When Mrs. Maxwell learned, in the morning, that Mr. Maitland was indisposed and could not leave his room, that the Commodore had gone off in the night, and Mark and Mrs. Trafford had started by daybreak, her amazement became so insupportable that she hastened from one of her guests to the other, vainly asking them to explain these mysteries.
“What a fidgety old woman she is!” said Beck Graham, who had gone over to Bella Lyle, then a prisoner in her room from a slight cold. “She has been rushing over the whole house, inquiring if it be possible that my father has run away with Alice, that your brother is in pursuit of them, and Mr. Maitland taken poison in a moment of despair. At all events, she has set every one guessing and gossiping at such a rate that all thought of archery is forgotten, and even our private theatricals have lost their interest in presence of this real drama.”
“How absurd!” said Bella, languidly.
“Yes, it's very absurd to fill one's house with company, and give them no better amusement than the chit-chat of a boarding-house. I declare I have no patience with her.”
“Where did your father go?”
“He went over to Port-Graham. He suddenly bethought him of a lease—I think it was a lease—he ought to have sent off by post, and he was so eager about it that he started without saying good-bye. And Mark,—what of him and Alice?”
“There's all the information I can give you;” and she handed her a card with one line in pencil: “Good-bye till evening, Bella. You, were asleep when I came in.—Alice.”
“How charmingly mysterious! And you have no idea where they 've gone?”
“Not the faintest; except, perhaps, back to the Abbey for some costumes that they wanted for that 'great tableau.'”
“I don't think so,” said she, bluntly. “I suspect—shall I tell you what I suspect? But it's just as likely you 'll be angry, for you Lyles will never hear anything said of one of you. Yes, you may smile, my dear, but it's well known, and I 'm not the first who has said it.”
“If that be true, Beck, it were best not to speak of people who are so excessively thin-skinned.”
“I don't know that. I don't see why you are to be indulged any more than your neighbors. I suppose every one must take his share of that sort of thing.”
Bella merely smiled, and Rebecca continued: “What I was going to say was this,—and, of course, you are at liberty to dissent from it if you like,—that, however clever a tactician your sister is, Sally and I saw her plan of campaign at once. Yes, dear, if you had been at dinner yesterday you 'd have heard a very silly project thrown out about my being sent over to fetch Tony Butler, under the escort of Mr. Norman Maitland. Not that it would have shocked me, or frightened me in the least,—I don't pretend that; but as Mr. Maitland had paid me certain attention at Lyle Abbey,—you look quite incredulous, my dear, but it is simply the fact; and so having, as I said, made these advances to me, there would have been considerable awkwardness in our going off together a drive of several hours without knowing—without any understanding—” She hesitated for the right word, and Bella added, “A quoi s'en tenir, in fact.”
“I don't know exactly what that means, Bella; but, in plain English, I wished to be sure of what he intended. My dear child, though that smile becomes you vastly, it also seems to imply that you are laughing at my extreme simplicity, or my extreme vanity, or both.”
Bella's smile faded slowly away; but a slight motion of the angle of the mouth showed that it was not without an effort she was grave.
“I am quite aware,” resumed Beck, “that it requires some credulity to believe that one like myself could have attracted any notice when seen in the same company with Alice Lyle—Trafford, I mean—and her sister; but the caprice of men, my dear, will explain anything. At all events, the fact is there, whether one can explain it or not; and, to prove it, papa spoke to Mr. Maitland on the morning we came away from the Abbey; but so hurriedly—for the car was at the door, and we were seated on it—that all he could manage to say was, that if Mr. Maitland would come over to Port-Graham and satisfy him on certain points,—the usual ones, I suppose,—that—that, in short, the matter was one which did not offer insurmountable obstacles. All this sounds very strange to your ears, my dear, but it is strictly true, every word of it.”
“I cannot doubt whatever you tell me,” said Bella; and now she spoke with a very marked gravity.
“Away we went,” said Rebecca, who had now got into the sing-song tone of a regular narrator,—“away we went, our first care on getting back home being to prepare for Mr. Maitland's visit. We got the little green-room ready, and cleared everything out of the small store-closet at the back, and broke open a door between the two so as to make a dressing-room for him, and we had it neatly papered, and made it really very nice. We put up that water-colored sketch of Sally and myself making hay, and papa leaning over the gate; and the little drawing of papa receiving the French commander's sword on the quarter-deck of the 'Malabar:' in fact, it was as neat as could be,—but he never came. No, my dear,—never.”
“How was that?”
“You shall hear; that is, you shall hear what followed, for explanation I have none to give you. Mr. Maitland was to have come over, on the Wednesday following, to dinner. Papa said five, and he promised to be punctual; but he never came, nor did he send one line of apology. This may be some new-fangled politeness,—the latest thing in that fashionable world he lives in,—but still I cannot believe it is practised by well-bred people. Be that as it may, my dear, we never saw him again till yesterday, when he passed us in your sister's fine carriage-and-four, he lolling back this way, and making a little gesture, so, with his hand as he swept past, leaving us in a cloud of dust that totally precluded him from seeing whether we had returned his courtesy—if he cared for it. That's not all,” she said, laying her hand on Bella's arm. “The first thing he does on his arrival here is to take papa's rooms. Well,—you know what I mean,—the rooms papa always occupies here; and when Raikes remarks, 'These are always kept for Commodore Graham, sir; they go by the name of the Commodore's quarters,' his reply is, 'They 'll be better known hereafter as Mr. Norman Maitland's, Mr. Raikes.' Word for word what he said; Raikes told me himself. As for papa, he was furious; he ordered the car to the door, and dashed into our room, and told Sally to put all the things up again,—that we were going off. I assure you, it was no easy matter to calm him down. You have no idea how violent he is in one of these tempers; but we managed at last to persuade him that it was a mere accident, and Sally began telling him the wonderful things she had heard about Maitland from Mrs. Chetwyn,—his fortune and his family, and what not. At last he consented to take the Chetwyns' rooms, and down we went to meet Mr. Maitland,—I own, not exactly certain on what terms it was to be. Cordial is no name for it, Bella; he was—I won't call it affectionate, but I almost might: he held my hand so long that I was forced to draw it away; and then he gave a little final squeeze in the parting, and a look that said very plainly, 'We, at least, understand each other.' It was at that instant, my dear, Alice opened the campaign.”
“Alice! What had Alice to do with it?”
“Nothing,—nothing whatever, by right, but everything if you admit interference and—Well, I'll not say a stronger word to her own sister. I 'll keep just to fact, and leave the commentary on this to yourself. She crosses the drawing-room,—the whole width of the large drawing-room,—and, sweeping grandly past us in that fine Queen-of-Sheba style she does so well, she throws her head back,—it was that stupid portrait-painter, Hillyer, told her 'it gave action to the features,'—and says, 'Take me into dinner, will you?' But she was foiled; old Mrs. Maxwell had already bespoke him. I hope you 're satisfied now, Bella, that this is no dream of mine.”
“But I cannot see any great mischief in it, either.”
“Possibly not. I have not said that there was. Sally 's no fool, however, and her remark was,—'There 's nothing so treacherous as a widow.'”
Bella could not contain herself any longer, but laughed heartily at this profound sentiment.
“Of course we do not expect you to see this with our eyes, Bella, but we're not blind, for all that. Later on came the project for fetching over Tony Butler, when Alice suggested that Mr. Maitland was to drive me over to the Burns ide—”
“Was that so very ungenerous, then?”
“In the way it was done, my dear,—in the way it was done. In that ha, ha, ha! manner, as though to say, 'Had n't you both better go off on a lark to-morrow that will set us all talking of you?'”
“No, no! I'll not listen to this,” cried Bella, angrily; “these are not motives to attribute to my sister.”
“Ask herself; let her deny it, that's all; but, as Sally says, 'There 's no playing against a widow, because she knows every card in your hand.'”
“I really had no idea they were so dangerous,” said Bella, recovering all her good-humor again.
“You may, perhaps, find it out one day. Mind, I 'm not saying Alice is not very handsome, and has not the biggest blue eyes in the world, which she certainly does not make smaller in the way she uses them; or that any one has a finer figure, though some do contrive to move through a room without catching in the harp or upsetting the china. Men, I take it, are the best judges, and they call her perfection.”
“They cannot think her more beautiful than she is.”
“Perhaps not, dear; and as you are so like as to be constantly mistaken—”
“Oh, Beck! surely this is not fair,” said she, and so imploringly that the other's voice softened down as she said,—“I never meant to be rude; but my head is gone wild to-day; for, after all, when matters had gone so far, Alice had no right to come in in this fashion; and, as Sally says, 'Why did she never encourage him till she saw his attentions addressed to another?'”
“I never perceived that she gave Mr. Maitland any encouragement. Yes, you may hold up your hands, Beck, and open your eyes very wide; but I repeat what I have said.”
“That's a matter of taste, I suppose,” said Beck, with some irritation. “There are various sorts of encouragements: as Sally says, 'A look will go further with one than a lock of your hair with another.'”
“But, really, Sally would seem to have a wisdom like Solomon's on these subjects,” said Bella.
“Yes; and what's more, she has acquired it without any risk or peril. She had neither to drive half over a county with a gentleman alone, or pass a good share of a night walking with him in the alleys of a garden.”
“What do you mean by this?” asked Bella, angrily.
“Ask Alice; she 'll be here, I suppose, this evening; and I 'm sure she 'll be delighted to satisfy all your sisterly anxiety.”
“But one word, Beck,—just one word before you go.”
“Not a syllable. I have said now what I rigidly promised Sally not to mention when I came in here. You got it out of me in a moment of irritation, and I know well what's in store for me when I confess it,—so good-bye.”
“But, Beck—”
“Don't make yourself cough, dear; lie down and keep your shawl round you. If I 'd thought you were so feverish, I 'd not have come over to torment you,—good-bye;” and, resisting all Bella's entreaties and prayers, Beck arose and left the room.
As Tony sat at tea with his mother, Janet rushed in to say that Dr. Stewart had just come home with his daughter, and that she seemed very weak and ill,—“daunie-like,” as Janet said, “and naething like the braw lassie that left this twa years ago. They had to help her out o' the stage; and if it hadna been that Mrs. Harley had gi'en her a glass o' gooseberry wine, she wad hae fainted.” Janet saw it all, for she had gone into Coleraine, and the doctor gave her a seat back with himself and his daughter.
“Poor girl! And is she much changed?” asked Mrs. Butler.
“She's no that changed that I wudna know her,” said Janet, “and that's all. She has no color in her cheeks nor mirth in her een; and instead of her merry laugh, that set everybody off, she's just got a little faint smile that's mair sad than onything else.”
“Of course she's weak; she's had a bad fever, and she's now come off a long journey,” said Tony, in a sort of rough discontented voice.
“Ay,” muttered Janet; “but I doubt she 'll never be the same she was.”
“To be sure you do,” broke in Tony, rudely. “You would n't belong to your county here if you did n't look at the blackest side of everything. This end of our island is as cheerful in its population as it is in scenery; and whenever we have n't a death in a cabin, we stroll out to see if there's no sign of a shipwreck on the coast.”
“No such a thing, Master Tony. He that made us made us like ither folk; and we 're no worse or better than our neighbors.”
“What about the letters, Janet? Did you tell the postmaster that they 're very irregular down here?” asked Mrs. Butler.
“I did, ma'am, and he said ye 're no warse off than others; that when the Lord sends floods, and the waters rise, human means is a' that we have; and if the boy couldna swim, the leather bag wi' the letters would hae gi'en him little help.”
“And could n't he have told ye all that without canting—”
“Tony! Tony!” broke in his mother, reprovingly. “This is not the way to bear these things, and I will not hear it.”
“Don't be angry, little mother,” said he, taking her hand between both his own. “I know how rough and ill-tempered I have grown of late; and though it frets me sorely, I can no more throw it off than I could a fever.”
“You 'll be soon yourself again, my poor Tony. Your dear father had his days when none dare go near him but myself; and I remember well Sir Archy Cole, who was the General, and commanded in Stirling, saying to me, 'I wish, Mrs. Butler, you would get me the sick-return off Wat's table, for he's in one of his tantrums to-day, and the adjutant has not courage to face him.' Many and many a time I laughed to myself over that.”
“And did you tell this to my father?”
“No, Tony,” said she, with a little dry laugh, “I didn't do that; the Colonel was a good man, and a God-fearing man; but if he had thought that anything was said or done because of certain traits or marks in his own nature, he 'd have been little better than a tiger.”
Tony pondered, or seemed to ponder, over her words, and sat for some time with his head between his hands. At last he arose hastily, and said, “I think I'll go over to the Burnside and see the doctor, and I 'll take him that brace of birds I shot to-day.”
“It's a cold night, Tony.”
“What of that, mother? If one waits for fine weather in this climate, I 'd like to know when he 'd go out.”
“There, you are railing again, Tony; and you must not fall into it as a habit, as people do with profane swearing, so that they cannot utter a word without blaspheming.”
“Well, the country is beautiful; the weather is more so; the night is a summer one, and I myself am the most jolly, light-hearted young fellow from this to anywhere you like. Will that do, little mother?” and he threw his arm around her, and kissed her fondly. “They 've got a colt up there at Sir Arthur's that no one can break; but if you saw him in the paddock, you 'd say there was the making of a strong active horse in him; and Wylie, the head groom, says he 'd just let him alone, for that some horses 'break themselves.' Do you know, mother, I half suspect I am myself one of these unruly cattle, and the best way would be never to put a cavesson on me?”
Mrs. Butler had not the vaguest conception of what a caves-son meant, but she said, “I'll not put that nor anything like it on you, Tony; and I 'll just believe that the son of a loyal gentleman will do nothing to dishonor a good name.”
“That's right; there you've hit it, mother; now we understand each other,” cried he, boldly. “I'm to tell the doctor that we expect him and Dolly to dine with us on Monday, ain't I?”
“Monday or Tuesday, or whenever Dolly is well enough to come.”
“I was thinking that possibly Skeffy would arrive by Tuesday.”
“So he might, Tony, and that would be nice company for him,—the doctor and Dolly.”
There was something positively comic in the expression of Tory's face as he heard this speech, uttered in all the simplicity of good faith; but he forbore to reply, and, throwing a plaid across his shoulders, gave his habitual little nod of good-bye, and went out. It was a cold starlit night,—far colder on the sea-shore than in the sheltered valleys inland. Tony, however, took little heed of this; his thoughts were bent upon whither he was going; while between times his mother's last words would flash across him, and once he actually laughed aloud as he said, “Nice company for Skeffy! Poor mother little knows what company he keeps, and what fine folk he lives with.”
The minister's cottage lay at the foot of a little hill, beside a small stream or burn,—a lonesome spot enough, and more than usually dreary in the winter season; but, as Tony drew nigh, he could make out the mellow glow of a good fire as the gleam, stealing between the ill-closed shutters, fell upon the gravel without. “I suppose,” muttered Tony, “she 's right glad to be at home again, humble as it is;” and then came another, but not so pleasant thought, “But why did she come back so suddenly? why did she take this long journey in such a season, and she so weak and ill?” He had his own dark misgivings about this, but he had not the courage to face them, even to himself; and now he crept up to the window and looked in.
A good fire blazed on the hearth; and at one side of it, deep in his old leather chair,—the one piece of luxury the room possessed,—the minister lay fast asleep, while opposite to him, on a low stool, sat Dolly, her head resting on the arm of a chair at her side. If her closely cropped hair and thin, wan face gave her a look of exceeding youthful-ness, the thin band that hung down at her side told of suffering and sickness. A book had fallen from her fingers, but her gaze was bent upon the burning log before her—mayhap in unconsciousness; mayhap she thought she read there something that revealed the future.
Lifting the latch—there was no lock, nor was any needed—of the front door, Tony moved stealthily along the little passage, turned the handle of the door, and on tiptoe moved across the room, unseen by Dolly, and unheard. As his hand touched the chair on which her head leaned, she looked up and saw him. She did not start nor cry out, but a deep crimson blush covered her face and her temples, and spread over her throat.
“Hush!” said she, in a whisper, as she gave him her hand without rising; “hush! he's very tired and weary; don't awake him.”
“I 'll not awake him,” whispered Tony, as he slid into the chair, still holding her hand, and bending down his head till it leaned against her brow. “And how are you, dear Dolly? Are you getting quite strong again?”
“Not yet awhile,” said she, with a faint shadow of a smile, “but I suppose I shall soon. It was very kind of you to come over so soon; and it's a severe night too. How is Mrs. Butler?”
“Well and hearty; she sent you scores of loves,—if it was like long ago, I 'd have said kisses too,” said he, laughing. But Dolly never smiled; a grave, sad look, indeed, came over her, and she turned her head away.
“I was so glad to hear of your coming home, dear Dolly. I can't tell you how dreary the Burnside seems without you. Ay, pale as you are, you make it look bright and cheery at once. It was a sudden thought, was n't it?”
“I believe it was; but we 'll talk of it all another time. Tell me of home. Janet says it's all as I left it: is it so?”
“I suspect it is. What changes did you look for?”
“I scarcely know. I believe when one begins to brood over one's own thoughts, one thinks the world without ought to take on the same dull cold coloring. Haven't you felt that?”
“I don't know—I may; but I'm not much given to brooding. But how comes it that you, the lightest-hearted girl that ever lived—What makes you low-spirited?”
“First of all, Tony, I have been ill; then, I have been away from home; but come, I have not come back to complain and mourn. Tell me of your friends and neighbors. How are all at the Abbey? We'll begin with the grand folk.”
“I know little of them; I have n't been there since I saw you last.”
“And how is that, Tony? You used to live at the Abbey when I was here long ago.”
“Well, it is as I tell you. Except Alice Trafford,—and that only in a carriage, to exchange a word as she passed,—I have not seen one of the Lyles for several weeks.”
“And didn't she reproach you? Did n't she remark on your estrangement?”
“She said something,—I forget what,” said he, impatiently.
“And what sort of an excuse did you make?”
“I don't remember. I suppose I blundered out something about being engaged or occupied. It was not of much consequence, anyhow, for she did n't attach any importance to my absence.”
266
“Don't say that, Tony, for I remember my father saying, in one of his letters, that he met Sir Arthur at the fair of Ballymena, and that he said, 'If you should see Tony, doctor, tell him I 'm hunting for him everywhere, for I have to buy some young stock. If I do it without Tony Butler's advice, I shall have the whole family upon me.'”
“That's easy enough to understand. I was very useful and they were very kind; but I fancy that each of us got tired of his part.”
“They were stanch and good friends to you, Tony. I 'm sorry you 've given them up,” said she, sorrowfully.
“What if it wastheythat gave me up? I mean, what if I found the conditions upon which I went there were such as I could not stoop to? Don't ask me any more about it; I have never let a word about it escape my lips, and I am ashamed now to hear myself talk of it.”
“Even to me, Tony,—to sister Dolly?”
“That's true; so you are my dear, dear sister,” said he, and he stooped and kissed her forehead; “and you shall hear it all, and how it happened.”
Tony began his narrative of that passage with Mark Lyle with which our reader is already acquainted, little noticing that to the deep scarlet that at first suffused Dolly's cheeks, a leaden pallor had succeeded, and that she lay with half-closed eyes, in utter unconsciousness of what he was saying.
“This, of course,” said Tony, as his story flowed on,—“this, of course, was more than I could bear, so I hurried home, not quite clear what was best to be done. I had n'tyou, Dolly, to consult, you know;” he looked down as he said this, and saw that a great tear lay on her cheek, and that she seemed fainting. “Dolly, my dear,—my own dear Dolly,” whispered he, “are you ill,—are you faint?”
“Lay my head back against the wall,” sighed she, in a weak voice; “it's passing off.”
“It was this great fire, I suppose,” said Tony, as he knelt down beside her, and bathed her temples with some cold water that stood near. “Coming out of the cold air, a fire will do that.”
“Yes,” said she, trying to smile, “it was that.”
“I thought so,” said he, rather proud of his acuteness. “Let me settle you comfortably here;” and he lifted her up in his strong arms, and placed her in the chair where he had been sitting. “Dear me, Dolly, how light you are!”
She shook her head, but gave a smile, at the same time, of mingled melancholy and sweetness.
“I 'd never have believed you could be so light; but you 'll see what home and native air will do,” added he, quickly, and ashamed of his own want of tact. “My little mother, too, is such a nurse, I 'll be sworn that before a month's over you 'll be skipping over the rocks, or helping me to launch the coble, like long ago,—won't you, Dolly?”
“Go on with what you were telling me,” said she, faintly.
“Where was I? I forget where I stopped. Oh, yes; I remember it now. I went home as quick as I could, and I wrote Mark Lyle a letter. I know you 'll laugh at the notion of a letter by my hand; but I think I said what I wanted to say. I did n't want to disclaim all that I owed his family; indeed I never felt so deeply the kindness they had shown me as at the moment I was relinquishing it forever; but I told him that if he presumed, on the score of that feeling, to treat me like some humble hanger-on of his house, I'd beg to remind him that by birth at least I was fully his equal. That was the substance of it, but I won't say that it was conveyed in the purest and best style.”
“What did he reply?”
“Nothing,—not one line. I ought to say that I started for England almost immediately after; but he took no notice of me when I came back, and we never met since.”
“And his sisters,—do you suspect that they know of this letter of yours?”
“I cannot tell, but I suppose not. It's not likely Mark would speak of it.”
“How, then, do they regard your abstaining from calling there?”
“As a caprice, I suppose. They always thought me a wayward, uncertain sort of fellow. It's a habit your well-off people have, to look on their poorer friends as queer and odd and eccentric,—eh, Dolly?”
“There's some truth in the remark, Tony,” said she, smiling; “but I scarcely expected to hear you come out as a moralist.”
“That's because, like the rest of the world, you don't estimate me at my true value. I have a great vein of reflection or reflectiveness—which is it, Dolly? but it 's the deepest of the two—in me, if people only knew it.”
“You have a great vein of kind-heartedness, and you are a good son to a good mother,” said she, as a pink blush tinged her cheek, “and I like that better.”
It was plain that the praise had touched him, and deeply too, for he drew his hand across his eyes, and his lip trembled as he said, “It was just about that dear mother I wanted to speak to you, Dolly. You know I'm going away?”
“My father told me,” said she, with a nod of her head.
“And though, of course, I may manage a short leave now and then to come over and see her, she 'll be greatly alone. Now, Dolly, you know how she loves you,—how happy she always is when you come over to us. Will you promise me that you'll often do so? You used to think nothing of the walk long ago, and when you get strong and hearty again, you 'll not think more of it. It would be such a comfort to me, when I am far away, to feel that you were sitting beside her,—reading to her, perhaps, or settling those flowers she's so fond of. Ah, Dolly, I'll have that window that looks out on the white rocks in my mind, and you sitting at it, many and many a day, when I 'll be hundreds of miles off.”
“I love your mother dearly, Tony; she has been like a mother to myself for many a year, and it would be a great happiness to me to be with her; but don't forget, Tony,”—and she tried to smile as she spoke,—“don't forget that I'll have to go seek my fortune also.”
“And are n't you come to live at home now for good?”
She shook her head with a sorrowful meaning, and said:
“I'm afraid not, Tony. My dear, dear father does not grow richer as he grows older, and he needs many a little comfort that cannot come of his own providing, and you know he has none but me.”
The intense sadness of the last few words were deepened by the swimming eyes and faltering lips of her that uttered them.
“And are you going back to these M'Gruders?”
She shook her head in negative.
“I 'm glad of that I 'm sure they were not kind.”
“Nay, Tony, they were good folk, but after their own fashion; and they always strove to be just.”
“Another word for being cruel. I 'd like to know what's to become of any of us in this world if we meet nothing better than Justice. But why did you leave them?—I mean leave them for good and all.”
She changed color hastily, and turned her head away, while in a low confused manner she said: “There were several reasons. I need n't tell you I was n't strong, Tony, and strength is the first element of governess life.”
“I know how it came about,” broke in Tony. “Don't deny it,—don't, Dolly. It was all my fault.”
“Don't speak so loud,” whispered she, cautiously.
“It all came of that night I dined at Richmond. But if he hadn't struck at me—”
“Who struck at you, Tony, my man?” said the old minister, waking up. “He wasna over-gifted with prudence whoever did it, that I maun say; and how is Mrs. Butler and how are you yourself?”
“Bravely, sir, both of us. I 've had a long chat with Dolly over the fire, and I fear I must be going now. I 've brought you a brace of woodcocks, and a message from my mother about not forgetting to dine with us on Monday.”
“I don't know about that, Tony. The lassie yonder is very weak just yet.”
“But after a little rest, eh, Dolly? Don't you think you'd be strong enough to stroll over by Monday? Then Tuesday be it.”
“We 'll bide and see, Tony,—we 'll bide and see. I'll be able, perhaps, to tell you after meeting to-morrow; not that you 're very reg'lar in attendance, Maister Tony; I mean to have a word or two with you about that one of these days.”
“All right, sir,” said Tony. “If you and Dolly come over to us on Monday, you may put me on the cutty-stool if you like afterwards;” and with that he was gone.
“And all this has been my doing,” thought Tony, as he wended his way homewards. “I have lost to this poor girl the means by which she was earning her own livelihood, and aiding to make her father's life more comfortable! I must make her tell me how it all came about, and why they made her pay the penalty of my fault. Not very fair that for people so just as they are.” “And to think,” added he, aloud, after a pause,—“to think it was but the other day I was saying to myself, 'What can people mean when they talk of this weary world,—this life of care and toil and anxiety?'—and already I feel as if I stood on the threshold, and peeped in, and saw it all; but, to be sure, at that time I was cantering along the strand with Alice, and now—and now I am plodding along a dark road, with a hot brain and a heavy heart, to tell me that sorrow is sown broadcast, and none can escape it.”
All was still at the cottage when he reached it, and he crept gently to his room, and was soon asleep, forgetting cares and griefs, and only awaking as the strong sunlight fell upon his face and proclaimed the morning.
The doctor had guessed aright. Tony did not present himself at meeting on Sunday. Mrs. Butler, indeed, was there, though the distance was more than a mile, and the day a raw and gusty one, with threatenings of snow in the air.
“Are you coming with me, Tony, to hear the minister? It will be an interesting lecture to-day on the character of Ahab,” said she, opening his door a few inches.
“I'm afraid not, mother; I'm in for a hard day's work this morning. Better lose Ahab than lose my examination.”
Mrs. Butler did not approve of the remark, but she closed the door and went her way, while Tony covered his table with a mass of books, arranged paper and pens, and then, filling the bowl of a large Turkish pipe, sat himself down, as he fancied, to work, but in reality to weave thoughts about as profitable and as connected as the thin blue wreaths of smoke that issued from his lips, and in watching whose wayward curls and waftings he continued to pass hours.
I have often suspected—indeed, my experience of life leads me much to the conviction—that for the perfect enjoyment of what is called one's own company, the man of many resources must yield the palm to him of none; and that the mere man of action, whose existence is stir, movement, and adventure, can and does find his occasional hours of solitude more pleasurable than he who brings to his reveries the tormenting doubts and distrusts, the casuistical indecisions, and the dreary discontents, that so often come of much reading. Certainly in the former there is no strain,—no wear and tear. He is not called on to breast the waves and stem the tide, but to float indolently down the stream without even remarking the scenery that clothes the banks.
Tony, I fancy, was a master of this art; he knew how to follow up any subject in thought till it began to become painful, and then to turn his attention to the sea and some far-off white sail, or to the flickering leaflet of falling snow, tossed and drifted here and there like some castaway,—a never-failing resource. He could follow with his eyes the azure circles of smoke, and wonder which would outstrip the other. To fit him for the life of a “messenger,” he had taken down “Cook's Voyages;” but after reading a few pages, he laid down the book to think how far the voyager's experiences could apply to the daily exigencies of a Foreign Office official, and to ask himself if he were not in reality laying down too wide and too extensive a foundation for future acquirement. “No,” thought he, “I 'll not try to be any better or smarter than the rest. I 'll just stick to the practical part, and here goes for Ollendorf.” Three or four sentences read,—he leaned back, and wondered whether he would not rather undertake an excursion on foot to Jerusalem than set out on an expedition into the French language. As if a whole life could master that bulky dictionary, and transfer its contents to his poor brain! To be sure, Alice knew it; but Alice could learn what she pleased. She learned to skate in three lessons,—and how she did it too! Who ever glided over the ice with such a grace,—so easy, so quiet, but with such a perfection of movement! Talk of dancing,—it was nothing to it. And could n't she ride? See her three fields off, and you'd know the ground just by the stride of her horse. Such a hand she had! But who was like Alice?
Ah! there was the boundless prairie, to his thoughts, on which he might ramble forever; and on that wide swelling savannah, roaming and straying, we shall now leave him, and turn our glance elsewhere.
The morning service of the meeting-house over, Dr. Stewart proposed to walk home with Mrs. Butler. The exposition about Ahab had neither been as full or as able as he had intended, but it was not his fault,—at least, only in part his fault; the sum of which consisted in the fact that he had broken through a good rule, which up to that hour had never met with infraction,—he had opened a post-letter on the Sabbath-morn. “This comes,” said he, plaintively, “of letting the sinfu' things of this warld mingle wi' the holier and higher ones of the warld to come. Corruption is aye stronger than life; and now I maun tell you the whole of it.” If we do not strictly follow the good minister, and tell what he had to say in his own words, it is to spare our reader some time on a matter which may not possess the amount of interest to him it had for the person who narrated it. The matter was this: there came that morning a letter from Mrs. M'Gruder to Dr. Stewart,—a letter that almost overwhelmed him. The compensation to humility of station is generally this, that the interests of the humble man are so lowly, so unpretending, and so little obtrusive that they seldom or never provoke the attention of his more fortunate neighbors. As with the rivulet that can neither float a barque nor turn a mill-wheel none meddles, so with the course of these lowly lives few concern themselves, and they ripple along unheeded. Many and many a time had the old minister hugged this thought to his heart,—many and many a time had he felt that there were cares and troubles in this life so proud and so haughty that they disdained the thatched cabin and the humble roof-tree, but loved to push their way through crowds of courtiers up marble stairs and along gilded corridors. It was then with a perfect shock that he came to learn that even they, in all their lowliness, could claim no exemption from common calamity. The letter began by stating that the writer, before putting pen to paper, had waited till Miss Stewart should have reached her home, so that no anxieties as to her health should be added to the pain the communication might cause. After this louring commencement the epistle went on to state that the satisfaction which Dolly had at first given by her general good temper and strict attention to her duties, “compensating in a great measure for the defects in her own education and want of aptitude as a teacher,” soon ceased to be experienced, as it was found that she was subject to constant intervals of great depression, and even whole days, when she seemed scarcely equal to her duties. The cause was not very long a secret.
It was an attachment she had formed to a brother of Mr. M'Gruder's, who, some years younger than himself, had been established in Italy as a partner, and had now come over to England on business.
It was not necessary to say that the writer had never encouraged this sentiment; on the contrary, she had more than remonstrated with her brother-in-law on the score of his attentions, and flatly declared that, if he persisted, she would do her utmost to have the partnership with his brother dissolved, and all future intercourse at an end between them. This led to scenes of a very violent nature, in which she was obliged to own her husband had the cruelty to take his brother's side against her, and avow that Samuel was earning his own bread, and if he liked to share it with an “untochcred lassie,” it should be far from him, Robert M'Grader, that any reproach should come,—a sarcasm that Mrs. M'Grader seemed keenly to appreciate.
The agitation caused by these cares, acting on a system already excited, had brought on a fever to Dolly; and it was only on her convalescence, and while still very weak, that a young man arrived in London and called to see her, who suddenly seemed to influence all her thoughts and plans for the future. Sam, it appeared, had gone back to Italy, relying on Dolly's promise to consult her father and give him a final reply to his offer of marriage. From the day, however, that this stranger had called, Dolly seemed to become more and more indifferent to this project, declaring that her failing health and broken spirits would render her rather a burden than a benefit, and constantly speaking of home, and wishing to be back there. “Though I wished,” continued the writer, “that this resolve had come earlier, and that Miss Stewart had returned to her father before she had thrown discord into a united family, I was not going to oppose it, even late as it occurred. It was therefore arranged that she was to go home, ostensibly to recruit and restore herself in her native air; but I, I need hardly tell you, as firmly determined she should never pass this threshold again. Matters were in this state, and Miss Stewart only waiting for a favorable day to begin her journey—an event I looked for with the more impatience as Mr. M'G. and myself could never, I knew, resume our terms of affection so long as she remained in our house,—when one night, between one and two o'clock, we were awoke by the sound of feet in the garden under our window. I heard them first, and, creeping to the casement, I saw a figure clamber over the railing and make straight for the end of the house where Miss Stewart slept, and immediately begin a sort of low moaning kind of song, evidently a signal. Miss Stewart's window soon opened, and on this I called Mr. M'Grader. He had barely time to reach the window, when a man's voice from below cried out, 'Come down; are you coming?' On this, Mr. M'Gruder rushed downstairs and into the garden. Two or three loud and angry words succeeded, and then a violent struggle, in which my husband was twice knocked down and severely injured. The man, however, made his escape, but not unrecognized; for your daughter's voice cried out, 'Oh, Tony, I never thought you 'd do this,' or, 'Why did you do this?' or some words to that effect.
“The terms on which, through Miss Stewart's behavior, I have latterly lived with Mr. M'Gruder, gave me no opportunity to learn anything fromhim. Indeed, he never so much as spoke of an incident which confined him two days to his room and five days to the house; but, as if bent on exasperation, redoubled his kind inquiries about your daughter, who was now, as she said, too ill to leave her room.
“No other course was then open to me than to write the present letter to you and another to my brother-in-law. He, at least, I am determined, shall know something of the young lady with whom he wishes to share his fortune, though I trust that a minister of the Gospel will have no need of any promptings of mine to prevent such a casualty. My last words, on parting with your daughter, were to ask if the man I saw that night was the same who had called to see her, and her reply was, 'Yes, the same.' I will not disguise that she had the grace to cry as she said it.
“That she is never to return here, I need not say. Ay, more than that; no reference to me will be responded to in terms that can serve her. But this is not all. I require that you will send, and send open for my inspection, such a letter to Mr. S. M'Gruder as may finally put an end to any engagement, and declare that, from the circumstances now known to you, you could neither expect, or even desire, that he would make her his wife. Lastly, I demand—and I am in a position to enforce a demand—that you do not communicate with my husband at all in this affair; sufficient unpleasantness and distrust having been already caused by our unhappy relations with your family.”
A few moral reflections closed the epistle. They were neither very novel nor very acute, but they embodied the sense of disappointment experienced by one who little thought, in taking a teacher from the manse of a minister, she was incurring a peril as great as if she had sent over to France for the latest refinement in Parisian depravity. “Keep her at home with yourself, Dr. Stewart,” wrote she, “unless the time comes when the creature she called Tony may turn up as a respectable man, and be willing to take her.” And with a gracefully expressed hope that Dolly's ill health might prove seasonable for self-examination and correction, she signed herself, “Your compassionate friend, Martha M'Gruder.”
“What do you say to that, Mrs. Butler? Did ever you read as much cruelty in pen and ink, I ask you? Did you ever believe that the mother of children could write to a father of his own daughter in such terms as these?”
“I don't know what it means, doctor; it 's all confusion to me. Who is Tony? It's not our Tony, surely?”
“I'm not so sure of that, Mrs. Butler. Tony was up in London and he called to see Dolly. You remember that he told in his letter to you how the puir lassie's hair was cut short—”
“I remember it all, Dr. Stewart; but what has all that to do with all this dreadful scene at night in the garden?” The doctor shook his head mournfully, and made no reply. “If you mean, Dr. Stewart, that it was my Tony that brought about all these disasters, I tell you I will not—I cannot believe it. It would be better to speak your mind out, sir, than to go on shaking your head. We're not altogether so depraved that our disgrace is beyond words.”
“There 's nothing for anger here, my dear old friend,” said he, calmly, “though maybe there's something for sorrow. When you have spoken to your son, and I to my daughter, we 'll see our way better through this thorny path. Good-bye.”
“You are not angry with me, doctor?” said she, holding out her hand, while her eyes were dimmed with tears,—“you are not angry with me?”
“That I am not,” said he, grasping her hand warmly in both his own. “We have no other treasures in this world, either of us, than this lad and this lassie, and it's a small fault if we cling to them the more closely. I think I see Tony coming to meet you, so I'll just turn home again.” And with another and more affectionate good-bye, they parted.