridegroom said nothing, Captain Calderwood said only, “If he could have chosen a brother out of all the world, he would have chosen no other;” and Mr Dawson remembered the words of Jean’s letter to Marion, which she had shown him before she sent it away. Mr Dawson said a few words, but he was not so happy, because he could not help again expressing a wish that “by-ganes might be by-ganes,” which Mrs Calderwood thought he might have omitted on that day at least.

It came to an end, and the bride and bridegroom went away, and Mr Dawson and Sir Percy Harefield went with Captain Calderwood to see his ship, and they were all very friendly together; so friendly that Sir Percy had thoughts of turning his back on London and the prospective delights of the moors, and taking the voyage with Captain Calderwood to see what the other side of the world was like.

“And what thought ye o’ Willie himself?” asked Miss Jean, when Mr Dawson was telling her all this, after he had been at home a day or two. “Is he likely to be such a man as his father was?”

“There’s mair o’ him than ever there would ha’e been o’ his father, if he had been spared, poor man. He is much thought of by his employers. I thought him stiff at first. But he thawed out and was cordial and kindly after a little. He would have made the Englishman very welcome to go with him, if he had keepit in the same mind till he sailed. But I doubt, as Jean once said o’ him, he would have found him a heavy handfu’ ere a’ was done. I ken no greater misfortune that can befall a man than to have nothing to do in the world.”

“He has his soldiering?”

“No, he hasna even that now, and he is unfortunate in caring little for the occupations that seem to pass the time for folk o’ his class. He is coming north again, he says, and I dare say we’ll get a sight o’ him.”

“He was ay an idle man, even when he was a poor man.”

“Yes. But I ay think he might have been made something of, if the right woman would have taken him in hand.”

Miss Jean could not agree with him.

“And whether or no’, he needna come north to find her,” said she.

“No, I suppose not, but it is a pity.”

“George, man! I canna but wonder to hear you,” said his sister gravely.

“Weel, he has a kind heart, and I canna but be sorry for him. And he is a perfect gentleman.”

“Being sorry for him is one thing, and being willing to give him our best is another,” said Miss Jean, with a sharpness that made her brother smile. “But I’m no’ feared—”

Miss Jean paused. She was not quite sure that she had nothing to fear. To her it seemed that the Englishman had been wonderfully constant—“for the like o’ him”—and she was not quite so sure of Jean as she used to be.

One day while her father was away, they had been speaking of Mr Dawson’s wish that George should take his bride to Saughleas. Jean had said the best way to settle it would be for her to go away to a house of her own and then George could not refuse to take Marion to Saughleas.

“Weel,” said her aunt, “I dare say that might be brought about, if you could bring your mind to it.”

“I’ll bide a wee,” said Jean laughing, but her face grew grave enough in a minute or two.

“I have ay thought myself of some use to my father and George, but now George is away, and even my father would be content with Marion in my place.”

“That is scarcely the most cheerful way to look at it, or the wisest. And it’s no’ like you, Jean, my dear.”

“Are you thinking that I am jealous of Marion, Aunt Jean? No, it is not that I love her dearly, and I am glad for George, and for my father, since he is pleased. But are you sure that it gaveyouno pang to give up your brother to Mary Keith?”

Miss Jean smiled, and shook her head.

“I was growing an old woman even at that time. No, though she was almost a stranger to me, I was only glad for George. They loved one another.”

“And besides you were an independent woman, with a life and work of your own, and content.”

“Jean, my dear,” said her aunt, laying down her work and folding her hands on her lap, as was her way when she had something serious to say, “unless ye are keeping something in your heart that ye have never told to me, and there be a reason for it, I would hardly say that you are looking at things with your usual sense and cheerfulness. Do you think that your father has less need o’ you now than he has ay had? And do you think it is because o’ you that George is so set on taking his wife to the High-street? I see no great change that has come to you or your work, and though it is like giving up your brother in a sense, yet you are glad to do it. What has happened to you, my dear? Would it ease your heart to tell it to me?”

Jean had changed colour many times while her aunt was speaking, and now she sat with her eyes turned away to the sea, as if she were considering whether it would be well to speak. Miss Jean kept silence. She needed no words to tell her the girl’s trouble. She had guessed the cause of the weariness and restlessness that Jean could not hide from her, though she could keep a cheerful face before the rest of her world. But she thought it possible that after so long a silence it might do her heart good to speak, if it were only a word, and so she waited silently. But on the whole she was not sorry when Jean rose and took her hat in her hand to go.

“No, Auntie Jean, I have nothing to tell you, positively nothing. I am ‘ower weel off,’ as Tibbie Cairnie says. That is what ails me, I dare say.”

“You’ll ha’e May and her bairns through the summer, and plenty to do, and there is nothing better than that to put away—”

“Discontent,” said Jean, as her aunt hesitated for a word. “My dear, ye should ha’e gone with your father and George. It would ha’e done you good.”

“Well, perhaps it might. But it is too late now. Did I tell you that May wrote that Sir Percy Harefield was at the wedding?”

“No, ye didna tell me.”

“May thinks he asked my father to invite him, and my father seems to be as much taken up with him as ever. He is coming north again, she says.”

“And has his new tide changed him any, and his new possessions, does your sister say?”

“He has grown fat—more portly, May calls it,” said Jean laughing. “She says he is going to Parliament.”

“He’ll do little ill there, it’s likely.”

“And as little good, ye think, auntie. It will keep him out of mischief, as he used to say. And after all, I dare say he will do as well as most of them. He is a gentleman anyway, and that is ay something.”

And then she went away, and while Miss Jean mused on the cause of Jean’s discontent, she could not forget what she called the Englishman’s constancy, and she heartily wished that something might happen to keep him from coming north for a while.

“And I canna help thinking that if Jean had gone to her brother’s marriage, something might have happened to set her heart at rest.”

But that was not Jean’s thought. She had not said until the last moment that she was not going, partly because she wished to avoid discussion, and partly because of something else. The many good reasons by which she had succeeded in convincing her father that it was best for her to stay at home, were none of them the reason why she did not go. That could be told to no one. It was only with pain and something like a sense of shame—though she told herself angrily that there was no cause for shame—that she acknowledged to herself the reason.

“I care for him still, though he has forgotten me. I ay cared for him. And he loved me once, I know well. But if he loved me still, he would come and tell me. I could not go and meet him now—and his mother’s eyes would be on me—and yet, oh! how I long to see his face after all these years!”

After all these years she might well say. For since May’s marriage day, when her heart fell low as Marion told her that her brother had gone away, she had never seen him. He had come north once with George when she was away from home, and he had been in England more than once while she was visiting his sister, but he had never come to see her.

It had hurt her, but she had comforted herself, saying it was because of her father or perhaps also because of his own mother that he did not come. But since Marion was coming home to them, that could be no reason now if he cared, and almost up to the last moment she had waited, hoping that he might come. And then she told herself it was impossible that she should go to meet him, caring for him still.

“And the best thing I can do now is to put it all out of my mind forever.”

If she only could have done so, and she did her best to try. May came home with her father; and she and her pretty boys and her baby daughter were with them all the summer. And by and by George brought home his wife, and it was a gay and busy time with them all.

May, who saw most things that were passing, noticed that in some ways her sister was different from what she used to be. She was not the leader in all the gay doings, but left the young visitors at the house to amuse themselves in their own way. She was intent on household matters, as was right, and she took more time to herself in the quiet of her own room than she used to do. But she was merry enough with the children, and indeed gave much of her leisure to them, going about in the house and the garden with baby Mary in her arms, and the little brothers following in their train for many a pleasant hour.

George brought his wife home to the High-street. Even Mr Dawson after a while acknowledged that they had been wise to secure for themselves the quiet of a house of their own. Not that they began in these first days by living to themselves. There was enough to do. There were gay doings in many homes in honour of the bride, and the honour intended was generally accepted none the less gratefully or gracefully, that the gay doings could have been happily dispensed with by them both.

They had pleasures and occupations of another kind also, for Marion was too well-known to the poor folk of Portie to make her coming among them as young Mrs Dawson an intrusion or a trouble. So the young husband and wife went in and out together, “the very sicht o’ them,” as even Mrs Cairnie owned, “doing a body gude as they passed.”

And on the comings and goings of these happy young people, on the honour paid them, on their kindly words and deeds, and heartsome ways with rich and poor, with old friends and new, Mr Dawson looked and pondered with a constant, silent delight which few besides the two Jeans saw or suspected. Even they could not but wonder sometimes at the unceasing interest he found in them and their doings at home and abroad.

He wondered at it himself sometimes. It was like a new sweet spring of life to him to see them, and to hear about them, and to know that all things went well with them; and though few out of his own household could have seen any change in him, it was clear in many ways to those who saw him in his own house day by day.

“God leads His ain by many ways to Himself,” thought Miss Jean in her solitary musings over it all. “They that think they ken a’ the secrets o’ nature tell us that the flowing waters and the changing seasons, bringing whiles the frost and whiles the sunshine, have made from the rocks that look so unchangeable, much o’ the soil out of which comes bread to us all. And who kens but God’s gender dealings, coming after sore trouble, may prepare his heart for the richer springing o’ the good seed, till it bring forth a hundred-fold to His honour and glory. I ay kenned that the Lord had a richt hold o’ him through all, and that He would show him His face at last. Blessed be His name?”

“It whiles does folk gude to get their ain way about things, though that’s no’ the belief o’ gude folk generally, and nae in the Bible, as they would gar us believe,” said Mrs Cairnie, who never kept her opinions to herself if she could get any one to listen to them. “George Dawson is growing an auld failed man—and nae won’er considerin’ how lang he has been toilin’ and moilin’, gi’ein’ himsel’ neither nicht’s rest nor day’s ease. But auld and failed though he be, there’s a satisfied look on his face that naebody has seen there since the days he used to come in to the kirk wi’ his wife and a’ his bairns followin’ after him,—langer ago than ye’ll mind, Maggie, my woman. And for that matter naebody saw it then. It was satisfaction o’ anither kind that he had in those days, I’m thinkin’.”

“But, grannie,” said Maggie Saugster, giving her the name that the old woman liked best, though she would not acknowledge it, “is it about young Mr and Mrs Dawson you are thinkin’, or is it about May and her bairns? Because I mind ye once said to my mother and me that you doubted the old man wasna weel pleased when Mr George brought Marion Calderwood home.”

“Oh! ay. Ye’re gude at mindin’ things that’s nae speired at you whiles. He’s gotten his will about mair things than that of late, and what I say is, that it has done him gude, as trouble never did.”

“Maybe his satisfaction comes from giving up his ain will, rather than from getting it. I ken the look ye mean, mother,” said her daughter gently.

“Weel, it may be. A thing seems to ha’e taken a turn sin’ I was young. But it’s nae the look his face used to wear when man or woman countered him in the old days.”

“Ay. But it would be different when the Lord took him in hand.”

“The Lord has been lang about it, if it’s only the day that He’s takin’ him in hand. But what I’m sayin’ is this, that it does folk gude to get their ain will about things whiles, and I only wish that the Lord would try it on me, and set me strong on my ain twa feet again,” said Mrs Cairnie, taking up her crutch with a sigh.

“Or satisfy you with His will instead. That would do as well, mother.”

“Weel, weel! That’s your way o’ it, and if I’m allowed to tak’ the wrang gait, it winna be for want o’ tellin’,” said the old woman, moving slowly down to the corner of the street which was almost the length of her tether now. The eyes of the others followed her pitifully.

“She’s nae that sharp now—nae that soon angered, I mean,” said Maggie, with some hesitation, meaning to say something kind, but not quite sure how far her sister-in-law might accept her sympathy.

“No,” said the other after a pause. “And I whiles think that the Lord is getting His will o’ her too, though she hardly kens it hersel’ yet.”

“Ay. As Miss Jean says, the Lord has many ways,” said Maggie reverently.

Chapter Twenty Five.Suspense.And so the summer wore over, and May went home with all her children, though Jean would fain have kept one boy with her. But her mother feared the bleak east winds for the rather delicate Georgie who was the favourite at Saughleas, and she had reasons that satisfied herself for taking little Keith home also, but she promised to send them both back again as soon as the winter was over.The summer ended, and autumn days grew short, and a quiet time came that reminded Jean of the days when May had gone to London “to meet her fate,” and she was waiting for the coming home of the “John Seaton.” There was the same long dreaming in the gloaming, before her father came in, the same listening to the woeful voices of the winds and the sea, and the same shadow on Jean’s face and in her wistful eyes that her father had seen in those days—now so long ago. He sometimes surprised it now, but, if this happened, it went hard with Jean if she did not make him forget it before he slept.About the new year Mrs Calderwood’s old friend died, and when her will was read, to her surprise Mrs Calderwood found that she had left her money enough to enable her to live henceforth free from the cares which accompany the task of making too little do the work of enough, as had been her lot during the greater part of her life of widowhood.George, who had gone to London to be with her at that time, insisted on bringing her back to Scotland with him. She had exhausted herself in attendance on her old friend, and she needed a change. Later she was to return and make all necessary arrangements, but in the mean time it would have been neither wise nor kind he thought to leave her there alone.For this George had a better reason than he gave to her. News had come of terrible storms that had passed over Southern seas. Already rumours of disaster and loss had reached England, and the owners of Captain Calderwood’s ship, the “Ben Nevis,” were beginning to feel some anxiety with regard to her.Another ship, the “Swallow,” had arrived from Melbourne, bringing word that the “Ben Nevis” was to have sailed three days after the time she had put to sea. The voyage had been a long one, though happily the “Swallow” had passed beyond the latitudes where the storms had raged most fiercely before the danger had arisen. The “Ben Nevis” was the swifter vessel of the two, and by rights, she ought to have reached England before her. And when ten days passed, and then ten more, there was good reason for fear for her safety.Happily Captain Calderwood’s outward voyage and his stay in Melbourne had been shorter than his mother had calculated upon, so that as yet no thought of anxiety had come to disturb her, and she was glad to go with George, believing that she could pay a few weeks in Scotland with her daughter, and still be in London in time to receive her son when he should return.It was Mrs Calderwood’s first visit after an absence of several years, to a place which had been her home during the greater part of her life. There were many to welcome her, and there was much to see and hear, and she was greatly occupied. But George wondered sometimes that she should live on from day to day, showing no misgivings, even no surprise, at the continued absence of her son.He need not have wondered. She had been a sailor’s daughter, and a sailor’s wife, and she had lived the greater part of her life among sailors’ wives and widows, and had learned the necessity of giving no unwise indulgence to fancies and fears, and to keep quiet and face them when fears and fancies had to give place at last to a knowledge of disaster and loss.She had had anxious thoughts doubtless while she awaited the expected summons to meet her son, when the ship should be heard from, but outwardly she was calm and even cheerful. It was wise for her own sake not to dwell on her fears—which indeed were hardly fears as yet, but only a vague movement of surprise and impatience that she should have to wait so long. And it was wise also for the sake of her daughter, who was not so strong as usual. So she kept herself cheerful and seemed to be taking so little thought of what might be awaiting her, that George questioned at last whether it might not be both kind and wise to prepare her for the shock which he began to fear must come soon. This painful task did not fall to him however, and Mrs Calderwood was already better prepared for it than he knew.It was drawing near the end of February by this time, and it was a milder season than Portie often sees. There were weeks of bleak weather to come yet, for this eastern coast rarely escapes a full share of that sooner or later. But in the mean time the days were fair and calm, and looking over a pale grey sea, bright now and then with a blink of sunshine, thoughts of storm and danger did not come so readily, as with a wild and angry sea they might have done. But even Marion was beginning to wonder that her mother said nothing of what might be keeping the “Ben Nevis” so long.And then a single word came to break the silence between them, and they knew that the mother’s quietness had cost her something. But she was quiet still when doubts and fears and even despair were busy at her heart.They were still sitting at breakfast one fair morning when Jean came in. She was just as usual, they all thought at the moment, but afterwards each remembered the look on her face as she opened the door. The air had brought a colour to her cheeks, so she was not pale, but there was a startled look in her eyes as she turned them from one to another before she uttered a word. It changed as she marked the unmoved face of each.She kissed Marion, and then, strangely enough, she kissed Mrs Calderwood, and laid two pale primroses, the first of the season, on a book which she held in her hand.They were friendly, these two, and even more than friendly, but there was always a touch of shyness and reserve between them, even when they were most friendly. Marion, who so dearly loved them both, saw it and wondered at it often, but she smiled now as Jean stooped and touched her lips to her mother’s cheek. Mrs Calderwood grew a shade paler, and a question came into her eyes as she met Jean’s look. But Jean had no answer for it.“I found them in a sheltered nook in the wood when I was out this morning. They are come earlier than usual, and there will soon be more of them.”Jean did not meet her look as she thanked her, but turned to George who was preparing to go out, nor would she sit down.“I only looked in as I passed, to see if all was well with you. I have many things to do, but I will come in again before I go home, unless I should be detained longer than I expect in the town.” So in a little she and her brother went out together. “Are you taking the paper with you, George?” said Mrs Calderwood following them to the door.“Not if you wish to see it. I will send for it by and by when I want it.”“You have seen it, George?” said Jean as they went on. “If you mean the paragraph about the ‘Ben Nevis,’ yes, I have seen it. It does not say much beyond the usual, ‘Fears are entertained for the safety, etc.’”“And now she will see it.”“Yes, I think it is as well. It will help to prepare her for what she may have to hear later.”“George,” said Jean in a little, “does that mean that you are afraid?”“There is cause for anxiety. There was that before we left London. I only wonder that Mrs Calderwood has said so little about it.”“And you left London more than six weeks ago.” George told her of the succession of terrible storms that had swept over the Southern seas about the close of the year, in latitudes where possibly the “Ben Nevis” had been at that time, acknowledging that there would be reason to fear for the fate of the ship unless she were heard from soon. His anxiety had been greater than he knew, and he had kept it to himself so long that to speak was a relief, which led him to say more to his sister than he would otherwise have done. His words were less hopeful than he meant them to be, until Jean said, “Do you mean that you give them up?”“By no means. I do not even give up the ship. I know Willie Calderwood and what he can do too well to do that yet a white. And even if they had to forsake the ship, the chances are in favour of safety for the men. All that depends on circumstances of which we can know nothing. But I by no means give up the ship even yet.”“But, George, should you not have stayed to tell Mrs Calderwood so?”“No, I think not. There will be time enough for that, and she is of a nature to meet the first pain best alone.”“But Marion?”“She will not speak to Marion at once. And, Jean, it is as well that the awful possibility of loss should be admitted. But my hopes are stronger than my fears.”“The awful possibility of loss?” Jean repeated the words with white lips, not knowing that she did so. They had lengthened their walk, passing Miss Jean’s house and going on to the pier. They turned now and came back in silence. At Miss Jean’s door they paused.“It will be as well to say nothing as yet,” said George.“Not to Aunt Jean?”“Oh! yes. I have spoken to her already. I mean to people generally. And, Jean, go and see Marion and her mother again before you go home.”But Jean said nothing to her aunt about what she had heard. She stayed her usual time, and discussed certain purchases that were to be made of material for the summer outfit of some of her aunt’s “puir bodies,” and went into matters of detail as to quantity, and needles and thread, and as to the help that each would need in the making of her gown. And then she went away and did all else that she meant to do when she left home, and lingered over it, till it was too late, she told herself, to go to the High-street again.Three days passed before she went there, and the like had seldom happened since Marion came home. She did not know how she could speak to the mother of the anguish and suspense that lay before her, and she shrank from a betrayal of her own pain.But when she went in on the fourth day it struck her with surprise to see that they were just the same as usual. No change of grief or terror had passed upon them. Mrs Calderwood was grave and pale, but she spoke about various matters cheerfully enough, though she made no allusion to the fears for her son.Marion spoke of her brother, and said how hopeful George was about him, and how the old sailors about the pier were saying to one another, that Captain Calderwood was not the man to be caught unprepared for a storm, and being prepared, with plenty of sea room, what was there to fear? He would bring his ship home all right. There was no fear of that.But the next news that came made even the old sailors shake their heads when the ship was spoken of. A boat had been picked up by a South American vessel, filled with men from the wreck of the “Ben Nevis” and from the Southern port to which these had been carried came the tidings.They had encountered a succession of storms, which had so strained and shattered the good ship “Ben Nevis,” that there seemed a fairer chance of escaping with life by betaking themselves to the boats than by remaining with the ship. There were not many passengers on board, only seventeen all told. Nine of these, with four sailors, were in the boat which the American had saved when they had been five days away from the wreck.They could say nothing of those whom they had left on board, though they had still seen the ship afloat in the distance on the second day. There was no familiar name in the list of the rescued, but it was said that the weather had moderated while they were in the vicinity of the ship, and there seemed no reason to doubt that the rest of the passengers and crew had been able to save themselves.Captain Calderwood’s name was mentioned in terms that brought tears of pride and sorrow to the eyes of those who loved him. His courage and kindness and patience had never failed through all the terrible days of storm. Discipline had been maintained through all, as perfectly as during the summer calm that preceded those awful days; and the last sight which the rescued saw as they drew off from the ship, to await the manning of the other boats, was their captain standing on the deck encouraging them with hand and voice.And that was all. But that was much, and now they could wait for further tidings with patience. On the whole they kept in good heart for a while. But as time went on, the suspense and anxiety of the days that went before, seemed to pass into each new day as it came. For they knew that each passing day without tidings mocked the hope they had so long cherished.Through all the mother waited quietly. Never quite without hope that she would see her son again, but after a while the poor pretence of cheerfulness for which she had striven, because of Marion, failed beyond her power to help it. The silent patience which had been the habit of her life under other troubles, stood her in good stead now. And when this failed her, and the restlessness, of a slowly dying hope came upon her, she would go away by herself till she could hide all tokens of her pain again.Sometimes she went to Miss Jean’s for comfort, but often when her daughter believed her to be there, she was walking up and down the wet sands, or sitting in some sheltered nook among the rocks, striving for calmness to bear to the end. She had gone through it all before, and now she seemed to be waiting again and longing and fearing for his father, while she waited for her only son. When other eyes were upon her she was calm enough, and troubled no one with her trouble, but she needed the rest which solitude gave her to carry her through the lengthening days.Marion bore the long suspense well, they all said. She was young, and it was her nature to look for brightness rather than gloom, and no such trouble had come upon her as had darkened the life of her mother. There were only hopeful views expressed in her presence, and though she knew that cheerfulness was encouraged and often assumed for her sake, she had the sense and courage to respond to the efforts of those who loved her, and to keep herself quiet and patient for their sakes.One good came to Mrs Calderwood out of the trouble of those days. She had forgiven Mr Dawson the hard words and unreasonable anger of the old days, or she believed that she had, but even to herself she could not say that she had forgotten them. She was never quite at her ease in his presence. It was not so much that she disliked him, as that she could not convince herself that he did not dislike her. The sight of her could only, she thought, recall to him much that he could not but wish to forget; and if she could do so, without remark, she generally chose to be out of the way during his frequent visits to the house.But whatever he might feel towards her, there could be no doubt as to the esteem in which he held her son, or as to the anxiety which he shared with them all. He was not, as a general thing, ready with words of sympathy, but she had seen tears in his eyes more than once as he spoke her son’s name, and her heart could not but soften towards him, and a real friendliness, which in other circumstances might have come but slowly, grew up in this troubled time between them.There was no lack of sympathy. Not a man or woman in Portie, but felt deeply for the trouble of Willie Calderwood’s mother and sister, though they were for the most part shy as to any expression of it. Indeed Mrs Calderwood kept out of the way of words. George guarded his wife from the hearing of any thing that would move her out of her usual quiet, and when he was not at hand, Jean guarded her as carefully for his sake.To Jean, as to the rest, the days passed slowly and heavily. To the eyes of even her aunt she was just as usual, no graver nor sadder than was natural since a friend, and one who was more than a friend to those she loved, was in danger. But no one ever heard her speak of the anxiety that oppressed them all. She listened in silence when, as is the way at such times, the causes for hope or fear were gone over, and over, and over again, or she went away and did not listen, but she never put in her word with the rest.It was only as a friend that she had a right to grieve for Willie Calderwood, she told herself. They had never been lovers. They had cared for one another long ago—oh! so long ago now. But they had not seen one another for years, because he had not cared to see her, and it was all past now. She had been angry at first, and then sorry. Yes, she had suffered sharply for a while, she acknowledged. But she was neither sorry nor angry now. She was anxious for his safety, and she longed for his return, as all his friends did. And her heart ached for his mother and his sister, and for George, to whom he was both brother and friend. And that was all.But a day came when her heart spoke, nay, cried out as the heart of no mere friend could cry. She was sitting one day in Miss Jean’s parlour, when her brother came in. There were tears in his eyes and a strange, uncertain smile on his lips, and he laid his hand on her shoulder as she stood by the window, pausing a moment before he spoke, as if he were not sure of his voice.“Jean,” he said, “there is news at last.”Jean grew very white.“Well?” said she sitting down.“Is it good news, George, man?” said his aunt hastily.“It is just such news as one would expect to hear from Willie Calderwood. Yes, I call it good news, whatever may come next.”And then he told them how another of the “Ben Nevis’” boats had been heard from. After much suffering from anxiety and exhaustion, they who left the ship in it had landed somewhere on the West African coast, and had, after some delay, been taken from thence in a Portuguese vessel to Lisbon. And now some of them at least had reached England. And this was the news they brought.When those who were to go in the second boat were about to take their places in it, Captain Calderwood had, to their utter amazement, declared his intention of remaining with the ship for that night at least. The vessel was new and strongly built, and within the hour he had seen some tokens that led him to believe that, during the storm, it had not gone so hardly with her as had been at first feared.The cargo was a valuable one, and his duty to his employers demanded that, while there was a chance of saving it and the ship, he should remain on board. At the same time he acknowledged, that as far as could now be judged, there was but a chance in ten, that he could do this, while by taking to the boats at once, there was a fair prospect of their being picked up by one of the many homeward bound vessels which at that season followed the course which they had taken.Then he called for volunteers to remain with him. Not a man among the sailors but would have stayed at his bidding. But an able crew was placed in the departing boat, and he was left with just men enough to work the ship, among them three passengers, should all go well. Should they find when the night was over, that chances were against saving the ship, they also were to take to the boat and do what might be done to escape with the rest.They who were in the second boat had stayed in the vicinity of the ship that night and the next day and night, but when the second morning dawned she was no longer to be seen. Whether she had sunk or whether she had sailed away out of their sight they had no means of knowing, nor could they form any conjecture as to the fate of those who remained on board. They might have betaken themselves to the boat at the last moment, or they might have gone down with the ship.But whatever had happened this was sure—No braver man or better sailor than Captain Calderwood had ever commanded a ship. This was all that was to be told about the “Ben Nevis.”“And what do you gather from it all?” said Miss Jean in a little. “Ye dinna give up all hope?”“We can only wait patiently a little longer. If the bringing home of the disabled ship was a thing to be done, Captain Calderwood was the man to do it. No, I by no means give up hope. He may come any day now.”They had said this many times before, and now none of them had the courage to say that he should have been home long ago if all had been well.“I fear it was an unwise courage that led him to undertake an impossible work,” said Miss Jean sadly.“No, aunt. You must not say that. He must have seen more than a possibility, or he would never have risked life. It was his simple duty as he saw it, neither more nor less. We may be sure of that, knowing him as we do.”“But, oh! George, what is a ship’s cargo, or even the ship itself, in comparison with a young strong life like his?”“Ay, aunt. But duty is the first thought with a true man like Captain Calderwood. And he has all the resources that strength and patience and skill and courage can give to a man, and I cannot but hope that he’ll come safe home yet.”“He is in God’s hands,” said Miss Jean.“Ay, is he. And God bless him wherever he is,” said George with a break in his voice.Jean had sat in silence, turning her eyes from one to the other as each had spoken.“Have you told his mother?” said Miss Jean.“Yes, she has heard all. It seems two of the sailors have reported themselves to the owners in London, and she thinks she must see them, though I fear it will do little good.”“It will give her something to do anyway,” said Miss Jean. “But she is quite worn out with anxiety, though she has said so little about it, and I doubt she ought not to go alone.”“No, I shall go with her,” said George. “It would make Marion miserable to think of her mother with her sore heart solitary in London. We need not stay long.”“And after a day or two she will think of her daughter’s need of her, and come home. If only the suspense were over one way or another—”“No, aunt, don’t say that. We have hope yet—strong hope of seeing him again. If you only heard the tales I hear on the pier about the wonderful escapes that skill and courage have won. Hope! Yes, I have hope.”“My dear, I have heard all that could be told before you were born. But all the same there has many a ship gone down since then, and many a sore heart has waited and hoped in vain. But I’m no’ goin’ to say all that to Willie Calderwood’s mother, true though it be.”“And, George,” said Jean speaking for the first time, “you may be quite at peace about Marion.”“Yes. I leave her with you. She will keep herself quiet.”“We will take her to Saughleas. That will please my father.”And so it was settled, and the long days went on. Jean busied herself with her father and her sister, and went out and in just as usual, giving no time when other eyes were upon her to her own thoughts. But she welcomed the night. Sitting in the darkness, with only the grey gleam of the sea for her eyes to rest upon, she gave herself up to thoughts of her friend.She called him her friend, but she knew that he was more than a friend to her; and she had at least this comfort now, that she was no longer angry or ashamed to care for him still, although he had forgotten her. He would always be her friend now, whether he lived or died. She might grieve for those who loved him, and whom he loved, and for the young strong life lost to the world which needed such as he to do its best work, but he would still be hers in memory, and more in death than in life.And yet she had a vague dread of the dreariness and emptiness of a world in which he no longer lived and moved, and doubted her power to adapt herself to its strangeness. She knew, or she tried to believe, that good would come out of it all even to her, and when she came to this she always remembered her aunt.It had been by “kissing the rod” under such discipline as this that her aunt, after long, patient years, had grown to be the best, the most unselfish woman that she knew; yes, and the wisest with the highest wisdom.Sometimes she had said to herself and to others, that she meant to grow to be such a woman as her aunt, and so take up her work in the world when it should be time for her to lay it down. And now, perhaps, the Lord was taking her at her word, and was about to prepare her for His own work, in His own way, which must be best; and she tried to be glad that it should be so. But when she looked on to the life that lay before her, her heart sank at the length of the way.“I am not like Aunt Jean. I am not good enough to get her work to do, and to take pleasure in it. Maybe after long years I might be able to do it. If I only had the heart to care for any thing any more!“But I must be patient. The pain is new and sore yet, but time heals most wounds, and as auntie says, ‘The Lord is ay kind.’”This was her last thought most nights; but there were times when she could not get beyond the darkness, and lay lost and helpless till the morning. Then she put aside her own pain, and grew cheerful and hopeful for the sake of others. If she came to the task with white cheeks and heavy eyes, as happened now and then, no one wondered, or indeed noticed it much, for she was none the less ready with cheerful words and kindly deeds for the comfort of them all.

And so the summer wore over, and May went home with all her children, though Jean would fain have kept one boy with her. But her mother feared the bleak east winds for the rather delicate Georgie who was the favourite at Saughleas, and she had reasons that satisfied herself for taking little Keith home also, but she promised to send them both back again as soon as the winter was over.

The summer ended, and autumn days grew short, and a quiet time came that reminded Jean of the days when May had gone to London “to meet her fate,” and she was waiting for the coming home of the “John Seaton.” There was the same long dreaming in the gloaming, before her father came in, the same listening to the woeful voices of the winds and the sea, and the same shadow on Jean’s face and in her wistful eyes that her father had seen in those days—now so long ago. He sometimes surprised it now, but, if this happened, it went hard with Jean if she did not make him forget it before he slept.

About the new year Mrs Calderwood’s old friend died, and when her will was read, to her surprise Mrs Calderwood found that she had left her money enough to enable her to live henceforth free from the cares which accompany the task of making too little do the work of enough, as had been her lot during the greater part of her life of widowhood.

George, who had gone to London to be with her at that time, insisted on bringing her back to Scotland with him. She had exhausted herself in attendance on her old friend, and she needed a change. Later she was to return and make all necessary arrangements, but in the mean time it would have been neither wise nor kind he thought to leave her there alone.

For this George had a better reason than he gave to her. News had come of terrible storms that had passed over Southern seas. Already rumours of disaster and loss had reached England, and the owners of Captain Calderwood’s ship, the “Ben Nevis,” were beginning to feel some anxiety with regard to her.

Another ship, the “Swallow,” had arrived from Melbourne, bringing word that the “Ben Nevis” was to have sailed three days after the time she had put to sea. The voyage had been a long one, though happily the “Swallow” had passed beyond the latitudes where the storms had raged most fiercely before the danger had arisen. The “Ben Nevis” was the swifter vessel of the two, and by rights, she ought to have reached England before her. And when ten days passed, and then ten more, there was good reason for fear for her safety.

Happily Captain Calderwood’s outward voyage and his stay in Melbourne had been shorter than his mother had calculated upon, so that as yet no thought of anxiety had come to disturb her, and she was glad to go with George, believing that she could pay a few weeks in Scotland with her daughter, and still be in London in time to receive her son when he should return.

It was Mrs Calderwood’s first visit after an absence of several years, to a place which had been her home during the greater part of her life. There were many to welcome her, and there was much to see and hear, and she was greatly occupied. But George wondered sometimes that she should live on from day to day, showing no misgivings, even no surprise, at the continued absence of her son.

He need not have wondered. She had been a sailor’s daughter, and a sailor’s wife, and she had lived the greater part of her life among sailors’ wives and widows, and had learned the necessity of giving no unwise indulgence to fancies and fears, and to keep quiet and face them when fears and fancies had to give place at last to a knowledge of disaster and loss.

She had had anxious thoughts doubtless while she awaited the expected summons to meet her son, when the ship should be heard from, but outwardly she was calm and even cheerful. It was wise for her own sake not to dwell on her fears—which indeed were hardly fears as yet, but only a vague movement of surprise and impatience that she should have to wait so long. And it was wise also for the sake of her daughter, who was not so strong as usual. So she kept herself cheerful and seemed to be taking so little thought of what might be awaiting her, that George questioned at last whether it might not be both kind and wise to prepare her for the shock which he began to fear must come soon. This painful task did not fall to him however, and Mrs Calderwood was already better prepared for it than he knew.

It was drawing near the end of February by this time, and it was a milder season than Portie often sees. There were weeks of bleak weather to come yet, for this eastern coast rarely escapes a full share of that sooner or later. But in the mean time the days were fair and calm, and looking over a pale grey sea, bright now and then with a blink of sunshine, thoughts of storm and danger did not come so readily, as with a wild and angry sea they might have done. But even Marion was beginning to wonder that her mother said nothing of what might be keeping the “Ben Nevis” so long.

And then a single word came to break the silence between them, and they knew that the mother’s quietness had cost her something. But she was quiet still when doubts and fears and even despair were busy at her heart.

They were still sitting at breakfast one fair morning when Jean came in. She was just as usual, they all thought at the moment, but afterwards each remembered the look on her face as she opened the door. The air had brought a colour to her cheeks, so she was not pale, but there was a startled look in her eyes as she turned them from one to another before she uttered a word. It changed as she marked the unmoved face of each.

She kissed Marion, and then, strangely enough, she kissed Mrs Calderwood, and laid two pale primroses, the first of the season, on a book which she held in her hand.

They were friendly, these two, and even more than friendly, but there was always a touch of shyness and reserve between them, even when they were most friendly. Marion, who so dearly loved them both, saw it and wondered at it often, but she smiled now as Jean stooped and touched her lips to her mother’s cheek. Mrs Calderwood grew a shade paler, and a question came into her eyes as she met Jean’s look. But Jean had no answer for it.

“I found them in a sheltered nook in the wood when I was out this morning. They are come earlier than usual, and there will soon be more of them.”

Jean did not meet her look as she thanked her, but turned to George who was preparing to go out, nor would she sit down.

“I only looked in as I passed, to see if all was well with you. I have many things to do, but I will come in again before I go home, unless I should be detained longer than I expect in the town.” So in a little she and her brother went out together. “Are you taking the paper with you, George?” said Mrs Calderwood following them to the door.

“Not if you wish to see it. I will send for it by and by when I want it.”

“You have seen it, George?” said Jean as they went on. “If you mean the paragraph about the ‘Ben Nevis,’ yes, I have seen it. It does not say much beyond the usual, ‘Fears are entertained for the safety, etc.’”

“And now she will see it.”

“Yes, I think it is as well. It will help to prepare her for what she may have to hear later.”

“George,” said Jean in a little, “does that mean that you are afraid?”

“There is cause for anxiety. There was that before we left London. I only wonder that Mrs Calderwood has said so little about it.”

“And you left London more than six weeks ago.” George told her of the succession of terrible storms that had swept over the Southern seas about the close of the year, in latitudes where possibly the “Ben Nevis” had been at that time, acknowledging that there would be reason to fear for the fate of the ship unless she were heard from soon. His anxiety had been greater than he knew, and he had kept it to himself so long that to speak was a relief, which led him to say more to his sister than he would otherwise have done. His words were less hopeful than he meant them to be, until Jean said, “Do you mean that you give them up?”

“By no means. I do not even give up the ship. I know Willie Calderwood and what he can do too well to do that yet a white. And even if they had to forsake the ship, the chances are in favour of safety for the men. All that depends on circumstances of which we can know nothing. But I by no means give up the ship even yet.”

“But, George, should you not have stayed to tell Mrs Calderwood so?”

“No, I think not. There will be time enough for that, and she is of a nature to meet the first pain best alone.”

“But Marion?”

“She will not speak to Marion at once. And, Jean, it is as well that the awful possibility of loss should be admitted. But my hopes are stronger than my fears.”

“The awful possibility of loss?” Jean repeated the words with white lips, not knowing that she did so. They had lengthened their walk, passing Miss Jean’s house and going on to the pier. They turned now and came back in silence. At Miss Jean’s door they paused.

“It will be as well to say nothing as yet,” said George.

“Not to Aunt Jean?”

“Oh! yes. I have spoken to her already. I mean to people generally. And, Jean, go and see Marion and her mother again before you go home.”

But Jean said nothing to her aunt about what she had heard. She stayed her usual time, and discussed certain purchases that were to be made of material for the summer outfit of some of her aunt’s “puir bodies,” and went into matters of detail as to quantity, and needles and thread, and as to the help that each would need in the making of her gown. And then she went away and did all else that she meant to do when she left home, and lingered over it, till it was too late, she told herself, to go to the High-street again.

Three days passed before she went there, and the like had seldom happened since Marion came home. She did not know how she could speak to the mother of the anguish and suspense that lay before her, and she shrank from a betrayal of her own pain.

But when she went in on the fourth day it struck her with surprise to see that they were just the same as usual. No change of grief or terror had passed upon them. Mrs Calderwood was grave and pale, but she spoke about various matters cheerfully enough, though she made no allusion to the fears for her son.

Marion spoke of her brother, and said how hopeful George was about him, and how the old sailors about the pier were saying to one another, that Captain Calderwood was not the man to be caught unprepared for a storm, and being prepared, with plenty of sea room, what was there to fear? He would bring his ship home all right. There was no fear of that.

But the next news that came made even the old sailors shake their heads when the ship was spoken of. A boat had been picked up by a South American vessel, filled with men from the wreck of the “Ben Nevis” and from the Southern port to which these had been carried came the tidings.

They had encountered a succession of storms, which had so strained and shattered the good ship “Ben Nevis,” that there seemed a fairer chance of escaping with life by betaking themselves to the boats than by remaining with the ship. There were not many passengers on board, only seventeen all told. Nine of these, with four sailors, were in the boat which the American had saved when they had been five days away from the wreck.

They could say nothing of those whom they had left on board, though they had still seen the ship afloat in the distance on the second day. There was no familiar name in the list of the rescued, but it was said that the weather had moderated while they were in the vicinity of the ship, and there seemed no reason to doubt that the rest of the passengers and crew had been able to save themselves.

Captain Calderwood’s name was mentioned in terms that brought tears of pride and sorrow to the eyes of those who loved him. His courage and kindness and patience had never failed through all the terrible days of storm. Discipline had been maintained through all, as perfectly as during the summer calm that preceded those awful days; and the last sight which the rescued saw as they drew off from the ship, to await the manning of the other boats, was their captain standing on the deck encouraging them with hand and voice.

And that was all. But that was much, and now they could wait for further tidings with patience. On the whole they kept in good heart for a while. But as time went on, the suspense and anxiety of the days that went before, seemed to pass into each new day as it came. For they knew that each passing day without tidings mocked the hope they had so long cherished.

Through all the mother waited quietly. Never quite without hope that she would see her son again, but after a while the poor pretence of cheerfulness for which she had striven, because of Marion, failed beyond her power to help it. The silent patience which had been the habit of her life under other troubles, stood her in good stead now. And when this failed her, and the restlessness, of a slowly dying hope came upon her, she would go away by herself till she could hide all tokens of her pain again.

Sometimes she went to Miss Jean’s for comfort, but often when her daughter believed her to be there, she was walking up and down the wet sands, or sitting in some sheltered nook among the rocks, striving for calmness to bear to the end. She had gone through it all before, and now she seemed to be waiting again and longing and fearing for his father, while she waited for her only son. When other eyes were upon her she was calm enough, and troubled no one with her trouble, but she needed the rest which solitude gave her to carry her through the lengthening days.

Marion bore the long suspense well, they all said. She was young, and it was her nature to look for brightness rather than gloom, and no such trouble had come upon her as had darkened the life of her mother. There were only hopeful views expressed in her presence, and though she knew that cheerfulness was encouraged and often assumed for her sake, she had the sense and courage to respond to the efforts of those who loved her, and to keep herself quiet and patient for their sakes.

One good came to Mrs Calderwood out of the trouble of those days. She had forgiven Mr Dawson the hard words and unreasonable anger of the old days, or she believed that she had, but even to herself she could not say that she had forgotten them. She was never quite at her ease in his presence. It was not so much that she disliked him, as that she could not convince herself that he did not dislike her. The sight of her could only, she thought, recall to him much that he could not but wish to forget; and if she could do so, without remark, she generally chose to be out of the way during his frequent visits to the house.

But whatever he might feel towards her, there could be no doubt as to the esteem in which he held her son, or as to the anxiety which he shared with them all. He was not, as a general thing, ready with words of sympathy, but she had seen tears in his eyes more than once as he spoke her son’s name, and her heart could not but soften towards him, and a real friendliness, which in other circumstances might have come but slowly, grew up in this troubled time between them.

There was no lack of sympathy. Not a man or woman in Portie, but felt deeply for the trouble of Willie Calderwood’s mother and sister, though they were for the most part shy as to any expression of it. Indeed Mrs Calderwood kept out of the way of words. George guarded his wife from the hearing of any thing that would move her out of her usual quiet, and when he was not at hand, Jean guarded her as carefully for his sake.

To Jean, as to the rest, the days passed slowly and heavily. To the eyes of even her aunt she was just as usual, no graver nor sadder than was natural since a friend, and one who was more than a friend to those she loved, was in danger. But no one ever heard her speak of the anxiety that oppressed them all. She listened in silence when, as is the way at such times, the causes for hope or fear were gone over, and over, and over again, or she went away and did not listen, but she never put in her word with the rest.

It was only as a friend that she had a right to grieve for Willie Calderwood, she told herself. They had never been lovers. They had cared for one another long ago—oh! so long ago now. But they had not seen one another for years, because he had not cared to see her, and it was all past now. She had been angry at first, and then sorry. Yes, she had suffered sharply for a while, she acknowledged. But she was neither sorry nor angry now. She was anxious for his safety, and she longed for his return, as all his friends did. And her heart ached for his mother and his sister, and for George, to whom he was both brother and friend. And that was all.

But a day came when her heart spoke, nay, cried out as the heart of no mere friend could cry. She was sitting one day in Miss Jean’s parlour, when her brother came in. There were tears in his eyes and a strange, uncertain smile on his lips, and he laid his hand on her shoulder as she stood by the window, pausing a moment before he spoke, as if he were not sure of his voice.

“Jean,” he said, “there is news at last.”

Jean grew very white.

“Well?” said she sitting down.

“Is it good news, George, man?” said his aunt hastily.

“It is just such news as one would expect to hear from Willie Calderwood. Yes, I call it good news, whatever may come next.”

And then he told them how another of the “Ben Nevis’” boats had been heard from. After much suffering from anxiety and exhaustion, they who left the ship in it had landed somewhere on the West African coast, and had, after some delay, been taken from thence in a Portuguese vessel to Lisbon. And now some of them at least had reached England. And this was the news they brought.

When those who were to go in the second boat were about to take their places in it, Captain Calderwood had, to their utter amazement, declared his intention of remaining with the ship for that night at least. The vessel was new and strongly built, and within the hour he had seen some tokens that led him to believe that, during the storm, it had not gone so hardly with her as had been at first feared.

The cargo was a valuable one, and his duty to his employers demanded that, while there was a chance of saving it and the ship, he should remain on board. At the same time he acknowledged, that as far as could now be judged, there was but a chance in ten, that he could do this, while by taking to the boats at once, there was a fair prospect of their being picked up by one of the many homeward bound vessels which at that season followed the course which they had taken.

Then he called for volunteers to remain with him. Not a man among the sailors but would have stayed at his bidding. But an able crew was placed in the departing boat, and he was left with just men enough to work the ship, among them three passengers, should all go well. Should they find when the night was over, that chances were against saving the ship, they also were to take to the boat and do what might be done to escape with the rest.

They who were in the second boat had stayed in the vicinity of the ship that night and the next day and night, but when the second morning dawned she was no longer to be seen. Whether she had sunk or whether she had sailed away out of their sight they had no means of knowing, nor could they form any conjecture as to the fate of those who remained on board. They might have betaken themselves to the boat at the last moment, or they might have gone down with the ship.

But whatever had happened this was sure—No braver man or better sailor than Captain Calderwood had ever commanded a ship. This was all that was to be told about the “Ben Nevis.”

“And what do you gather from it all?” said Miss Jean in a little. “Ye dinna give up all hope?”

“We can only wait patiently a little longer. If the bringing home of the disabled ship was a thing to be done, Captain Calderwood was the man to do it. No, I by no means give up hope. He may come any day now.”

They had said this many times before, and now none of them had the courage to say that he should have been home long ago if all had been well.

“I fear it was an unwise courage that led him to undertake an impossible work,” said Miss Jean sadly.

“No, aunt. You must not say that. He must have seen more than a possibility, or he would never have risked life. It was his simple duty as he saw it, neither more nor less. We may be sure of that, knowing him as we do.”

“But, oh! George, what is a ship’s cargo, or even the ship itself, in comparison with a young strong life like his?”

“Ay, aunt. But duty is the first thought with a true man like Captain Calderwood. And he has all the resources that strength and patience and skill and courage can give to a man, and I cannot but hope that he’ll come safe home yet.”

“He is in God’s hands,” said Miss Jean.

“Ay, is he. And God bless him wherever he is,” said George with a break in his voice.

Jean had sat in silence, turning her eyes from one to the other as each had spoken.

“Have you told his mother?” said Miss Jean.

“Yes, she has heard all. It seems two of the sailors have reported themselves to the owners in London, and she thinks she must see them, though I fear it will do little good.”

“It will give her something to do anyway,” said Miss Jean. “But she is quite worn out with anxiety, though she has said so little about it, and I doubt she ought not to go alone.”

“No, I shall go with her,” said George. “It would make Marion miserable to think of her mother with her sore heart solitary in London. We need not stay long.”

“And after a day or two she will think of her daughter’s need of her, and come home. If only the suspense were over one way or another—”

“No, aunt, don’t say that. We have hope yet—strong hope of seeing him again. If you only heard the tales I hear on the pier about the wonderful escapes that skill and courage have won. Hope! Yes, I have hope.”

“My dear, I have heard all that could be told before you were born. But all the same there has many a ship gone down since then, and many a sore heart has waited and hoped in vain. But I’m no’ goin’ to say all that to Willie Calderwood’s mother, true though it be.”

“And, George,” said Jean speaking for the first time, “you may be quite at peace about Marion.”

“Yes. I leave her with you. She will keep herself quiet.”

“We will take her to Saughleas. That will please my father.”

And so it was settled, and the long days went on. Jean busied herself with her father and her sister, and went out and in just as usual, giving no time when other eyes were upon her to her own thoughts. But she welcomed the night. Sitting in the darkness, with only the grey gleam of the sea for her eyes to rest upon, she gave herself up to thoughts of her friend.

She called him her friend, but she knew that he was more than a friend to her; and she had at least this comfort now, that she was no longer angry or ashamed to care for him still, although he had forgotten her. He would always be her friend now, whether he lived or died. She might grieve for those who loved him, and whom he loved, and for the young strong life lost to the world which needed such as he to do its best work, but he would still be hers in memory, and more in death than in life.

And yet she had a vague dread of the dreariness and emptiness of a world in which he no longer lived and moved, and doubted her power to adapt herself to its strangeness. She knew, or she tried to believe, that good would come out of it all even to her, and when she came to this she always remembered her aunt.

It had been by “kissing the rod” under such discipline as this that her aunt, after long, patient years, had grown to be the best, the most unselfish woman that she knew; yes, and the wisest with the highest wisdom.

Sometimes she had said to herself and to others, that she meant to grow to be such a woman as her aunt, and so take up her work in the world when it should be time for her to lay it down. And now, perhaps, the Lord was taking her at her word, and was about to prepare her for His own work, in His own way, which must be best; and she tried to be glad that it should be so. But when she looked on to the life that lay before her, her heart sank at the length of the way.

“I am not like Aunt Jean. I am not good enough to get her work to do, and to take pleasure in it. Maybe after long years I might be able to do it. If I only had the heart to care for any thing any more!

“But I must be patient. The pain is new and sore yet, but time heals most wounds, and as auntie says, ‘The Lord is ay kind.’”

This was her last thought most nights; but there were times when she could not get beyond the darkness, and lay lost and helpless till the morning. Then she put aside her own pain, and grew cheerful and hopeful for the sake of others. If she came to the task with white cheeks and heavy eyes, as happened now and then, no one wondered, or indeed noticed it much, for she was none the less ready with cheerful words and kindly deeds for the comfort of them all.

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